Since its first appearance in 1991; The European Reformation has offered a clear; integrated; and coherent analysis and explanation of how Christianity in Western and Central Europe from Iceland to Hungary; from the Baltic to the Pyrenees splintered into separate Protestant and Catholic identities and movements. Catholic Christianity at the end of the Middle Ages was not at all a uniformly 'decadent' or corrupt institution: it showed clear signs of cultural vigour and inventiveness. However; it was vulnerable to a particular kind of criticism; if ever its claims to mediate the grace of God to believers were challenged. Martin Luther proposed a radically new insight into how God forgives human sin. In this new theological vision; rituals did not 'purify' people; priests did not need to be set apart from the ordinary community; the church needed no longer to be an international body.For a critical 'Reformation moment'; this idea caught fire in the spiritual; political; and community life of much of Europe. Lay people seized hold of the instruments of spiritual authority; and transformed religion into something simpler; more local; more rooted in their own community. So were born the many cultures; liturgies; musical traditions and prayer lives of the countries of Protestant Europe.This new edition embraces and responds to developments in scholarship over the past twenty years. Substantially re-written and updated; with both a thorough revision of the text and fully updated references and bibliography; it nevertheless preserves the distinctive features of the original; including its clearly thought-out integration of theological ideas and political cultures; helping to bridge the gap between theological and social history; and the use of helpful charts and tables that made the original so easy to use.
#458211 in Books 2015-09-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 6.40 x 1.00 x 9.30l; .0 #File Name: 0199385955296 pages
Review
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. One of the most important books on the social gospel in a long whileBy PaulSocial gospel historiography has a long trail; dating all the way back to the 1940s. That makes it all the more impressive that Heath Carter's book is one of the most important on the subject to come out in a long while. In arguing that working-class Christians and labor leaders were instrumental in the rise of the social gospel (that is; the idea that salvation was not just individual but also social; and that Christian principles needed to be used to make the industrial economic order more just); Carter not only expands the cast of characters involved in the story; he also expands the timeline. In his telling; social Christianities were being articulated in Chicago in the 1860s; well before Washington Gladden and other pastors typically associated with the social gospel took up the cause. Those working-class social Christianities eventually helped prod Protestant and Catholic church leaders to embrace the ideas and strategies associated with the social gospel.Carter's book; focused on Chicago; is also rich with details about the Gilded Age city. Preachers; labor leaders; and churches are not simply disembodied concepts in Carter's narrative. Rather; he places them within neighborhoods and in relation to fellow congregants. The reader thus gets an intimate sense of the religious landscape of late-nineteenth-century Chicago.I highly recommend this book. Compellingly written; well argued; thoroughly researched; it's on the short list of my favorite books in American religious history so far this year.5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Short; clear; enjoyable to read and informativeBy S. BartonIt is quite rare to find academic history that is so clear and enjoyable to read. Carter’s overall argument is that the Social Gospel arose from the working class; whose role in developing progressive religious interpretations has been largely ignored by previous historians. Carter gives us a close study of working class influence on the churches of Chicago in the late 19th and early 20th Century and brings it alive with many vignettes of fascinating people who have; until now; been long-forgotten.There is a long history of working people giving a social interpretation to the life of Jesus and this “social Christianity†gained influence within churches of different denominations during the rapid industrialization and urbanization of the late 19th Century. Carter demonstrates that the churches felt pressure from working-class members of congregations and from the conspicuous absence of many other workers who were estranged from the church because of its failure to consider social conditions such as depressions and mass unemployment as well as individual moral failings. Proponents of the social gospel used that working class absence to justify and defend their outreach to workers and support for unions; translating it all into intellectually respectable theology. This later part has received most of the attention; in work like Hopkins’ Rise of the Social Gospel; to the exclusion of the role of the workers and their organizations. The AFL under Gompers provided a non-socialist labor organization that churches could more comfortably support and created a space within the churches for a pro-labor social gospel that was clearly not socialist; often anti-socialist. Without this space; the church hierarchies would have marginalized socially concerned pro-labor ministers.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Great bookBy land loverWell written history of the social justice movement in Chicago. Provides new information and insights.
