The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church

What makes The Reformation as Renewal unique

"Too often approaches to the Reformation blame the reformers for schism and secularism. Meanwhile, others celebrate the Reformation as a revolution, as if the reformers intended a clean break from the Great Tradition before them so that they could begin a new church otherwise lost since the apostles. Unfortunately, both interpretations have monopolized the conversation.

This fresh intellectual and theological history of the Reformation summons the voices of the reformers themselves. What do we hear? A constant chorus, all singing a similar tune: the Reformation was an attempt to renew the Christian faith. The Reformers not only saw themselves in continuity with the patristics but even key medieval scholastics. Or, as the subtitle of my book says, the Reformers were resolved to retrieve the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.