BAD History!

[Bonnie]

We got a book out of the library called “The Reformation: A History” by Diarmaid MacCulloch.

This is probably the most biased, anti-Catholic “history” I have ever read. Not as bad as Jack Chick or Dave Hunt, but pretty close.

Is there Catholic review and/or refutation of this book somewhere?

 

[TriuneUnity]

We got a book out of the library called “The Reformation: A History” by Diarmaid MacCulloch.

This is probably the most biased, anti-Catholic “history” I have ever read. Not as bad as Jack Chick or Dave Hunt, but pretty close.

Is there Catholic review and/or refutation of this book somewhere?

I haven’t read this book, mainly because of a distrust of any secular evaluation of a historical event with a theological impetus.

However, what is the evidence that you have that the book is anti-Catholic?

 

[Bonnie]

I haven’t read this book, mainly because of a distrust of any secular evaluation of a historical event with a theological impetus.

It’s not secular - the author is a protestant & promotes the reformation.

However, what is the evidence that you have that the book is anti-Catholic?

I’m not going to quote passages, it would make my post impossibly long, but throughout the book the Catholics are the bad guys & the protestants are the good guys. He misstates Catholic doctrine, teaching & history. The Catholics - especially the popes, clergy, religious, & pious lay people, do everything from the basest of motives, the protestants are on the right hand of God.

MacCulloch is more novelist than historian.

 

[Teflon93]

We got a book out of the library called “The Reformation: A History” by Diarmaid MacCulloch.

This is probably the most biased, anti-Catholic “history” I have ever read. Not as bad as Jack Chick or Dave Hunt, but pretty close.

Is there Catholic review and/or refutation of this book somewhere?

Hilaire Belloc’s “How the Reformation Really Happened” is quite good.

For the English Reformation, Eamon Duffy’s “The Stripping of the Altars” is excellent.

 

[Bonnie]

Hilaire Belloc’s “How the Reformation Really Happened” is quite good.

For the English Reformation, Eamon Duffy’s “The Stripping of the Altars” is excellent.

I’m looking for something more up-to-date, addressed to MacCulloch’s book.

I have his e-mail address & I’d like to write to him, but I want to be backed up by some intellectual authority. He wouldn’t know me from Eve.

 

[TriuneUnity]

It’s not secular - the author is a protestant & promotes the reformation.

He is far from Protestant; He is a secular socialist who happened to have been ordained a deacon in the CoE in the past. He now heads a Gay & Lesbian “Christian” political movement. That is to say, there is nothing Christian about it. Unless you would consider someone like Dominic Crossan a devout Catholic.

I’m not going to quote passages, it would make my post impossibly long, but throughout the book the Catholics are the bad guys & the protestants are the good guys. He misstates Catholic doctrine, teaching & history. The Catholics - especially the popes, clergy, religious, & pious lay people, do everything from the basest of motives, the protestants are on the right hand of God.

MacCulloch is more novelist than historian.

From the reviews I’ve read of it, he seems to almost completely ignore the theological motivations behind the Reformers efforts and spends the latter half of the book focusing on the attitude toward sex of 17th century Protestantism.