Christianity's dangerous idea : the Protestant revolution-- a history from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first / Alister E. McGrath.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The "dangerous idea" lying at the heart of Protestantism is that the interpretation of the Bible is each individual's right and responsibility. The spread of this principle has resulted in five hundred years of remarkable innovation and adaptability, but it has also created cultural incoherence and social instability. Without any overarching authority to rein in "wayward" thought, opposing sides on controversial issues can only appeal to the Bible--yet the Bible is open to many diverse interpretations. Christianity's Dangerous Idea is the first book that attempts to define this core element of Protestantism and the religious and cultural dynamic that this dangerous idea unleashed, culminating in the remarkable new developments of the twentieth century.

At a time when Protestants will soon cease to be the predominant faith tradition in the United States, McGrath's landmark reassessment of the movement and its future is well-timed. Replete with helpful modern-day examples that explain the past, McGrath brings to life the Protestant movements and personalities that shaped history and the central Christian idea that continues to dramatically influence world events today.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Christianity's Dangerous Idea The Protestant Revolution--A History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First Chapter One The Gathering Storm The ability to see beyond the horizon of one's own location in history is given to few. Who could have imagined, in the gently sunlit heyday of Edwardian England, that the grimmest and most devastating war ever to afflict the human race lay less than a decade away? There was little sense at the time of a gathering storm, of standing close to the edge of a cataclysmic precipice. Hindsight is invariably infallible, allowing later observers to discern the fault lines, the tensions, the shifting in the tectonic plates of history that presaged the tidal waves that would engulf nations and cultures. Yet at the time these often passed unnoticed, their significance not appreciated until after the deluge. Could the turmoil of the Reformation have been predicted? Could it have been deferred, perhaps even deflected, by some skillful footwork on the part of the church hierarchy? What would have happened if the son of Hans and Margarette Luther had died shortly after his birth on November 10, 1483? These questions, though illuminating and not a little provocative, cannot be answered with any confidence. The historian, however, can hope to achieve at least some degree of understanding and appreciation of what actually happened, and above all to discern why a seemingly trivial protest by an unknown German academic at one of Europe's most insignificant universities proved to be the spark that ignited a conflagration that engulfed much of the Western church. The Church and the social fabric of Western Europe The social, cultural, and intellectual impact of the Protestant Reformation can be fully grasped only through an appreciation of the place of the church in late medieval Europe. The church was a major player in international politics and the internal affairs of regions, and it fostered a sense of identity at the level of local communities and gave individuals a sense of location and purpose within a greater scheme of things. 1 The church had always played an important international role in European society. Medieval Europe bore little relation to its modern counterpart composed of individual, well-defined nation-states. 2 In the Middle Ages, Europe consisted of an aggregate of generally small principalities, city-states, and regions, often defined and given a shared sense of identity more by language and historical factors than by any sense of common political identity. At the start of the fourteenth century, for example, Italy was little more than a patchwork of independent city-states and petty principalities. These were consolidated into six major political units during the fifteenth century: the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, the Papal States, and the three major city-states of Florence, Venice, and Milan. The modern nation-state of Italy was a nineteenth-century invention. In much the same way, Germany, destined to play a particularly significant role in the events of the age, consisted of a myriad of tiny territories. 3 Even as late as the nineteenth century, there were still thirty-two German states and territories, which were only finally united into the German empire under Otto von Bismarck (1815-98). The church was the only international agency to possess any significant credibility or influence throughout the Middle Ages, and into the era of the Renaissance. It played a decisive role in the settling of international disputes. 4 Under Innocent III (pope from 1198 to 1216), the medieval papacy reached a hitherto unprecedented level of political authority in western Europe. 5 This was given theological justification in the decree Sicut universitatis conditor , issued in October 1198, in which Innocent III set out the principle of the subordination of the state to the church. His argument? Just as God established "greater" and "lesser" lights in the heavens to rule the day and night-a reference to the sun and moon-so God ordained that the power of the pope exceeded that of any monarch. "Just as the moon derives her light from the sun, and is inferior to the sun in terms of its size and its quality, so the power of the king derives from the authority of the pope." That authority was often recognized with great reluctance; there was, however, no other institution in western Europe with anything remotely approaching its influence. Power tends to corrupt, as Lord Acton remarked. There were many within the church at the time who were troubled by the soaring power and influence of the papacy and who sought to prevent it getting out of control. The Conciliarist movement argued that ecclesiastical power should be decentralized: instead of being concentrated in the hands of a single individual, it should be dispersed within the body of the church as a whole and entrusted to a more representative and accountable group-namely, "general Councils." 6 This movement reached the height of its influence in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Its moment seemed to have arrived when a crisis emerged in the papacy during the fourteenth century. Those who believed that the identity of the church was safeguarded by the authority of the pope found themselves in a dilemma toward the end of the fourteenth century. Irritated by the tensions arising from the factionalism and infighting between some of the great Roman families, Clement V decided to move the papal court away from Rome to the southern French city of Avignon. From 1309 to 1378, the papacy endured this self-imposed exile from Rome-a period the great poet Petrarch referred to as the "Babylonian Captivity" of the papacy. 7 Yet a number of factors-including growing French political interference in papal affairs and tensions within Italy as a result of the papal absence-led Gregory XI to decide to return to Rome in 1377. Yet Gregory died shortly afterward. His successor, Urban VI (1378-89), was unpopular with the French cardinals, who returned to Avignon and elected a rival pope, Clement VII. For a period of more than forty years, there were two claimants to the title of the papacy in Europe, a state of affairs that caused confusion and seriously weakened the authority of the church. England, Germany, Hungary, most of Italy, Poland, and the Scandinavian countries supported Urban VI at Rome; France, Scotland, Spain, and southern Italy supported the "anti-pope," Clement VII, at Avignon. Christianity's Dangerous Idea The Protestant Revolution--A History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First . Copyright © by Alister McGrath. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Christianity's Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution: A History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First by Alister E. McGrath All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

McGrath (Univ. of Oxford; The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World) calls his latest book not a documentary but an intellectual history of the Protestant idea that all Christians have the right to interpret the Bible for themselves. (Note that he equates Christianity with Protestantism.) Roman Catholics have often complained about the Protestant principle of individualism, arguing there could conceivably be as many interpretations of the Bible as there are Protestants. To his credit, McGrath recognizes that the Protestant revolution unleashed chaos in the Christian church. But do we need yet another history of Protestantism? The book's major contribution is that it helps describe the shift currently taking place in the Protestant world with the decline of churches in Europe and North America and the growth of the movement in Africa and Asia. What began as a revolt against international Christianity in favor of nationalism and individualism is today a cultural revolution. Eventually, Protestantism will be redefined by the churches in the so-called Third World. Recommended.-James A. Overbeck, Atlanta-Fulton P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

This is McGrath's third book title borrowed from his atheist bete noir Richard Dawkins. But don't let the titular borrowings fool you: this is an original and important book. Someone had to imitate the long, popular works of history being written on secular subjects from Lewis & Clark to FDR, and McGrath has the theological and historical expertise necessary to tell a story stretching from the Reformation's origins in the 16th century to today. The "dangerous idea" was Martin Luther's: that individual believers could and should read the Bible for themselves. The result was occasionally violent (as in the peasants' revolt and the English Civil War), occasionally brilliant (musicians like Bach, theologians like Calvin and Jonathan Edwards, poets like Milton) and certainly world altering (the Calvinist Reformation clearing space for the rise of secular science and capitalism). McGrath concludes not with the faith practices of present-day England or America, but with the increasingly Pentecostal global south. The book occasionally falls into the dry tone of a textbook and assumes points that historians would want to debate, but is still the most readable introduction to the history, theology and present-day practices of Protestantism. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

McGrath (Oxford) adds to his already impressive list of publications with this overview of "the Protestant revolution" filtered through the "dangerous idea" that all Christians have the right to interpret the Bible for themselves. The first part traces the origin, development, complexity, and diversity of the Protestantism that emerged from the Reformation era, followed in the second by a description of its distinctive beliefs and attitudes. The last section assesses the present status and future prospects of the Protestantisms of the world, with a special emphasis on the impact of Pentecostalism and the global south as Protestantism's new frontier. "Not written for scholars," yet employing the latest scholarship in tracking its theme, this work is likewise not a textbook but a readable, informative, and challenging "grand narrative" that deftly describes the tonalities of Protestantism's varied historical, political, socioeconomic, and religious contexts. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, seminary and graduate students, and general readers. B. M. Stephens emeritus, Pennsylvania State University, Delaware County Campus

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* McGrath can spot the peril in a pronoun: when Luther declared at Worms, Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, his insistently vertical pronoun imperiled the foundations of Christendom. In this capacious history, McGrath chronicles the truly explosive consequences of the claim advanced not only by Luther but also by Calvin, Zwingli, and others that the Bible reveals God's will to the individual reader without the mediation of church or priesthood. Ironically, this bold doctrine of sola Scriptura loosed such powerful ecclesiastical tempests that the very Protestant leaders who articulated it when defying Rome were soon devising their own forms of church authority to reign in insurgent radicals. Yet as he surveys its denominational diversity Lutheran, Calvinist, Anabaptist, Anglican, Pentecostal McGrath recognizes in Protestantism an unstoppable mutability, evident in widely varied social circumstances. Indeed, the protean character of Protestantism evident in its markedly different sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European forms has only become more pronounced as colonists and missionaries have spread its volatile tenets worldwide. Readers will marvel at how one religious tradition has inspired British royalists and Roundheads,  American progressives and conservatives, African exorcists and polygamists. This provocative portrait of Protestantism's past offers rich resources to all who care about its future.--Christensen, Bryce Copyright 2007 Booklist

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Alister McGrath is currently professor of theology at Oxford and principal of Wycliffe Hall. He is a consulting editor, general editor and author of several books. He lives in Oxford, England.