Reformation

[lynnettejane]

Hi everyone, don’t know if I am in the right place, can anyone recommmend a good book about the reformation? Thankyou

 

[robwar]

there is a book called “Roots of the Reformations” by Karl Adam which you can get on Amazon. It is not a big book and is thought provoking.

 

[yankee15]

Hilaire Belloc’s “How the Reformation happened” should be read.

 

[manualman]

Hilaire Belloc’s “How the Reformation happened” should be read.

+1

Belloc reveals the things you will NEVER have heard if you received your education in an English speaking country (i.e. fundamentally affected by Anglican/protestant bias in historical studies). He makes the point that novel and different religious ideas pop up all the time. What made Luther and Calvin’s ideas spread like wildfire owed at least as much to the fact that those new ideas allowed local and regional “nobles” to pillage the holdings of the church and of religious orders as it did to the actual sentiments of the regular people who heard the message.

But you shouldn’t ONLY read Belloc. He’s excellent as an antidote to the typical hagiographical treatment given to the “reformers” in English speaking countries, so it helps to hear the protestant party line as well to balance him out. Without hearing the other side, one can get the idea from Belloc that things were peachier than they really were before Luther and Calvin became the useful idiots that rich and greedy “noble” men used to plunder the wealth of much of Europe.

 

[lynnettejane]

Thanks everyone

 

[lynnettejane]

+1

Belloc reveals the things you will NEVER have heard if you received your education in an English speaking country (i.e. fundamentally affected by Anglican/protestant bias in historical studies). He makes the point that novel and different religious ideas pop up all the time. What made Luther and Calvin’s ideas spread like wildfire owed at least as much to the fact that those new ideas allowed local and regional “nobles” to pillage the holdings of the church and of religious orders as it did to the actual sentiments of the regular people who heard the message.

But you shouldn’t ONLY read Belloc. He’s excellent as an antidote to the typical hagiographical treatment given to the “reformers” in English speaking countries, so it helps to hear the protestant party line as well to balance him out. Without hearing the other side, one can get the idea from Belloc that things were peachier than they really were before Luther and Calvin became the useful idiots that rich and greedy “noble” men used to plunder the wealth of much of Europe.

Which other books would you recommend to compliment Belloc?

 

[lynnettejane]

+1

Belloc reveals the things you will NEVER have heard if you received your education in an English speaking country (i.e. fundamentally affected by Anglican/protestant bias in historical studies). He makes the point that novel and different religious ideas pop up all the time. What made Luther and Calvin’s ideas spread like wildfire owed at least as much to the fact that those new ideas allowed local and regional “nobles” to pillage the holdings of the church and of religious orders as it did to the actual sentiments of the regular people who heard the message.

But you shouldn’t ONLY read Belloc. He’s excellent as an antidote to the typical hagiographical treatment given to the “reformers” in English speaking countries, so it helps to hear the protestant party line as well to balance him out. Without hearing the other side, one can get the idea from Belloc that things were peachier than they really were before Luther and Calvin became the useful idiots that rich and greedy “noble” men used to plunder the wealth of much of Europe.

Hi Manualman which other books would you recommend to compliment Belloc?

 

[manualman]

I’m no scholar and can barely remember what I ate for breakfast, much less the names of books I’ve read over time.

Try PMing user “GKC” who I’d trust to recommend actual good books on the subject (even though he’s an Anglican himself).