Great Restoration: The Religious Radicals of the 16th and 17th Centuries

Rating:
Summary: What are you waiting for? Buy it!
Review: At the risk of overstatement, this is the best book I have read in quite some while. Meic Peirse offers a panoramic survey of (protestant inspired) religious radicalism in the 16th and 17th centuries. Part one surveys the continental scene including figures such as the radical Lutheran Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, what Peirse labels `evangelical Anabaptists' such as Melchior Hoffmann and Menno Simmons, the communist groups like the Hutterites through to the infamous Münster debacle. In the second part of the book Peirse crosses the channel to focus on English radicalism in the 17th century focusses first on the rise of conventicles and ecclesiologically separtist congregations and the rise of both the Particular and General Baptists. Time and again Pierse shows that it was the issue of the Lord's Supper and Infant Baptism that motivated previously loyal Anglicans and to separatism and how the spectre of Münster's Anabaptism hindered the radical's early history. After surveying the more orthodox movements Peirse surveys the more libertine movements such as the Familists, Quakers and Seekers and other miscellaneous groups such as the Grindletonians and Diggers. Finally, Peirse offer a brief history of radical emigrants to America.

Overall, this book is highly recommended especially for all students of Church history or theology and to those who adhere to religious groups for which these radicals are antecedents. The book, while a serious academic (although readable) introduction, is peppered with witty asides. Given this willingness to add personal asides I found the conclusion a little disappointing. I would have liked to see a summary of what we can learn from these often inspiring movement(s) and how this impacts on our contemporary ecclesiologies and Church-State relationships. This notwithstanding this is a book that is definitely recommended.