McKee Library celebrates and remembers the reformers of the Protestant Reformation this October 31, 2022 on the anniversary of the nailing of Luther's Theses to the All Saints' Church's door. Learn more about the Protestant Reformation via the following library resources.
Research Guide
Review this research guide for information about the history of the Christian church, including the Protestant Reformation.
History of the Christian Church
Streaming Media
Rick Steves: Luther and the Reformation: The 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation
Travel expert Rick Steves sheds light on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation by visiting key sites (including Erfurt, Wittenberg and Rome), and explores the complicated political world of 16th-century Europe, from indulgences to iconoclasts, and from the printing press to the Counter-Reformation. It’s a story of power, rebellion and faith that precipitated change in Europe and Christianity forever, and contributed to the birth of our modern world.
This Changed Everything - Episode 2: Commemorating 500 Years of the Reformation
The second episode in this series explores how the Protestant Reformation continued to spread quickly across Europe. Protestantism continued to splinter as radical reformers championed their own ideas leading to their bloody persecution by Protestants and Catholics alike. At Trent, the Catholic Church conclusively responds to the Reformation.
Zwingli, Calvin, and the Reformed Tradition
Continue your study of the Reformation with a look at several thinkers who were more radical than Martin Luther. Here, you'll explore the ideas of Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, and others who advanced their own theological and political critiques of the church. You'll also consider Henry VIII's quarrel with Rome and the founding of the Church of England.
Books
The European Reformation by Euan Cameron
ISBN: 9780199547852
Publication Date: 2012-05-16
Since its first appearance in 1991, The European Reformation has offered a clear, integrated, and coherent analysis and explanation of how Christianity in Western and Central Europe from Iceland to Hungary, from the Baltic to the Pyrenees splintered into separate Protestant and Catholic identities and movements. Catholic Christianity at the end of the Middle Ages was not at all a uniformly 'decadent' or corrupt institution: it showed clear signs of cultural vigour and inventiveness. However, it was vulnerable to a particular kind of criticism, if ever its claims to mediate the grace of God to believers were challenged. Martin Luther proposed a radically new insight into how God forgives human sin. In this new theological vision, rituals did not 'purify' people; priests did not need to be set apart from the ordinary community; the church needed no longer to be an international body. For a critical 'Reformation moment', this idea caught fire in the spiritual, political, and community life of much of Europe. Lay people seized hold of the instruments of spiritual authority, and transformed religion into something simpler, more local, more rooted in their own community. So were born the many cultures, liturgies, musical traditions and prayer lives of the countries of Protestant Europe. This new edition embraces and responds to developments in scholarship over the past twenty years. Substantially re-written and updated, with both a thorough revision of the text and fully updated references and bibliography, it nevertheless preserves the distinctive features of the original, including its clearly thought-out integration of theological ideas and political cultures, helping to bridge the gap between theological and social history, and the use of helpful charts and tables that made the original so easy to use.
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Reformation by Peter Marshall (Editor)
ISBN: 9780199595488
Publication Date: 2015-03-15
The Reformation was a seismic event in history, whose consequences are still working themselves out in Europe and across the world. The protests against the marketing of indulgences staged by the German monk Martin Luther in 1517 belonged to a long-standing pattern of calls for internal reformand renewal in the Christian Church. But they rapidly took a radical and unexpected turn, engulfing first Germany and then Europe as a whole in furious arguments about how God's will was to be discerned, and how humans were to be "saved".However, these debates did not remain confined to a narrow sphere of theology. They came to reshape politics and international relations; social, cultural, and artistic developments; relations between the sexes; and the patterns and performances of everyday life. They were also the stimulus forChristianity's transformation into a truly global religion, as agents of the Roman Catholic Church sought to compensate for losses in Europe with new conversions in Asia and the Americas.Covering both Protestant and Catholic reform movements, in Europe and across the wider world, this beautifully illustrated volume tells the story of the Reformation from its immediate, explosive beginnings, through to its profound longer-term consequences and legacy for the modern world. The storyis not one of an inevitable triumph of liberty over oppression, enlightenment over ignorance. Rather, it tells how a multitude of rival groups and individuals, with or without the support of political power, strove after visions of 'reform'. And how, in spite of themselves, they laid the foundationsfor the plural and conflicted world we now inhabit.
The Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch
ISBN: 0670032964
Publication Date: 2004-05-03
The Reformation and Counter-Reformation represented the greatest upheaval in Western society since the collapse of the Roman Empire a millennium before. The consequences of those shattering events are still felt today--from the stark divisions between (and within) Catholic and Protestant countries to the Protestant ideology that governs America, the world's only remaining superpower. In this masterful history, Diarmaid MacCulloch conveys the drama, complexity, and continuing relevance of these events. He offers vivid portraits of the most significant individuals--Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Loyola, Henry VIII, and a number of popes--but also conveys why their ideas were so powerful and how the Reformation affected everyday lives. The result is a landmark book that will be the standard work on the Reformation for years to come. The narrative verve of The Reformation as well as its provocative analysis of American culture's debt to the period will ensure the book's wide appeal among history readers.
Bethany Howard, MSIS
The European Reformation by
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Reformation by
The Reformation by
This October McKee Library brings awareness to the widespread tragedy of domestic violence by observing Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Learn more about current trends in research and treatment of domestic violence from these library resources and more. 
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