Rebel in the ranks : Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the conflicts that continue to shape our world / Brad S. Gregory.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gregory, Brad S. (Brad Stephan), 1963- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Luther, Martin, 1483-1546.

Luther, Martin.

Reformation.

Reformation--Influence.

Physical Description:

ix, 292 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : HarperOne, 2017.

Summary:

On the 500th anniversary of the Reformation comes this compelling, illuminating, and expansive religious history that examines the complicated and unintended legacies of Martin Luther and the epochal movement that continues to shape the world today. For five centuries, Martin Luther has been lionized as an outspoken and fearless icon of change who ended the Middle Ages and heralded the beginning of the modern world. In Rebel in the Ranks, Brad Gregory, renowned professor of European history at Notre Dame, recasts this long-accepted portrait. Luther did not intend to start a revolution that would divide the Catholic Church and forever change Western civilization. Yet his actions would profoundly shape our world in ways he could never have imagined.⁻ Gregory analyzes Luther's inadvertent role in starting the Reformation and the epochal changes that followed. He reveals how Luther's insistence on the Bible as the sole authority for Christian truth led to conflicting interpretations of its meaning, and to the rise of competing churches, political conflicts, and social upheavals. Ultimately, he contends, some of the major historical and cultural developments that arose in its wake, including the Enlightenment, individual self-determination and moral relativism, and a religious freedom that protects ones right to worship or even to reject religion, would have appalled Luther: a reluctant revolutionary, a rebel in the ranks, whose goal was to make society more Christian, yet instead set the world on fire.

Contents:

1 A Reluctant Rebel 15

A Busy and Burdened Friar 15

Augustinian Duties 17

Getting to a New University in a Small Town 20

God's Word, Humanist Scholarship, and Christian Reform 23

Wittenberg's Thriving Christian Piety 27

Sins, Reform, and the Importance of Confession 30

Luther's Struggles Beneath the Surface 33

The Wider Stage: The Holy Roman Empire 35

Going Public with Ninety-Five These 39

Unexpected Fame 46

Making Political Waves 51

A Sheltered Meeting in Augsburg 54

A Public Showdown in Leipzig 59

A Clarifying Anger 66

Liberation and Denunciation 71

A Double Severance Package 82

2 A Fractious Movement 87

Karlstadt's Wittenberg 90

Zwingli's Zürich 97

Reformation as Urban Disruption 103

Reformation as Revolution: The German Peasants' War 110

The Gospel Against the World: Anabaptists 116

For and Against Free Will 122

Broken over the Bread: The Eucharistic Controversy 128

Münster: An Apocalyptic Anabaptist Kingdom 133

Brave-and Troubled-New World 137

3 A Troubled Era 143

Lutheranism Beyond Luther 146

Calvin, Geneva, and Reformed Protestantism 152

The Radical Reformation After Münster 160

Roman Catholicism Renewed 166

War to War in the Holy Roman Empire 175

France and the Wars of More-than-Religion 182

England, Kingdom of Religious Division 190

Violence, Revolt, and Breakup in the Low Countries 200

Religion as More-than-Religion: Creativity, Conflicts, and Impasses 208

4 A New World 213

Going Dutch: Restricting Religion and Unleashing Commerce 220

Enlightenment, Enrichment, and a New Empire 229

Founding Secularization: Religious Freedom in the United States 235

Suspending Secularization: Tocqueville on Religion in America 243

Advancing Secularization: The United States and Europe 250

Separated and Diminished Religion, Secularized and Divided Society 255

Free at Last? 263.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Other Format:

Online version: Gregory, Brad S. (Brad Stephan), 1963- author. Rebel in the ranks

ISBN:

9780062471178

0062471171

OCLC:

991535965