The Reformation Revisited

Reformation of Church and Dogma (1300–1700), Volume 4 of The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, by Jaroslav Pelikan (University of Chicago, 1984, li + 424 pp.; $27.50).

The Protestant Reformation 1517–1559, in the series The Rise of Modern Europe, founding editor William L. Langer, by Lewis W. Spitz (Harper, 1985, xiv + 444 pp.; $22.95). Reviewed by Mark Noll, professor of history at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

In 1983, a great outpouring of books and articles heralded the five-hundredth anniversary of Martin Luther’s birth. While some of these were only potboilers, many were products of mature reflection. However informative this torrent of Luther books was, it would be a shame if their riches held readers back from further study of the period, for consistently fine work continues to appear on the influential personalities, problems, and events of that era.

At the head of such recent study stand two magisterial volumes written by historians at the height of their powers. The books, Jaroslav Pelikan’s Reformation of Church and Dogma (1300–1700) and Lewis Spitz’s The Protestant Reformation 1517–1559, may now be the best volumes available in English on their particular aspects of the Reformation period. The books share broad learning. They contain full bibliographies for those who would read more. And each is part of an important series.

Interestingly, the two authors also resemble each other in significant ways. Both are in their early sixties, both have been presidents of the American Society of Church History, both are widely recognized authors, both are masters of European and ancient languages, and both hold distinguished professorships in history (Spitz, the William R. Kenan chair at Stanford; Pelikan, the Stirling chair at Yale). In addition, they both grew up in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and received B.D.’s from Concordia Seminary in the 1940s. The books, however, have different purposes.

Living Faith

As in the previous volumes of his ChristianTradition, Pelikan focuses on “what the church of Jesus Christ believes, teaches, and confesses on the basis of the word of God.” His concern is the internal development of Christian theology not as abstract speculation, but as the church’s living faith. This criterion of selection enables Pelikan to set aside many issues that often take up considerable space in other histories of doctrine; for example, matters relating to church and state, Christianity and other faiths, or merely academic theology. The result is sharply focused consideration of the major doctrinal beliefs that occupied the minds and hearts of Christians through the years.

The center of this volume is the theological tumult of the Reformation. Pelikan devotes four solid chapters to the sixteenth century. Although each ranges widely, it is organized around the major emphasis of one of the period’s four great movements—Lutheran reassertion of “the Gospel as the Treasure of the Church,” the Reformed or Calvinistic stress on “the Word and Will of God,” the Roman Catholic effort to define its own “particularity” in the face of Protestant challenge, and the various protests (humanist, Anabaptist, rationalist, Unitarian) against traditions accepted in common by the Catholics, the Lutherans, and the Reformed.

Pelikan brackets this central section with two chapters on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and a concluding one on the seventeenth. The two chapters on late medieval theology emphasize the doctrinal pluralism of the period and the intense debates on the nature of the church that took place in the century before Luther. The book’s last chapter is a splendid account of how Lutherans, Reformed, and Catholics applied themselves to theological self-identification. This chapter also describes the important links between emphases of the Reformation and the crisis of faith brought on by the eighteenth-century Enlightenment.

Pelikan excels at weaving technical discussions of recondite topics into readily understandable patterns. He shows clearly, for instance, how many of the distinctive Protestant conceptions of the sixteenth century (such as views on biblical authority) were anticipated in earlier periods. He explains the constant quoting of Augustine, beyond doubt the most important theological influence after Scripture throughout the period. Why Luther cited Augustine on original sin, and his Catholic opponents cited Augustine on the church, is made clear.

A special strength of this book is its careful unraveling of complicated controversies on the sacraments. Debates over what the Lord’s Supper meant were especially intense during these centuries. From the relevant authors themselves—followers of Jan Hus in Bohemia and theologians in England and Scotland, as well as the major statements of the best-known leaders—Pelikan weaves a compelling account. Catholics insisted upon transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass in part because of patristic traditions supporting those beliefs. But they also did so because these questions were stress points testing the teaching authority of the church. Lutherans and Calvinists battled each other over the Lord’s Supper in part because they held slightly different views about the relationship between Christ’s divine and human natures.

At several points, Pelikan makes clear how these divisions over the Lord’s Table led to other important doctrinal developments. This was especially so with Protestant efforts to define more precisely the nature of Scripture and its method of interpretation. Those who think that arguments over scriptural inerrancy or contextual hermeneutics are a new thing should read this book. Such vital matters were aired, and aired thoroughly, in painstakingly careful theologies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

There can be few criticisms of this book. Occasionally one wishes that Pelikan would conclude a learned discussion with an evaluation or a reflection about modern implications. And because of the way he has defined his task, Pelikan sometimes shunts aside important issues closely related to the story of dogma. But on the whole, it is nearly impossible to praise this book too highly. While it places reasonably severe demands upon a reader, it also rewards with rich, even moving, insights into the drama of Christian teaching.

Historical Connections

Although Lewis Spitz’s Protestant Reformation contains ample consideration of theology, this book is different from Pelikan’s. Rather than considering the internal theological life of the church over four centuries, it concentrates on the web of historical connections over just four decades. Among these connections, Christian developments receive careful attention, but always in the context of other matters. So besides discussing the theologies of Luther and Calvin, the church-state situation in England, the rise of the Anabaptists, and Protestant-Catholic competition. Spitz also considers the political tangles of the period. He clarifies conflict between the Muslim-Turkish East and the Christian West, the growth and dispersal of population, economic setbacks and advances, the social status of kings and merchants, and a wide range of issues involving education, science, and the role of women.

Vast as this canvass is, however, Spitz never loses sight of the fact that religious considerations dominated the age. So it is appropriate that the stories of Calvin, Zwingli of Zurich, leading Anabaptists, Knox in Scotland, Cranmer and associates in England, the conveners of the Catholic Council of Trent, and especially Luther are the book’s highlights.

Unlike other historians of early modern Europe, Spitz does not reduce the religious activities of these individuals to functions of class struggle, economic change, or social aspirations. The whole book is set out to show that these matters deserve primary consideration. Because he is writing for a general audience, Spitz does not pause to make religious points. Yet his belief in the importance of these religious developments is everywhere apparent. Although the Reformation does “defy final explanation, … it was a movement of the human spirit, broad in its historical dimensions, and of monumental importance for modern Europe, America, and all the world.”

(Spitz has elsewhere described how a Christian may engage in this kind of historical work while maintaining belief in God’s providential rule. See his “History: Sacred and Secular,” ChurchHistory, 47 [1978], pp. 5–22.)

Spitz takes full advantage of his narrow chronological focus to bring his subjects vividly to life. Thus, besides providing a fine summary of Luther’s theology, Spitz tells us something about the great Reformer’s wit—Luther could call his major theological opponent, John Eck, simply “Dreck” (German for “dirt”). And he can pause to illustrate Luther’s concern for Christian maturity—as early as 1524, for example, Luther was blasting the printers of his day for “publishing sensational profit-making books and pamphlets rather than serious history and decent literature.” Again, in a very few words, Spitz catches exactly the character of the English Catholic Reformer, Thomas More, whom later generations have made into a plastic saint. To Spitz, More was “a firm, hard, and consequential man who could whip and persecute heretics, deal out death, as, indeed, he could take it.”

Naturally a few questions remain about Spitz’s treatment. He may have overemphasized Luther’s influence, as when he sees the replacement of Luther’s influence by Calvin’s in France as the cause of the decline of Protestantism in that country. And his brief section on the Anabaptists may not give these important Reformers, who defended the free conscience before God, their just due. But in general, Spitz’s judgments on an immense range of subjects are forceful and persuasive. The book, in short, is history at its best—broadly researched, skillfully written, judiciously argued, and also spiritually insightful.

Required Reading

These two books should be required reading for evangelicals. It was, after all, soon after Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses that those who appreciated his insights began to call themselves “evangelicals.” They were ones for whom the most important thing had become “the true treasure of the church … the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.”

Spiritual benefits lie in store for those who, with the aid of Pelikan, Spitz, and other competent guides, seriously study the gospel that the Reformers proclaimed. To be sure, such an effort has its ambiguities. To understand the sixteenth century better means also to understand the force of Roman Catholic criticism—that Protestants had no fixed points of authority except their own subjectivity, or that if the Bible were as clear as the Protestants claimed, there should not be so much dissension among them.

But studying the sixteenth century also brings us closer to the heart of evangelical faith. Luther, more powerfully than almost anyone in the history of the church, defined the justifying mercy that God poured forth in Christ. Calvin illuminated masterfully the responsibilities and duties of those who professed to follow “the Bible alone.” Anglicans, Dutch Reformed, and leaders of the Scottish Kirk showed how to inspire entire cultures toward godliness. Anabaptists lived the way of the Cross. And individuals from all parties—Catholic as well as Protestant—illustrated what it meant to love the Lord with heart, strength, soul, and mind.

These are the treasures of the sixteenth century. They await Christians who have ears to hear what scholars like Spitz and Pelikan are saying to the churches.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY TALKS TO Richard J. Foster

What is the relationship between spirituality and earthy things like sex, money, and power?

It’s common for people to think of spiritual things as prayer, Bible study, meditation, worship, confession—and the like. But there is an intimate connection between how we live devotionally before God and how we live ethically with each other in the world. Those two must go together.

Every authentic move of spirituality has had profound social implications in the ethical realm. Until we understand that, how can we really pray? God wants us to Work out our spirituality in the context of earthy things. Money, sex, and power stand us on holy ground. This is the sacred stuff.

Of the three—money, sex, and power—the one that I have the hardest time thinking of in terms of spirituality is sex. We do ethics with sex all the time. But the spirituality of sex is something a lot of us aren’t in touch with.

I don’t want to overdramatize that. You know, when you start talking about sexuality and spirituality, it begins to make sex so solemn and esoteric. Sex is supposed to be fun!

So is spirituality.

That’s precisely the point. Spirituality must have an incarnational sense, an earthiness to it.

One reason people have a lot of trouble with this is because so much spirituality came out of the monasteries. There have been a lot of wonderful things we’ve learned from the monastics. But with sexuality, the monastic tradition has given us some unhelpful distortions. That’s why we need to recover a spirituality that gives full appreciation to who we are as sexual beings—created in the image of God: male and female, created he them. So the imago dei is male and female. And then we must work that out in our marriages. And even single people must work out who they are as sexual beings—in relationship with God and with each other.

Is the problem of thinking of spirituality and sexuality together as much a problem with the way we think about spirituality as with the way we think about sexuality?

We make spirituality too spiritual. For example, in some of my first experiences of listening prayer, some of the senses I got of what I should do to obey God were terribly mundane. They weren’t spiritual in the way I understood it then. Call someone on the phone, God said, write somebody a letter, be tender toward Carolynn in a particular way—even ways that I could be a more sensitive lover. It suddenly dawned on me that God is keenly interested in all of who I am—sexually and other ways.

Is that what you meant in the book when you said that meditation can enhance our marital sexuality?

You betcha! It’s lots of fun. Now, obviously, I’m not saying, go and pray in order to learn about sex technique. But God is very interested in how my marriage with Carolynn functions. And, therefore, I should be open to what he can teach me about Carolynn. Very simple, really.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.