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

The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic ChurchIn the sixteenth century Rome charged the Reformers with novelty, as if they were heretics departing from the catholic (universal) church. But the Reformers believed they were more catholic than Rome. Distinguishing themselves from Radicals, the Reformers were convinced they were retrieving the faith of the church fathers and the best of the medieval Scholastics. The Reformers saw themselves as faithful stewards of the one, holy, catholic, and

In the sixteenth century Rome charged the Reformers with novelty, as if they were heretics departing from the catholic (universal) church. But the Reformers believed they were more catholic than Rome. Distinguishing themselves from Radicals, the Reformers were convinced they were retrieving the faith of the church fathers and the best of the medieval Scholastics. The Reformers saw themselves as faithful stewards of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church preserved across history, and they insisted on a restoration of true worship in their own day. By listening to the Reformers' own voices, The Reformation as Renewal helps readers explore:
• The Reformation's roots in patristic and medieval thought and its response to late medieval innovations.
• Key philosophical and theological differences between Scholasticism in the High Middle Ages and deviations in the Late Middle Ages.
• The many ways sixteenth and seventeenth century Protestant Scholastics critically appropriated Thomas Aquinas.
• The Reformation's response to the charge of novelty by an appeal to the Augustinian tradition.
• Common caricatures that charge the Reformation with schism or assume the Reformation was the gateway to secularism.
• The spread of Reformation catholicity across Europe, as seen in first and second-generation leaders from Luther and Melanchthon in Wittenberg to Zwingli and Bullinger in Zurich to Bucer and Calvin in Strasbourg and Geneva to Tyndale, Cranmer, and Jewel in England, and many others.
• The theology of the Reformers, with special attention on their writings defending the catholicity of the Reformation.

This balanced, insightful, and accessible treatment of the Reformation will help readers see this watershed moment in the history of Christianity with fresh eyes and appreciate the unity they have with the church across time. Readers will discover that the Reformation was not a new invention, but the renewal of something very old.

Publisher: Zondervan
Type: Hardback
ISBN: 9780310097556

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Matthew Barrett is associate professor of Christian theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, the executive editor of Credo Magazine, and director of The Center for Classical Theology. He is the author of Simply Trinity; None Greater; Canon, Covenant and Christology; and God's Word Alone. He is currently writing a systematic theology.

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‘Modern pundits and Roman Catholic apologists have long asserted that the Protestant reformers were theological innovators who destroyed the unity of the one holy, catholic and apostolic church and unleashed toxins that contributed to our secular age. In this provocative and well-argued book, Matthew Barrett counters this misrepresentation by demonstrating that central theological contributions of reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin were in broad continuity with Augustine and the Augustinian tradition as it was refracted through the writings of various scholastic theologians, including Thomas Aquinas. The reformers were concerned to renew, not overturn, the one true Church. Barrett's study is a tour de force, lending persuasive weight to Luther's brash statement: "We are the true ancient church ... you have fallen away from us." Scott Manetsch, Professor of Church History and the History of Christian Thought, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School