THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO REFORMATION THEOLOGY

Written by David Bagchi and David Steinmetz (Eds) Reviewed By John Coffey

The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology is the ideal introduction to its field. There are a number of good single-author surveys of Reformation thought in print (one thinks of George, McGrath, Reardon, and the indispensable Pelikan) and Carter Lindberg has edited a useful collection on The Reformation Theologians. But for a balanced, authoritative, accessible, state-of-the-art primer, this book is now the best on the market.

The Companion unfolds in roughly chronological order. There are four initial chapters on pre-Reformation theology (late medieval, Lollard, Hussite, and Erasmus); three chapters on Luther and his followers (Luther, Melanchthon, confessional Lutheran theology); four on continental Reformed theology (Zwingli, Bucer, Calvin, later Calvinism); three on Britain (Cranmer, the English reformers, the Scottish Reformation); and three on alternative Reformations (Anabaptist theology, Catholic theologians before Trent, the Council of Trent). Together, these chapters provide an admirably rounded account of Reformation theology. Indeed, the juxtaposition of Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists and Anabaptists serves to highlight both their differences and their commonalities. Although there are no footnotes, a twenty-page bibliography guides readers into an abundant literature.

Some of the contributors will be well know to readers of this journal. David Wright introduces John Knox and Scottish Reformation theology. Carl Trueman explains how later tensions over predestination and the reform of the church were already present in the early English Reformation. Richard Muller writes the chapter on ‘John Calvin and later Calvinism’, replacing the tired old paradigm of ‘Calvin versus the Calvinists’ with a far more sophisticated and compelling account of theological continuity and development. In many cases, the authors are distilling the results of years (even decades) of research and teaching. This is true, for example, of W. Peter Stephens on Zwingli and David Steinmetz on Calvin. Again and again, these compact essays deliver crisp and concise accounts of very big subjects. Scott Hendrix’s chapter on Luther is particularly noteworthy, since it introduces and clarifies his key ideas, traces his theological development, and leaves the reader with a sharper sense of the Reformer’s project. The contributors often write from within the ecclesiastical tradition of their subjects, but even when they do not, the tone is objective. Werner Packull (a Lutheran) provides an excellent analysis of Anabaptist theology, and is (as one would expect) alive to the continuities as well as the discontinuities with magisterial Protestantism.

As the editors observe, the healthy state of current scholarship on Reformation thought is somewhat surprising, given the concerted efforts of both social historians and Christian ecumenicists to demote theology. Several historiographical trends have revived the subject, including the emphasis on ‘confessionalisation’, the rise of cultural history, and the growing realisation that popular and elite religion cannot be separated neatly. However, the new scholarship is different from older work. In the first place, it is ‘pluralistic’. Reformation theology is no longer coterminous with early Protestant theology, and historians now speak of ‘Reformations’. The inclusion of chapters on Anabaptist and Catholic theology reflects this trend. Secondly, recent scholarship is ‘Chronologically fluid’, highlighting the ‘organic unity’ with late medieval theology and the development of Reformation theology in the era of orthodoxy. Thirdly, the new history is ‘contextual’ in its recognition that theology was shaped by its social, intellectual and political contexts. Reformation theologians were not ‘ivory tower academics’, but men writing under pressure and in response to specific circumstances. Such contextual factors are well explained in this volume, though for the flesh-and-blood Reformation in all its sound and fury one should turn to Diarmaid MacCulloch’s Reformation(2003).


John Coffey

University of Leicester