ArticleBlog | Reflecting on the Reformation – Three contemporary books on a 500-year-old movement
Reflecting on the Reformation – Three contemporary books on a 500-year-old movement
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 19.06.17
Reflecting on the Reformation THREE CONTEMPORARY BOOKS ON A 500-YEAR-OLD MOVEMENT by Justin Cober-Lake
We’re almost 500 years from the tap-tap-tap start of the Reformation, and while the current cultural landscape may lack the riots and frenzied escapes of the dawn of Protestantism, it’s a theological area still hotly debated. With the quincentennial now in sight, scores of authors are producing their histories, encomiums, and rebuttals. Calvinism and its family have never shied from stacking up writings, and such an anniversary can only magnify that aspect of the tradition. Raking through these dense leaves might build a pile worth jumping into, but it could just produce a scattering of thought.
To focus where the Reformation stands right now, and why we should care, it’s useful to pull together a handful of these new books that cover the topic in complementary ways, each addressing related concerns. Calvinism – and, in particular, strains of hyperCalvinism – has come under fire for its rigidity. Even those people embracing the tradition often stick to a narrow segment of it. In other ways, many Christians are moving away from long-standing ideas, looking for new ways to do church (if they do it at all), and finding their own answers to old questions. A select trio of books helps us to work through these issues, finding both a richness and a simplicity in revisiting the Reformers.
