Alister E. McGrath - Reformation Thought

6 Chapter 7Figure 7.1 The Pope’s Sale of Indulgences (1521), as depicted by Lu...Figure 7.2 A 1559 woodcut of the Swiss city of Zurich, where Zwingli impl...

7 Chapter 8Figure 8.1 Augustine of Hippo, a leading theologian of the early western...Figure 8.2 Menno Simons, 1496–1561, an influential leader of the R...

8 Chapter 9Figure 9.1 A tenth-century chalice, used to contain the consecrated wine...Figure 9.2 The baptism of the infant Charles VI of France in the church o...

9 Chapter 10Figure 10.1 A double portrait of Martin Luther (left) and Philip Melancht...

10 Chapter 11Figure 11.1 A 1525 woodcut depicting the Peasants’ War.Figure 11.2 Henry VIII, King of England (1509–47). 1536 portrait...Figure 11.3 Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, attributed to George Gower,...

1 Cover

2 Series page Also by Alister E. McGrath from Wiley-Blackwell Reformation Thought: An Introduction, 5th edn (2021) Science and Religion: A New Introduction, 3rd edn (2020) Theology: The Basic Readings, 3rd edn (2017) Theology: The Basics, 4th edn (2017) Christian Theology: An Introduction, 6th edn (2016) The Christian Theology Reader, 5th edn (2016) Re-imagining Nature: The Promise of a Christian Natural Theology (2016) Christianity: An Introduction, 3rd edn (2015) Dawkins’ God: From the Selfish Gene to The God Delusion, 2nd edn (2015) Emil Brunner: A Reappraisal (2014) The Intellectual World of C.S. Lewis (2013) Christian History: An Introduction (2013) Historical Theology: An Introduction, 2nd edn (2012) The Open Secret: A New Vision for Natural Theology (2008) The Order of Things: Explorations in Scientific Theology (2006) Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life (2004) Darwinism and the Divine (2011) Luther’s Theology of the Cross: Martin Luther’s Theological Breakthrough, 2nd edn (2011) Darwinism and the Divine (2011) The Blackwell Companion to Protestantism (edited with Darren C. Marks, 2003) The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation, 2nd edn (2003) A Brief History of Heaven (2003) The Future of Christianity (2002) Christian Literature: An Anthropology (edited, 2000) Christian Spirituality: An Introduction (1999) The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought (1995) For a complete list of Alister E. McGrath’s publications from Wiley Blackwell, visit

3 Title page Reformation Thought An Introduction Fifth Edition Alister E. McGrath

4 Copyright

5 Table of Contents

6 Preface to the Fifth Edition

7 How to Use This Book

8 Begin Reading

9 Appendix 1 A Glossary of Theological and Historical Terms

10 Appendix 2 English Translations of Major Primary Sources

11 Appendix 3 Standard Abbreviations of Major Journals and Sources

12 Appendix 4 How to Refer to Major Primary Sources

13 Appendix 5 Referring to the Psalms in the Sixteenth Century

14 Appendix 6 Updating Reformation Bibliographies

15 Appendix 7 Chronology of Political and Intellectual History

16 Notes

17 Index

18 End User License Agreement

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This book is based on a course of lectures I gave to undergraduates at Oxford University during the 1980s and 1990s on the core ideas of the European Reformation of the sixteenth century from about 1500 to 1560. To this day, I still get letters from students who attended those lectures, explaining what they found so exciting about them, and the impact they had on their intellectual development. While the thought of the Reformation remains one of the most fascinating areas of study for historians, it also continues to be of central importance to anyone interested in the history of the Christian church or its religious ideas. This book follows the convention of including mainline Protestant, Catholic, and Anabaptist approaches to the questions under discussion during this “Age of Reformation,” aiming for accuracy in scholarship, clarity in explanation, and charity in dealing with disputed questions.