BOOK REVIEW:
The Reformation for Armchair Theologians. By Glenn S. Sunshine. Illustrations by Ron Hill. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005. viii + 247 pp. (paperback). ISBN 978-0664228156. 

Glenn S. Sunshine is Associate Professor of History at Central Connecticut University, New Britain, Connecticut. His book, The Reformation for Armchair Theologians, grew out of a series of church newsletter articles at First Presbyterian Church in Hartford and the author’s teaching an adult education class in church history. Sunshine sheds his light on the most important events in the classical Protestant Reformation to introduce church members to the historical setting for the work of Martin Luther (1483-1546), Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531), the Catholic Reform, and John Calvin (1509-1564). It amplifies the historical setting of the work of the main reformers from “the eve of the Reformation” in the fourteenth century and carries through the aftermath of their work, to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the end of the Thirty Years’ War. In thirteen chapters of about twenty pages each, we have an accessible account of the period. The writing is intended for lay people, but it is a very nice reminder to any one of us, who are heirs of the protestant reform, of this whole movement that gave birth to the character of our faith, church, and ethos.

As a fine historian, Sunshine sets the key leaders in the flow of historical movement. The author devotes two chapters each to Luther and Calvin. He weaves accounts of other lesser but important figures into the unfolding of the history in the remainder of the book. His account of Luther mentions and elaborates briefly his conversion and call to the priesthood, the Indulgence Controversy and Ninety-five Theses (1517), the Leipzig Debate (1519), and the Diet of Worms (1521), then concentrates on Luther’s emphases in the church’s teaching about salvation, the authority of the Bible, church tradition, and sacraments. He follows the influence of the reformer’s teaching among the princes and the reaction of the Holy Roman Empire, his response to the Zwickau prophets and Thomas Münzer (c. 1490-1525) and Luther’s debate with Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1469-1536), the humanist reformer, on grace and free will.

The author offers a brief biographical account of John Calvin’s education in Paris, information on his becoming a Protestant, and his ministry in Geneva, beginning with his call to become doctor of the church in Geneva in 1536, then his dismissal and sojourn in Strasburg (1538-1541), and his return to Geneva, where he lead the way toward developing the shape and form of the Reformed church in Geneva. In a second step, Sunshine explains how Calvin’s development of this form of church worship, organization, and government came to spread abroad, in eastern and western Europe and North America. In helpful sections, the author helps the reader understand the famous and troubling reputation of Calvin in the matters of predestination and the heresy trial of Michael Servetus.

Having set the main stage for the protestant reformation, the author gives the rest of his book to its developments and consequences in Spain and the Netherlands, in England and Scotland, in France. He concludes by summarizing the course and outcome of the Thirty Years’ War and points to the transition to the modern era.

The book fits well within the scope of the publisher’s series, which includes theological biographies of Augustine (354-430), Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-74), Luther, and Calvin, John Wesley (1707-88), and Karl Barth (1886-1968). Questions at the end of each chapter suggest ways for a study group or class to discuss the material together. This is a useful introductory guide to the principal figures and main historical movement of the Reformation. 

Charles Raynal
Director of Advanced Studies
Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA 

PUBLISHED IN THE BULLETIN OF THE INSTITUTE FOR REFORMED THEOLOGY, SPRING/SUMMER 2007, VOL. 7, #1.