In Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, Matthew Barrett undertakes a sweeping look at a wide variety of sixteenth-century sources in the hopes of showing how the Reformers maintained an intellectual indebtedness to the broader Christian tradition that preceded them. Rightly rejecting the assumed and all too often held belief that the Protestant Reformers rejected in total the theology of the Medieval era, Reformation as Renewal seeks to demonstrate that the threads of continuity between the theological convictions of those two eras are much stronger than many people might otherwise think. Barrett’s efforts to unveil the important theological links that exist between the various streams of Reformation thought and the scholastic writers before them are not driven by mere academic curiosity or philosophical speculation. At the heart of his desired redress is the author’s larger, pastoral aim of helping Christians today, both in the renewal of their own faith traditions and in reconnecting with an orthodox heritage that extends back to the faith of the apostles.
Following in the line of some of the best correctives to the historiography of Reformation studies from the twentieth century, Matthew Barrett, Professor of Christian Theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, helps readers to identify mistaken assumptions about the nature of any supposed Reformation schism. The author resituates the idea of a so-called Protestant division while also recasting earlier arguments from noted historians like Heiko Oberman, David Steinmetz, and Richard Muller in a continuing effort to push back against the incorrect notion that the Reformers made a wholesale break from the Medieval tradition. Instead, Barrett stresses that any attempts to unhitch the Reformers from their scholastic forebearers are overblown and historically untenable.
As an overall theme, Barrett wants to make clear that “the Reformers did not think the Reformation was primarily a revolution for new, modern ideas, but a retrieval and renewal of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church” (p. 3). This stated thesis allows Barrett to contend that the Protestant Reformers were not interested in theological innovation. Rather their primary goal was a restoration and recovery of a certain type of “catholicity” that was not rooted in a strict succession of ordination but was theological in nature, extending back through Medieval and Patristic thinkers to the teachings of the apostles. Therefore, according to Barrett, any attempts by the Reformers to purify the late-Medieval Catholic Church did not include the complete destruction of Rome’s thinking. Instead, the Reformers jettisoned only certain aspects of Medieval theology, especially later tainted forms, according to Barrett. In the end, the Reformers sought to adorn their new Reformation churches with beliefs and practices that were not only founded on an apostolic taproot but also included earlier forms of the scholastic tradition, most notably those associated with Thomas Aquinas.
The book is structured around four main sections. Part 1 is an in-depth look at the Medieval world that helped give birth to the Reformation. Here, Barrett repositions Medieval thinking in such a way as to move beyond a flattened or singular reading of spiritual, mystical, and scholastic sources. As you continue further in the book, readers will likely recognize Barrett’s end game regarding his pursuit of such nuance. The author hopes to establish a certain historical reading, perhaps even a portrait of what he deems a true or normative form of Medieval thought. This effort, alongside Barrett’s rejection of an arbitrary divide between the Medieval and Early Modern worlds, is designed to help readers see that the Reformation bridge into Modernity was deeply grounded in a particular type of scholastic thinking.
Part 2 looks mostly at the German Reformation, especially situating Martin Luther as a late-Medieval man in the vein of Oberman. Once again, Barrett tells the riveting story of the early days of the Reformation while also showing how emerging Protestant doctrines that related to everything from salvation to the Lord ’s Supper had deep moorings in Medieval thought. Even the divisive matter of justification, which drove much of Martin Luther’s theology, according to Barrett, “showed signs of debt to the scholastic and monastic traditions” (p. 391). In essence, the author contends that although figures like Luther established a Reformational language for theology that was biblical in nature, this new articulation remained both conversant and in agreement with certain voices from the scholastic tradition.
In part 3, Barrett explores other forms of Reformation in the Swiss Confederation, the British Isles, and even among several radical groups whose dissent grieved the Magisterial Reformers in their renewal efforts. Much of the focus in this section is on how the Reformed tradition that emanated from places like Zurich, Strasbourg, or Geneva had deep theological ties to classical catholic orthodoxy through things like revised church liturgies, soteriological focuses on Covenant, and theological definitions for the Trinity and the imago Dei in humanity.
Part 4 is a strikingly brief section, less than forty pages in length, outlining key places where the Catholic or counter-Reformation tapped into the apostolic faith and noting where it deviated from it. Here, Barrett contends that while the theology that emanated from Trent intended to shield the Nicene faith from heresy, its use of nominalist ideas derived from William Ockham and Gabriel Biel, for instance, left the Tridentine Catholic Church associated with the later forms of scholasticism that the author rejects. Through this repositioning, the author subsequently establishes the Protestant Reformers, not Rome, as the successors of both Aquinas and Augustine.
The prose of Reformation as Renewal is crisp and engaging. The expansive yet purposefully selective use of primary source quotations helps to push toward the book’s thesis. But perhaps more importantly, these quotations allow the Reformers to speak from their own unique historical contexts. Focusing on the Reformers’ own words helps Barrett to bring the otherwise distant and disparate world of the sixteenth century closer to the reader’s own. And this just may be where the book shines brightest.
When it comes to critiquing Reformation as Renewal, two of the project’s greatest strengths ironically raise a pair of problems. First, though Barrett’s focus on the continuity that existed between the Medieval scholastic thinkers and the Protestant Reformers is a welcomed corrective, the author swings the pendulum too far in his assessment. In short, the discontinuity that helped facilitate the Protestant Reformers’ unique breaks from Rome gets veiled by Barrett’s approach. This over-corrective appears connected with the author’s desire to move beyond caricatures and polemical distortions of Aquinas, whom he calls a “sounder scholastic,” in the tradition of Martin Bucer, Peter Martyr Vermigli, and others. Such motivation appears connected to the author’s efforts to make Thomistic philosophy more palatable to modern evangelical audiences. Of course, the danger in such an approach is that history can quickly become apologetic. For example, to make Renaissance humanism not appear as a reactionary movement to scholasticism, the author must apply a reductionistic definition for humanism, framing the movement as merely cultural in nature rather than one rejecting both the style and substance of scholasticism (pp. 288–90). To provide welcomed theological nuance in one area, Barrett minimizes the complexities of other areas, all in pursuit of what he sees as a normative reading of the sources.
Second, the voluminous nature of this work which helps elucidate the wondrous and volatile world of the Reformation also gives rise to another shortcoming. Readers may quickly find the book divided in its overall focus, ultimately leaving the project with too many aims. As a work of historical theology, the book does help track the development of Christian doctrines from the Patristic, through the Medieval, and into the Reformation era. But again, there is also a specific argument that Barrett is making regarding Medieval theology, especially of a particular reading of Thomas Aquinas, and in connection with the idea of a classical orthodox theism that anchors the text. In fact, this ostensible reclamation of Aquinas drives the book’s over-stressed focus on the continuity between the Reformation and Medieval eras. Those two efforts are subsequently seated in a larger body of prose that tells the story of the Reformation as a work of history. This tripartite focus generates the cumbersome size of the text. However, this divided focus also regrettably obscures the unique contributions Barrett is trying to make on all three fronts.
Despite these issues, Matthew Barrett’s Reformation as Renewal serves as a useful introductory primer to those uninitiated to the Protestant Reformers’ connections with the Medieval world, just as it also serves as a helpful resource for audiences with more contextual familiarity regarding the complex world of the Reformation. Moreover, this book is a helpful tool that will challenge modern believers to ponder more deeply the connections that their doctrine and practices have with Christians who have gone before them. It also cleverly encourages Christians to consider their own role in maintaining the faith given once for all.
Stephen B. Eccher
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Wake Forest, NC, USA