This study provides a radical reassessment of the English Reformation. No one in eighteenth-century England thought that they were living during ‘the Enlightenment’; instead, they saw themselves as facing the religious, intellectual and political problems unleashed by the Reformation, which began in the sixteenth century. Moreover, they faced those problems in the aftermath of two bloody seventeenth-century political and religious revolutions. This book examines how the eighteenth-century English debated the causes and consequences of those revolutions and the thing they thought had caused them, the Reformation. It draws on a wide array of manuscript sources to show how authors crafted and pitched their works.

In a work that is as much about the present as the past, Brad Gregory identifies the unintended consequences of the Protestant Reformation and traces the way it shaped the modern condition over the course of the following five centuries. A hyperpluralism of religious and secular beliefs, an absence of any substantive common good, the triumph of capitalism and its driver, consumerism—all these, Gregory argues, were long-term effects of a movement that marked the end of more than a millennium during which Christianity provided a framework for shared intellectual, social, and moral life in the West. Before the Protestant Reformation, Western Christianity was an institutionalized worldview laden with expectations of security for earthly societies and hopes of eternal salvation for individuals. The Reformation’s protagonists sought to advance the realization of this vision, not disrupt it. But a complex web of rejections, retentions, and transformations of medieval Christianity gradually replaced the religious fabric that bound societies together in the West. Today, what we are left with are fragments: intellectual disagreements that splinter into ever finer fractals of specialized discourse; a notion that modern science—as the source of all truth—necessarily undermines religious belief; a pervasive resort to a therapeutic vision of religion; a set of smuggled moral values with which we try to fertilize a sterile liberalism; and the institutionalized assumption that only secular universities can pursue knowledge. The Unintended Reformation asks what propelled the West into this trajectory of pluralism and polarization, and finds answers deep in our medieval Christian past.

Does it really matter? Does it matter if we have free will? Does it matter if Calvinism is true? And does what you think about it matter? No and yes. No, it doesn't matter because God is who he is and does what he does regardless of what we think of him, just as the solar system keeps spinning around the sun even if we're convinced it spins around the earth. Our opinions about God will not change God, but they can change us. And so yes, it does matter because the conversations about free will and Calvinism confront us with perhaps the only question that really matters: who is God? This is a book about that question--a book about the Bible, black holes, love, sovereignty, hell, Romans 9, Jonathan Edwards, John Piper, C. S. Lewis, Karl Barth, and a little girl in a red coat. You've heard arguments, but here's a story--Austin Fischer's story, and his journey in and out of Calvinism on a trip to the center of the universe.

Worship is the right, fitting, and delightful response of moral beings—angelic and human—to God the Creator, Redeemer, and Consummator, for who he is as one eternal God in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and for what he has done in creation and redemption, and for what he will do in the coming consummation, to whom be all praise ...

The Reformation transformed Europe, and left an indelible mark on the modern world. It began as an argument about what Christians needed to do to be saved, but rapidly engulfed society in a series of fundamental changes. This Very Short Introduction provides a lively and up-to-date guide to the process. It explains doctrinal debates in a clear and non-technical way, but is equally concerned to demonstrate the effects the Reformation had on politics, society, art, and minorities. Peter Marshall argues that the Reformation was not a solely European phenomenon, but that varieties of faith exported from Europe transformed Christianity into a truly world religion. The complex legacy of the Reformation is also assessed; its religious fervour produced remarkable stories of sanctity and heroism, and some extraordinary artistic achievements, but violence, holy war, and martyrdom were equally its products. A paradox of the Reformation - that it intensified intolerance while establishing pluralism - is one we still wrestle with today. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

"Both by his choice of confessions and by his judicious and scholarly introductions, Mark Noll has made [the major Reformation confessions and catechisms] available in a form that is sure to deepen and enlighten doctrinal discussion and confessional awareness and that will therefore contribute to solidly evangelical and hence soundly ecumenical theology. I am delighted to see this book appear." - Jaroslav Pelikan, Yale University "It is a delight to welcome Mark Noll's well-chosen, well-edited selection of key sixteenth-century statements of faith - Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, Anabaptist, Roman Catholic. To have this significant material brought together in one book is a boon, for the enrichment that comes of studying it as a whole is very great. For anyone who would take the measure of the Reformation conflict, this collection is a 'must.'" - J.I. Packer, Regent College "Mark Noll has ably introduced these still living confessions to a modern audience more prone to forgetfulness than any since the sixteenth century. This collection will be useful not only for classes in historical and systematic theology, but also to pastors and lay readers who wish better to understand their Protestant heritage." - Thomas C. Oden, Drew University

The Failure of Denominationalism and the Future of Christian Unity One of the unforeseen results of the Reformation was the shattering fragmentation of the church. Protestant tribalism was and continues to be a major hindrance to any solution to Christian division and its cultural effects. In this book, influential thinker Peter Leithart critiques American denominationalism in the context of global and historic Christianity, calls for an end to Protestant tribalism, and presents a vision for the future church that transcends post-Reformation divisions. Leithart offers pastors and churches a practical agenda, backed by theological arguments, for pursuing local unity now. Unity in the church will not be a matter of drawing all churches into a single, existing denomination, says Leithart. Returning to Catholicism or Orthodoxy is not the solution. But it is possible to move toward church unity without giving up our convictions about truth. This critique and defense of Protestantism urges readers to preserve and celebrate the central truths recovered in the Reformation while working to heal the wounds of the body of Christ.