Getting the Reformation Wrong (A Review)

I just finished James R Payton's book, Getting the Reformation Wrong.  Being an historian, Payton offers a condensed, but thorough summary of Medieval, Reformation, and post-Reformation history.  Some of the writing is a bit difficult to follow and must be approached in an "Inception-like" way - that is, there are a lot of facts given that provide a necessary basis for understanding the facts that follow.

In the first chapter, "The Medieval Call for Reform," Payton shows how this period set the stage for Reformation.  In short, these were grim times that stripped everything from the people.  Instead of getting answers and aid from the Church, they stood waiting, receiving little to no help at all.  

Payton comments, "The devastating problems...regarding weather, agricultural productivity and disease - all compounded by wars, peasant rebellions and the uncertainties involved in the emergence of national states in Western Europe - were not "secular" concerns, unrelated to the church...people expected that the teaching and practice of Christianity should provide solutions...[but] The Church's inability or failure to do this only exacerbated the frustration people felt toward the church and its leaders and prepared the way for other Christian leaders, in the sixteenth century, to receive a welcome hearing."

While the government of the church was marked by schism, corruption, and immorality (during the Avignon Papacy), the teaching of the church, following Aristotelian methodology, entered the age of scholasticism.  This section is for those who love both history and philosophy.  We learn here about Aquinas, who was a Dominican scholastic, and those who apposed his believe in the primacy of reason - namely, the Franciscans (primacy of will) and followers of Occham (primacy of [blind] faith).

Because of this rise of scholasticism, writings tended to focus on answering theological questions like, religious authority, justification, sacraments, divine predestination, and so on.  This, you see, was quite frustrating to the people.  The lay person was unable to follow the complex arguments of most of the scholastic writing.  Payton adds, "And the common people wanted and needed an approach to Christian truth that would make clear what the Christian faith taught and bring it to bear on the lives they lived."

Another chapter I really enjoyed was "Renaissance: Friend or Foe?"  In summary, Payton attempts to show that the history of history is fairly young.  Before the Renaissance history was recorded rather achronistically, as it focused less on the horizontal movements and more on the vertical.  History up to this point was recorded and assessed on a scale of moral rectitude - an unchanging standard applicable in all times and places.  History, in other words, was more concerned with moral teaching than recording chronological events from an unbiased perspective.

This lead to the rise of humanism (which is not the same as modern humanism as we understand it).  The humanists were not concerned with promoting a philosophical agenda; but more on grammar, poetry, rhetoric and history.  Because of the corruption of the medieval period, the Renaissance looked back to the ancients of Greece and Rome for guidance.  They studied the Scriptures and early church fathers with diligence and with the intent on preparing students for full lives spent in service of their communities.

An understanding of humanists and their agenda is critical for not getting the Reformation wrong.  Luther was a scholastic; but by the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, all but one of the more than thirty Protestant religious leaders in the Lutheran camp had been trained in northern Christian humanism.

This goal of this review is simply to give you a taste of the chapters that follow.  Chapters like, "What the Reformers Meant by Sola Fide" and "What the Reformers Meant by Sola Scriptura."  These chapters  serve to disarm many misunderstandings.

Sola Scriptura, according to Payton, did not mean that Scripture was the only authority, but that it was the only unquestionable authority.  The Reformers were well learned in patristics, treated them in high regard, and were hesitant to stray from their teachings.  The key point to understand, however, is that they were fallible and thus questionable, whereas the Scriptures were not.

Sola Fide, according to Payon and as understood/taught by the Reformers, is well represented in the following "creedal" statement: Faith alone saves, but faith that saves is never alone.

I would suggest this book to anyone looking to gain a deeper understanding of the history, teaching, teachers, opposition and aftermath of the Protestant Reformation.  It was a good read.