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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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Alister McGrath not only presents an excellent survey of Protestantism from the Reformation up to now; the book was also a good, enjoyable read. Like an exciting novel, it was hard to put down. That is the good side. The other side is that I found Alister McGrath's estimate for the future of Protestantism regretable, even if accurate. As A practising Roman Catholic, I frequently pray for the reunification of our fractured Christianity. If Alister McGrath's estimate is right, That just ain't going to happen. One more thing. Alister McGrath seems to find Protestantism as a root cause of western secularism. If one views the Reformatrion as a consequence of a historical Catholic and Protestant disfunction, then one has to understand that secularism is rooted in that disfunction, and Protestantism shouldn't shoulder the blame alone.

Alister McGrath's latest book has been a long time in the making, and the end result certainly shows the care and meticulous attention he spent on the project. Christianity's Dangerous Idea is not only valuable as a history and examination of Protestantism, it is an especially good book on what it means to be a Protestant and how that meaning has shifted significantly since the movement's beginning.

McGrath divides his book into three large sections. The first deals with the history of Protestantism from the Reformation to 19th century, the end of which marked a major watershed. Because of the complexity of the era and the broad goals which McGrath has set out for his book, his treatment is not exhaustive but is very good nonetheless. The second section deals in some greater detail with the major issues within Protestantism, both historically and today, such as the theories of the sacrament, the organization of Protestant churches, the distinctive traits of Protestantism, and--most interestingly for me--Protestantism's impact on culture, the arts, and science.

The final third of the book is perhaps the most important, and examines Protestantism from about 1900 onward. The beginning of the 20th century marks the beginning of the Pentacostal movement, which has grown from a meeting of students and faculty in Kansas to a worldwide movement of perhaps half a billion people. McGrath devotes a great deal of time to examining what has made Pentacostalism so successful--research which I imagine was difficult but rewarding. This section also discusses Protestantism in the "global south" and Asia, as well as the movement's future, which is far from certain.

The book's greatest strength is its straightforward, easily comprehensible writing--one of McGrath's trademarks--and its clear organization. Rarely have I seen something as complex as the Reformation dealt with so clearly and evenhandedly. McGrath deftly handles difficult issues, presenting all sides with pros and cons as simply as possible.

I have already mentioned the book's only major weakness, which is posed by the limits of time and space. No single book can handle such a broad, difficult subject exhaustively. But within the limits set by his subject, McGrath has admirably crafted a detailed, thoughtful book on one of the most important religious movements in history.

Recommended.

What is the most basic, fundamental, revolutionary idea to come out of the Protestant Reformation? Alistair McGrath contends that it is the idea that individuals can read and decide on their own, without a centralized authority, what the bible means. Tracing this foundational and revolutionary idea from the Renaissance to the present McGrath shows how this idea is both an amazing blessing and a Pandora's box not only for the development of most of Christianity, but also for the Western world as a whole. Written in an understandable style, but documented and researched with superb scholarship this is a must read for everyone who takes the label "Christian." That being said this is a book of history, not theology, so take what Dr. McGrath writes as a broad picture of the development of Christianity rather than a blueprint for theological thinking. Whether you are a Fundamentalist, a Liberal, an Evangelical, a Pentecostal, Eastern Orthodox, or a Catholic you will be challenged to reexamine your presuppositions of your own traditions and methods for reading the bible.

To cover five centuries of a movement as significant and world changing as the Reformation, or as McGrath terms it, the Protestant movement, is ambitious and challenging. He proposes that this movement is based primarily around what he terms "dangerous idea" that each individual Christian has the right and power to read the Word of God for himself and interpret it. He pins this on Luther at the outset, and then this flows to Calvin, Zwingli, et al, collectively striking out at the Roman Catholic church, but each has their own disagreements with how much protest (or reform) is necessary. Luther the smallest, and the others more.

What this scheme does not recognize is that first of all, Luther would never go along with this theme. He would propose what is at the center of the Bible is Christ crucified for sinners. The other reformers disagree, as did and does the Roman Catholic faith. For Calvin it is the sovereignty of God and for Zwingli it was the freedom of the human will. This more matches up with the Reformation history to this day, rather than the idea of each individual believing what they will without any authoritative/interpretative source. This changes everything about viewing this historical narrative. It also shows the bias of the author, having previously suggested "the genesis of doctrine", rather than a reform of doctrine back to its first state in a book by that title. McGrath thus views his historical narrative of the movement in this biased position, which helps him to conclude as his does.

However, having made this critique, this work is still well done and fascinating. It does expose the wide diversity which opened up when Luther was able to challenge the authority of the papacy and Catholic tradition. When a confessional body such as this does not want to be accountable to clear passages from the Word of God but be influenced by other factors as well, this does call for reform, not rebellion. What history shows is that Luther was about reform, not rebellion, and he demanded proof from the Scripture as well as councils, popes, tradition, etc. Importantly he shows the radical disconnect with the historic faith by the Radical Reformation branch.

This is the very point to interject another criticism of this work. It does not take seriously at many places these other authorities placed beside Scripture, e.g. reason, tradition, experience, emotions. One can clearly see McGrath's bias as being Calvinistic and thus reason oriented. If one views the Bible through the magisterial lens of human intelligence (and McGrath is certainly intelligent), then Calvin's theological system will make sense. If one views it through experience and emotions, a Pentecostal/Charismatic centered theology will run the show. If one runs Scripture through human decision, then a Zwinglian/Armininian theology will do the job. However, if one lets Scripture alone run the show, one will have a Lutheran theology. It allows tensions to remain which challenge human reason, experience and emotions. But isn't this the real test: does God as Creator not stand above all these human sin-controlled (at least infected) attributes?

Further comments in this light would have shown this to be the case with the predecessor to Luther a century earlier, John Hus. He at the Council of Constance experienced much the same treatment as Luther, yet was failed on the pope's promises of safe travel to and from the council. For a good, dramatic video of this, see the DVD on this. More lengthly, scholarly treatment is done by Matthew Spinka's "John Hus at the Council of Constance." It can be shown that much of the same doctrinal reform that Luther insisted upon was already there for Hus as well.

Further, he has bought too much in the old Warneck view that Luther was not at all interested in mission. This is soundly refuted in an excellent book on the topic by Ingemar Oberg "Luther and World Mission."

McGrath is well researched on most matters and views his topic from many angles, including politics, economy, arts and culture, etc. At times he seems to present more of this historical narrative from his English/Anglican background, but who wouldn't be guilty of such tilting?

This is good read done by an excellent author who researches his topic thoroughly, and is worth engaging with using discretion. His points are fair about the future, suggesting the trajectories of such popular movements as Developing World explosion of Christianity of a new sort, and Pentecostalism are tentative, as history as shown itself to shift suddenly and unexpectedly.

After 500 years, the Protestant movement is still the world's most vital and unpredictable branch of Christianity, Oxford scholar Alister McGrath argues persuasively in a book that's essential reading for anyone trying to track the rapidly changing course of faith and culture.

The basic idea behind this book is daring: trying to analyze for general readers five centuries of a diverse global movement that now boasts thousands of variations. But, McGrath already has demonstrated his intellectual courage, if not his inerrancy. In his earlier book, "The Twilight of Atheism," he argued basically that disbelief seems to be vanishing from the world stage - just in time for a vigorous rebirth of atheism and skepticism over the past year or two.

That doesn't mean McGrath was wrong - or even that he is prone to misjudgment. On the contrary, it means that he's daring to grapple with the hottest issues in contemporary religious life.

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).

In "Christianity's Dangerous Idea," Alister McGrath attempts to come to grips with the fundamental question of defining Protestantism. Is Protestantism a set of ideas? Is it the product of an historical event? Is it simply a reaction against medieval Catholicism? Does it even have a core set of beliefs? Is Protestantism in any sense a single phenomenon?

In arriving at his answer, McGrath engages in a broad survey of Protestantism. In three broad sections, McGrath examines the breadth of the Protestant experience. In the first section he looks at Protestant history; he examines its multiple origins in Germany and Switzerland, the emergence of the "Reformed" wing of Protestantism, and the eventual fissiparous "evolution" of many strands of Protestantism in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the second section, McGrath looks at Protestantism's contribution to culture; he examines the effect of Protestantism's insistence on recognizing the Bible as the sole, or maybe merely the highest, authority, the working out of the logic of the "priesthood of all believers, its relations to the arts and sciences, and its "mutations" into American evangelicalism. He finds evidence that Protestantism uniquely led to - or reinforced - the development of natural science and democracy, but also secularism and atheism. See e.g, p. 374, 429. In the third section McGrath looks at Protestantism's future, and finds great potential for Protestantism in the "consumerist" model of American evangelicalism and the re-introduction of the sacred into the mundane represented by Pentecostalism.

McGrath's answer to the question "what is Protestantism" is that Protestantism is a "method" by which believers constantly examine their assumptions against the Bible and are willing to jettison or modify their beliefs without regard to the conclusions reached by prior generations. As such, McGrath feels, Protestantism is a uniquely democratic engine of adaptation, mutation and evolution. McGrath is quite explicit in his use of biological metaphors, particularly evolutionary metaphors, to describe Protestantism. (See e.g., p. 466 ("The capacity to adapt is the birthright of Protestantism."); p. 463 ("One pattern that emerges from the development of Protestantism is what seems to be an endless cycle of birth, maturing, aging and death, leading to renewal and reformulation."); p. 400 ("Protestantism is not a static entity, but a living entity whose identity mutates over time. Yet that mutation leads to a variety of outcomes - among which some flourish and others wither.").)

As an attorney who has represented many local Protestant churches in their efforts to disaffiliate from their denominations - and as a Catholic for whom such a notion would be unthinkable if it involved churches in my faith tradition - I am on record - (literally, I made this argument before California's Fifth District Court of Appeals in California-Nevada Annual Conf. of the United Methodist Methodist Church v. St. Luke's United Methodist United Methodist Church (2004) 121 Cal.App.4th 754, 767 [17 Cal. Rptr. 3d 442] in 2005) - as having the highest admiration for the radical democratic energy of my Protestant brethren. These are people who will literally rip themselves out of the safety and comfort of their traditions when they feel that they cannot compromise their biblically-informed conscience. In America today, one of the most significant and, yet, unnoticed religious events is the implosion of the traditional mainline Protestant denominations as large numbers of basically "conservative" local churches walk away from their "liberal" denominations. I think that it is safe to say that while Catholics might walk individually from their church, such an organized, communal departure from tradition would be largely unthinkable (albeit I realize that it has happened on very rare occasions.)

So, I don't have problems with McGrath's overall thesis, but although I found the book worthwhile as a survey of Protestantism and gained many useful insights into Protestantism, I found myself irritated with the book concerning specific areas and disappointed with the book as a whole.

I was disappointed with the book because I thought that it was about "private interpretation." The flyleaf and title implied that "Christianity's Dangerous Idea" was the idea of "private interpretation," and there are many times when McGrath says as much. However, McGrath really does not follow up on this notion to any great extent by developing the idea of "private interpretation" and what it means and how it differs from other kinds of, presumably, non-private interpretation. For the most part, McGrath simply assumes that everyone knows and agrees that Protestants engage in "private interpretation" and that we all know what it means.

Well, I don't, and the reason I bought the book was because I wanted to know how "private interpretation" differed from what I presumably do as a Catholic as a matter of practice and not as a slogan. I felt all I got from McGrath was more slogan and very little application.

McGrath doesn't explicitly define private interpretation. In fact, the index does not have an entry for "private interpretation" which seems like a strange omission for a book about "private interpretation," (although "basketball" does get an entry in the index. However on page 208 he offers what I think is his definition, which goes as follows"

"In its formative phase, Protestantism was characterized by a belief - a radical, liberating, yet dangerous belief - that scripture is clear enough for ordinary Christians to understand and apply without the need for a classical education, philosophical or theological expertise, clerical guidance or ecclesiastical tradition, in the confident expectation that difficult passages will illuminated by clearer ones."

I think that this is what is meant by my Protestant friends when they talk about "private interpretation."

The problem from my point of view, and the reason I wanted help from McGrath, is that while I hear these words, I don't see them in actual practice. What I see are appeals to having to read the text in the original Greek and Hebrew, as well as appeals to traditional interpretations by people who deny that they are making any such appeal. On the whole, I find myself concluding that there is a whole lot of cognitive dissonance going on in the minds of people who think that they are engaging in "private interpretation." I am willing to be disabused of this notion, which was my reason for turning to this book.

What I learned, however, was that not only was McGrath of no help, his book compounds my sense that "private interpretation" is based on cognitive dissonance. Thus, McGrath points out that early Protestantism almost immediately realized that the average person could not be trusted to interpret the Bible correctly based on nothing but the Bible without coming to some wildly wrong conclusion and so early Reformers quickly developed an industry of commentaries, lectionaries, translations, catechisms, marginal notes and sermons to make sure that individual Protestants came to the right conclusion. See e.g., p. 202. Luther started cranking out catechisms as soon as he realized that Zwingli was not on the same page as he was over the "Lord's supper." Likewise, the Reformed wing developed its own method of pragmatically limiting "private interpretation," as McGrath observes concerning the Geneva Bible, which was hotly contested among English Protestants because of its marginal notes: "The marginal notes of the Geneva Bible provided its readers with clear explanations of the meanings of important and yet potentially obscure biblical texts." p. 135; See also p. 355 ("We have already noted the importance of the Geneva Bible (1560) to help its readers understand what it euphemistically termed the "hard places."). How is this different from the Catholic practice of publishing bibles with notes in order to explain difficult passages, other than the fact that the Catholic Church doesn't teach its followers that the Bible is "perspicuous" when it provides the "proper" interpretation of scripture? See p. 203.

McGrath does acknowledge the existence of "authority structures" as being necessary to any human enterprise and that Protestantism does have its authority structures outside of the Bible which control the Protestant's understanding of the Bible, but he doesn't explain what effect these authority structures has on "private interpretation" or how in a "private interpretation" either fits in his definition or works as a practical matter.

McGrath also defines private interpretation as the right of the believer to interpret the bible for himself. p. 209 ("...every Protestant has the right to interpret the Bible...")), but again this seems to be a slogan rather than a reality. For example, if one is attentive to the book, although McGrath never explicitly identifies it as happening, one can see a whole lot of "imposing" of Protestantism and particular interpretations of the Bible going on. Thus, McGrath acknowledges that apart from the Anabaptists, the magisterial reformers were supported by a state actor that imposed the reformers interpretation on the population, e.g., Luther in Wittenberg and Zwingli in Zurich. This imposition was not all love and light; Zwingle had one of his former closest associates, Felix Manz drowned in the River Limmat for refusing to recant his belief that there was no biblical warrant for infant baptism. p. 71. Likewise, the religious wars did not result in a victory for "private interpretation," rather they resulted in the local prince choosing the interpretation for his domain. Similarly, the English monarchy in its Reformation didn't permit "private interpretation" - the interpretation permitted to English citizens was that which the King permitted. Even the Reformed wing got into the act of imposing the proper interpretation when it had the power such as banning the eating of plum pudding on Christmas Day. p. 142.

But even after the separation of church and state, where is this "private interpretation" as a practical matter? If a member of a denomination dissents from the core interpretation of the denomination, then they can be "excommunicated." Even in non-denominational churches, presumably if an individual in a Trinitarian church decides to opt for a "private interpretation" that Jesus was a creature, presumably that person would be shown the door.

McGrath recognizes that "private interpretation" means that there is no teaching that cannot be made Protestant, so he decides to make a virtue of a necessity and decide that this diversity is a really good thing and the strength of Protestantism. As the book progressed, I started to wonder if the "dangerous idea was "the priesthood of all believers" and the fact that Protestantism disclaimed the existence of a "spiritual elite." p. 233. But, again, this is an idea that is honored in the breach by several of the main iterations of Protestantism, such as the Reformed wing, which taught that the 5th Commandment's injunction to love and honor one's father and mother applied to one's pastor. p. 293.

The "dangerous idea" seems to be the formless, protean essence of Protestantism. According to McGrath, historically, there was not a single Protestantism; Lutheranism, Calvinism and Anabaptism had separate origins and distinctive and contradictory beliefs. What held the Protestantisms together was the fact that they were not Catholic. (p. 132 ("Historically, Protestantism has always needed an "other," an external threat or enemy ,imagined or real, to hold itself together as a movement."

McGrath goes so far as to question whether essential Protestant distinctive such as Sola Fide and the inerrancy of the Bible may not be required doctrines in Protestantism. See p. 250 - 251. McGrath notes that the Protestant commitment to reassessing doctrines in the light of social development has led to "sea changes" in interpretation. For example, early Protestants held to a belief that the "great commission" of Matthew 28:19 to take the Gospel to the ends of the Earth had ended with the apostles. p. 176, 225. This understanding was reversed in the Nineteenth Century. Similarly, early Protetants held to "cessationism" which taught that the gifts of the Holy Spirit ended with the Apostles, but, again, in the 20th Century, with the rise of Pentecostalism, this doctrine too has been reversed.

So, it isn't clear that Protestantism has any particular core of doctrine. Even the adherence to the Trinity is questioned by "oneness Pentecostals." p. 434. Can we say even that the adherence to the Bible only is a core Protestant idea in light of the fact that, according to McGrath, the rise of science was a principally Protestant undertaking engaged in by people who wanted to interpret the "book of words" (the Bible) through the "book of works (nature) as Calvin proposed. p. 373 - 375. Ultimately, what is left of Protestantism, according to McGrath is a commitment to the idea that "all interpretations of the Bible must be regarded as provisional, not final." p. 377. This leaves Protestantism with nothing but a method and the core of Protestantism is the tautology that ends the book, "We have seen that Protestantism possesses a unique and innate capacity for innovation, renewal and reform based on its own internal resources. The future of Protestantism lies precisely in Protestantism being what Protestantism actually is."

Whatever that happens to be.

I found the book irritating in a host of areas, most of which involve mischaracterizing Catholicism. For example, McGrath depicts the medieval Catholic Church as corrupt, declining and stagnant for pages before tossing in a paragraph that, of course, this is not an accurate description of the actual circumstances of the period, rather Luther extrapolated from his local situation and "as historians have rightly pointed out, the evidence simply does not sustain Luther's picture of the medieval church as totally doctrinally corrupt or out of touch with the New Testament - a fact that helps us make sense of the mixed response to his demands for reform." p. 58. The backwardness of Catholicism is an annoying trope that I find in most books on the Reformation, and while McGrath is to be complimented for providing some balance, this comes only after nearly 50 pages of handing out the stock picture of the decadent Catholic Church that most people have.

McGrath also depicts Luther as being forced into schism. McGrath asserts that Pope Leo "dithered" from 1517 until 1520 when it found it politically expedient to excommunicate Luther. See p. 49. But he follows this up on the next page in a separate chapter by explaining that in the interim there had been formal disputations between Luther and Catholic representatives.

Likewise, McGrath constantly interjects throughout his narrative the claim that Protestantism was "democratic," even though the idea of democracy as the preferred structure of society was nowhere in play. Moreover, McGrath's narrative actually demonstrates - notwithstanding his slogans and cheerleading to the contrary - that Protestantism's immediate political effect was to consolidate and centralize power in the hands of undemocratic institutions, e.g., German princes. Prior to the Reformation, German princes could not dictate to their subjects what religion they would follow, but after the Reformation, those princes saw their power expand substantially as they became the controllers of the churches and could exercise the power to determine the religion of their subjects. McGrath notes the role of "nationalism" in the rise of Protestantism but gives that factor nowhere near the role in the success of Protestantism than he gives the putative decadence of Catholicism. McGrath notes in passing that Lutheranism became a territorial religion, and that Korea's movement toward Presbyterianism was strongly nationalistic, but spends pages on the Western Schism. See pp. 18 - 20; 87; 447 - 449. Apparently, a scandal from a previous century was much more important than a movement that played right into the hands of the emergence of centralizing states.

McGrath makes two factual mistakes that caused me to grind my teeth. The first was his statement that "the Latin term "missa" literally means "a service." p. 260. It doesn't; it literally means "depart" or "go" and comes from the last words of the Mass, i.e., "ite, missa est" - "Go, it is the dismissal." In fact, we can see "missa" in the word "dismissal", e.g., "dis -MISSA -l."

The second was McGrath's statement that Catholicism recognized seven sacraments including "the mass." p. 259. The "Mass" is not a sacrament; the eucharist, the host, the blessed sacrament, the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ, is the sacrament. The Mass is simply the public prayer that surrounds the sacrament.

These are small points, but weirdly basic for someone writing about historical Protestantism with its implicit compare and contrast to Catholicism. They also make me somewhat reluctant to quote McGrath without first independently verifying his facts.

McGrath also reaches for the moon in claiming that Protestantism was an essential precursor to the rise of natural science by its insistence on reading the Bible literally and not figuratively. Basically, McGrath argues that the habit of reading the Bible "naturally" rather than as though it were a puzzle hiding a deeper meaning was translated into the natural sciences by Protestants who looked at nature "naturally." This is an interesting argument, and one that I will check out, but I think that Etienne Gilson in From Aristotle to Darwin & Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species and Evolution makes a better argument, namely that modern natural science eliminated the "Final Cause" - the "why" question - from its consideration, and that it did so in order to prevent scientists from being distracted by issues that had nothing to do with the practical issues of how things work.

After working my way through this review, I find myself realizing that I learned a lot about the subject and got more grist for the mill of contemplation. I was going to give this book three stars, but, on further reflection, I give it four stars subject to the understanding that it really isn't about "private interpretation."

There have been a number of well-written reviews for this book already so I will not write a full-blown in-depth review.

Rather, let me just note that McGrath has taken on a large topic (Protestantism) and done about as well as one can in organizing the information and presenting it in a cogent and readable fashion.

McGrath assumes that you already know a lot about history in general and about the last 500 years or so in particular. That is to be expected. If he had to explain every last detail this book it would have to have been 3,000 pages rather than the already hefty 478 pages of text plus 50+ pages of endnotes. If you are a person that has heard of the Huguenots, but is not sure if they are a native group in South Africa or a religious group in France, this book is not for you.

This is not a complete history, either. It is an overview. If you are looking for a complete history of a particular denomination, you are likely to be disappointed. Some denominations are completely overlooked (African Methodist Episcopal), some are largely overlooked (Southern Baptists) and McGrath does not even address the thornier issue of whether the Mormons are Protestant, even though they are obviously came from the Protestant tradition.

McGrath does a good job of tying the Protestant Reformation into the larger Renaissance movements of the day. He makes strong arguments for Protestantism as a supporter for democratic ideals and capitalism. His comments about the lessening of tensions between Protestantism and Catholicism due to the stronger common threat of Islam and especially secularism were well-stated and dead on correct, in my mind.

Alister McGrath has written a very informative and thought-provoking history of Protestantism from its beginnings in the 16th Century to the present. Although McGrath is considered to be an evangelical anglican, he writes from a scholarly and objective view, showing Protestantism "warts and all." Although not a trained theologian, I found the book to be readable, accessible and interesting. A major theme of the book is the historical development resulting from the Protestant ideas of Sola Scriptura, and the priesthood of all believers. Without an official or authoritative body to mediate disputes over the interpretation of Scripture, McGrath shows how these basic Protestant ideals have led to a diversity of doctrinal outcomes in areas such as the nature of the sacraments, baptism, church government, spiritual gifts, the role of missions, and the role of women in ministry. On a critical note, he seems to analyze some of the current disputes in the mainline denominations over sexual orientation in the same terms, whereas, most evangelicals would see the clear weight of scripture as condemning the recent developments in the liberal wing of the Episcopal Church and other denominations. On a similar note, McGrath seems to downplay the viability of detailed church confessions such as the Westminster Confession, and he seems to feel that once we go beyond the very basic ideas in the Apostle's and Nicene Creeds, we are in the Never-Neverland of chaotic Protestant disputes that can not be resolved without a magesterial body to mediate these issues. McGrath does not really offer any meaningful solutions to the problems of Protestantism that he identifies. The final portion of the book focuses on the often overlooked statistics about the current demographics of Protestantism, most notably the explosive global growth of Pentecostelism and the shift of its center of gravity to the southern hemisphere. The data suggests that Protestantism in its modern form is not dying but alive and well, and most of all unpredictable. Overall, I enjoyed the book. It challenged my thinking and opened my eyes to a number of issues I had not considered.

McGrath has written a few books that I considered as contenders for my favorite theological books including 'Christian Theology' . This particular work stands out because it is for me his most engaging, and it gave me a much deeper understanding of the history and structure of my own Protestant tradition.

The book has three sections. By far the longest is its first which is a history of the Protestant movement from its inception until modern times. McGrath shines here as his years of writing about justification and Reformation history come through combined with a gripping writing style. Then McGrath details the current state of Protestantism, from Evangelicalism, to the shift of the church to the 3rd World, to the Pentecostal revival. Finally he puts forth some issues and potential solutions Protestantism will be facing in the near future.

It seems to me that the Protestant movement stands at something of an important crossroads at the moment, and it is by understanding who and what we are through resources like this that we will have the proper awareness to proceed forward in the best way.

Review Originally Posted At
newwaystheology.blogspot.com