The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century (Roland Bainton)

The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century is a compact overview of of the same and looks at many aspects of this formative time in history.  Scholar Roland Bainton talks about Martin Luther's faith and reform, then moves on to discuss the Reformed Church in German Switzerland (led by Ulrich Zwingli), Anabaptism, the Reformed Church in Geneva (John Calvin), and the Free Spirits.  After this, he discusses the fight for recognition of the Lutheran and Calvinist faiths, Anglicanism, and the struggle for religious liberty.  He concludes with how the Reformation affected political, economic, and domestic spheres, and includes a discussion of related/relevant historical events in the same time frame (like humanism and the disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire through the forces of nationalism).  What follows summarizes some key concepts.

Summary

What was the Reformation?  "The Reformation was a religious revival.  Its attempt was to give man a new assurance in the presence of God and a new motivation in the moral life."

How did it begin?  To Luther and others, "the quarrel centered on the view of man and God.  The Catholic Church had in his judgment too low an opinion of the majesty and the holiness of God and too high an estimate of the worth and potentiality of man."  Luther, after much study of the Bible and internal turmoil, concluded that "by faith and only by faith are we saved."  The Catholic Church, he argued, had strayed from the Holy Scriptures and relied too heavily on the works and traditions of men.  He took issue with other things, to include indulgences, papal infallibility, the number of sacraments, and the nature of communion.

Luther wasn't alone (or the first) in seeing the need for reform. "More or less unrelated attempts were made to meet the same problem.  Wittenberg [Luther], Zurich [Zwingli], Geneva [Calvin], and Canterbury were sisters rather than lineal descendants."  In the end, three or four main types emerged; they differed "chiefly at the point of their positions with regard to the relation of church and society."  They (and their views on this topic) are:

• Lutheran: "The attitude to society was pessimistic.  The kingdom of God cannot be erected on earth though villainy can be restrained, and the Christian should not withdraw but should lend a hand in the maintenance of order."
• Reformed (associated with Zwingli and Calvin): They "were more hopeful for the erection of the kingdom of God upon the earth through the chosen of the Lord, the elect."
• Anabaptist: They believed that the "Church should not be united with the state . . . it must maintain its purity and preserve its example by segregation."
• Socinians: They believed in rational pietism/mysticism.

Aside: Bainton does not include the Church of England as a main type, as he argues they combined Lutheran, Reformed, humanist, and other elements.

What was the result of the Reformation?  In the near term, "the emergence of . . . rivals . . . to the Catholic Church disrupted the structure not only of the religious but also of the social and political life of the Middle Ages."  How so?  The problem was the widespread belief of "one faith, one king, and one law- [this] was still the model for any sound body politic."  People of most nations were therefore "of no mind to tolerate more than one religion in their domains."  How did they handle the situation?  "The political strains arising from the religious tension of rival confessions could be eased in one of several ways."  In a nutshell,

• Religious liberty: "The peace of those who agree to differ."  This didn't happen often or easily.
• Territorial division: "The religion of a particular territory should be determined by the civil ruler," where "dissenters were free to emigrate to a region of their own faith."
• Comprehension: "Only one religion is recognized in a given territory but in order to reduce emigration the attempt is made to satisfy as many as possible by making only minimal demands . . . " effectively, this is a "spirit of latitude."

Bainton spends some time looking at how each approach was handled, going land by land and confession by confession.

Was the Reformation successful?  After all, Luther "has been accused . . . on the one hand of opening the floodgates of individualism, producing an inundation of all the vagaries of private interpretation, and on the other hand of investing one particular interpretation of Scripture with all the rigidity and finality of papalism."  The Reformation had good and bad results.  "How far it succeeded no one can ever tell . . . This only one can say, that the Reformation at once rent and bound.  The external unities were shattered, but the Christian consciousness of Europe was renewed."

Review

This was a great book.  Bainton's writing is informed, fair, succinct and eloquent; I enjoyed reading this.  It's high-level and introductory, but covers more than Nichol's treatment of the same topic.  I wish it were longer, so he could have provided more context/background to the time period and Catholic Church of the day (he at times assumes a familiarity that only history enthusiasts would possess). That said, this is a gem.

Rating: A