Beyond Reformation: Body and Legacy

In recent years there have been a variety of studies that focus on the Reformation in its broader cultural contexts and its subsequent impact on modern politics. Reformation culture expanded from a European context and shaped the modern world in a variety of ways. This early Protestant church initiated conflicts of beliefs, which spread to England, Scotland, Ireland and British Atlantic colonies. John Wolffe’s latest essay collection, Protestant-Catholic Conflict from the Reformation to the 21 Century: the Dynamics of Religious Difference (2013), shows how the Reformation influenced the contemporary Christian world, from the late nineteenth century to the present, from Europe to the United States. This book explores the origin and reactivation of religious conflicts by relating historical and religious researches to contemporary concerns. Wolffe tries to present a new insight to the history of Protestant-Catholic conflict, beginning with a quotation from the First Minister of Northern Ireland, Ian Paisley in May 2007, who emphasizes the importance of understanding the history of conflicts in order to know the present and anticipate the future for Northern Ireland. Wolffe’s book not only provides new perspectives, but suggests ways in which old history can be interpreted by new historical events. Jennifer Waldron’s Reformations of the Body: Idolatry, Sacrifice, and Early Modern Theater, explores the uses of the body by Protestants. Waldron begins with the very center of the Protestant-Catholic religious conflict over images, of Protestant iconoclasm against the Catholic idolatry. The Protestant reformers, such as Andreas Karlstadt, Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin insisted on the removal of religious images and prohibition of idolatry. In his Reformation and the Visual Arts, Sergiusz Michalski revisited this religious controversy, from the Byzantine images controversy through to the Eastern Orthodox churches of the reformation, Vol. 19 No. 1, May, 2014, 117–123