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Christianity's Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution--A History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First |
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Christianity's Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution--A History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First
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by Alister Mcgrath
Sales Rank: 18506
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Discount: 34 %
List Price: $29.95
$19.47
At Amazon
on 6-1-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 560 pages
Published by: HarperOneEdition: 1st Edition September 25, 2007
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0060822139
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0060822132
Book Dimensions:
9.3 x 6.3 x 1.8 inches
Weighs: 1.8 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
This is McGrath's third book title borrowed from his atheist bête 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.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Publishers Weekly
"An original and important book the most readable introduction to the history, theology and present-day practices of Protestantism."
Reader Reviews
According to David B. Barrett, author of the World Christian Encyclopedia, contemporary Christianity has experienced an explosion of what he calls "neo-apostolic" movements. Distinct from traditional Protestants, and numbering about 400 million Christians in 20,000 "movements," neo-apostolic believers "reject historical denominationalism and restrictive or overbearing central authority." In Barrett's estimation they will constitute 581 million members by the year 2025, 120 million more than all Protestant movements. In two decades these sectarian movements will outnumber Orthodox and Protestant Christians and be almost half the size of worldwide Catholicism. Welcome to the blowback of what Alister McGrath, professor of historical theology at Oxford University, calls the revolutionary and dangerous idea of the Protestant Reformation-- that ordinary Christians, as opposed to any centralized religious authority, could and should read the Bible for themselves in their own everyday language, and draw their own conclusions from it -- which Bible, by the way, is now available in 2,370 different vernacular languages. It's a shame that McGrath never drills down to explore in depth the chaos and creativity of the Protestant impulse. But in all fairness, he's a victim of his subject matter. Having decided to cover five hundred years in five hundred pages aimed at a general readership, to let as many diverse perspectives have their fifteen seconds of fame, and to show how Protestants disagree on almost everything, perhaps it was inevitable that his book would only glide across the surface. McGrath is also a victim of his own Christian preferences. No historian is neutral, but there's an apologetic agenda just beneath the surface of his exposition. He mentions not only the good but the bad and the ugly of Protestantism, but instead of letting the historical chips fall where they might he works hard to rehabilitate his subject (especially its Reformed wing). One could nitpick at unexplained references that will stump his intended readership (eg, the "Gunpowder Plot"), or omissions and oversights, but this is still an accessible introduction by a remarkable scholar to the "uncontrollable" forces that were unleashed 500 years ago by Martin Luther and his kin. I'd love to see a more scholarly treatment by McGrath that explores in depth what he rightly describes as the most fundamental question of any religion: who has the right or authority to define its faith (cf. pp. 3, 209)? The answer to that question seems to be "no one," for "what [has] distinguished Protestantism. . . is its principled refusal to allow any authority above scripture" (p. 221).
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Christianity's Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution--A History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First
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Price: $19.47
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