I told him that if he always reads books by Protestant authors, then he will always come to the same, misinformed conclusions.
I suggested that he read Hilaire Belloc’s book on the Reformation
I think that was unwise. Everyone is going to have a bias, but the whole point of a scholarly training is to teach you to discipline your bias in the service of the evidence. While Belloc was very knowledgeable about history, he was at the end of the day a very intelligent propagandist. I don’t know what Protestant writers your friend is reading, but there are plenty of propagandists on that side as well. It would be better to read books by modern scholarly historians, whether Protestant or Catholic. They still have bias, but it’s less extreme. The three Protestant scholars who have written biographies of Luther that I would recommend are Roland Bainton, Martin Brecht, and Heiko Oberman. Your friend may have read Bainton–he unfortunately accepted the standard liberal-Protestant narrative of Luther, although he presented it intelligently and with respect for the historical evidence. Martin Brecht’s three-volume biography is the best source for the details of Luther’s life, but he writes from a strongly Lutheran perspective. Neither of these writers have much useful to say about the Catholic background of Luther (Bainton gives a more nuanced version of the standard Protestant stereotype, and Brecht takes Luther’s reminiscences at face value as evidence for late medieval Catholicism). Heiko Oberman is much better in that respect, although he also had a strong anti-Catholic bias. He’s particularly valuable for emphasizing Luther’s apocalyptic streak and not trying to force him into either a liberal-Protestant or confessional-Lutheran mold.
My advisor David Steinmetz (himself a student of Oberman) wrote an excellent book of essays on Luther called *Luther in Context. *
As for Catholic interpretations–one theological interpretation of the Reformation that I find valuable is Louis Bouyer’s *The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism. *It recognizes what was valuable in Luther’s teaching while also criticizing his errors.
The contemporary Catholic scholar who has written most widely and helpfully on Luther is Jared Wicks. You can find a number of his writings
here. He is very appreciative of Luther while of course acknowledging that Luther contradicts Catholicism on a number of points.
The late-19th-century Catholic scholar Johannes Janssen’s
History of the German People at the Close of the Middle Ages is of course hard to find, and it’s got a very strong polemical edge. But it is also meticulously documented and puts the traditional Protestant narrative of the Reformation under serious question, by pointing out the spiritual and moral health of late medieval German Catholicism and showing that in many ways the Reformation had a destructive effect on piety and morality. Dennis Martin’s work on the late medieval Carthusians allegedly (I say this because I haven’t yet looked at it myself) shows that the strictest of the religious orders–the place where you’d expect works righteousness if anywhere–showed no signs of the kind of arrogant pseudo-piety Luther attacked, but rather insisted on the importance of humility and our absolute dependence on God’s grace.
Finally, you might consider recommending him to read some work by secular and Protestant historians that questions the traditional narrative of Luther as a great hero and liberator. Mark Edwards, a Lutheran, has written two books (
Luther and the False Brethren and
Luther’s Last Battles) that describe the increasing bitterness and viciousness of Luther’s later writing–hardly signs of someone who had recovered the Gospel and regenerated Christendom. Peter Blickle (non-religious as far as I know) argues in *The Communal Reformation *that Luther helped squelch a genuinely democratic, bottom-up Reformation that gave voice to the aspirations of the common people.
Belloc may be useful for shock value–simply seeing that an intelligent writer can give a narrative of the Reformation that contradicts his prejudices may jolt your friend a bit and open his eyes. But it may also convince him that Catholics have no alternative to offer except angry and distorted rants that ignore the genuine spiritual impulses behind the Reformation. That was certainly my impression of Belloc, and fond as I am of him (largely by reflection of my great admiration for Chesterton) I have never seen a reason to change my opinion in that respect.
In Christ,
Edwin
P.S. I see that I responded to posts on this thread long ago, but I don’t think the information I posted above is a repetition of what I said back then, so I’ll let it stand!
but I will tell you that the thought that ran through my head was, “Yes, I should. This would so solidly confirm what I believe and the action I take in pursuing and living out those beliefs.”
