In a church rocked by controversies over vernacular Scripture, iconoclasm, and the power of clergy, men and women arose in protest. Today we call this protest movement the Protestant Reformation. At its heart, the Reformation was a great revival of the church centered on the recovery of biblical truth and the gospel of free grace. This movement continues to instruct and inspire believers even into the present day.

Reformation 500 celebrates the Reformation and probes the ways it has shaped our world for the better. With essays from an array of disciplines, this book explores the impact of the Reformation across a wide range of human experience. Literature, education, visual art, culture, politics, music, theology, church life, and Baptist history all provide prisms through which the Reformation legacy is viewed. From Augustine to Zwingli, historical figures like Luther, Calvin, Barth, Bonhoeffer, Rembrandt, Bach, Bunyan, and Wycliffe all find their way into this amazing 500-year story. From Anglicans to Baptists, scientists to poets, Reformation 500 weaves these many historical threads into a modern-day tapestry.

Ray Van Neste is Professor of Biblical Studies and Director of the R.C. Ryan Center for Biblical Studies at Union University in Jackson, TN. 

J. Michael Garrett is Assistant Director of the R.C. Ryan Center for Biblical Studies at Union University in Jackson, TN.

Chapter 1 - “Reform our church all out of joint”: The Lollard Movement and the Medieval Origins of the Reformation
Chapter 2 - Anabaptist Kinship Revisited: Baptist Origins and Identity
Chapter 3 - Importance of the Reformation for Baptists
Chapter 4 - The Sacred Cross: Martin Luther and the Marks of the True Church
Chapter 5 - “An introduction through which we are prepared for faith”: Augustine, Calvin, and the Centrality of the Church & Scripture
Chapter 6 - “Comfortable Words”: Reforming the Lord’s Supper
Chapter 7 - The Preached Word of God and the English Reformation
Chapter 8 - From Private and Personal to Public and Political: Reformation Theology & English Literature
Chapter 9 - The Religious Dissenter in Victorian Fiction: Reformation Themes in 19th Century English Novels
Chapter 10 - Songs of the Reformation: Leading the Church in Worship
Chapter 11 - Rembrandt van Rijn: Painter of the Reformation
Chapter 12 - Martin Luther and the Making of History: His Historiographical Legacy
Chapter 13 - Calling and the Academy: Martin Luther and American Higher Education
Chapter 14 - “Luther’s Error”?: Martin Luther and the Question of Political Quietism
Chapter 15 - From Copernicus to Newton: The Flowering of Modern Science and the Reformation
Chapter 16 - Heritage and Hope: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Quest for the ‘Real Luther’
Chapter 17 - Christianity After Judaizing: The Cultural Impact of the Reformation