Conflict and war were common during the Reformation era. Throughout the sixteenth century, rising religious and political tensions led to frequent conflict and culminated in the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) that devastated much of Germany and killed one-third of its population. Some of the warfare, as in central and southern Europe, was between Christians and Muslims. Other warfare, in central and northwestern Europe, was confessional warfare between Catholics and Protestants. Religion was not the only cause of war during the period. Revolts, territorial ambitions, and the beginnings of the contemporary nation-state system and international order that emerged after the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) also fueled the trauma and tragedy of war. In many ways, the world of the Reformers and Protestant Reformation was a violent world, and it was within such a sociopolitical framework that the Reformers and their followers lived, worked, and died. This book introduces the teachings of the Protestant Reformers on war and peace, in their context, before offering relevant primary source readings.

This first volume of A Global Sourcebook in Protestant Political Thought provides a window into the early Protestant world, and the ways in which Protestants wrestled with politics and religion in the wake of the Reformation. This period saw political authorities and church hierarchies challenged and defended by scholars, clerics, and laypeople alike. The volume engages the full spectrum of Protestants, with reference to theology, geography, ethnicity, historical importance, socio-economic background, and gender. This diversity highlights how Protestants felt pulled towards differing political positions and used several maps to chart their course – conscience, custom, history, ecclesiastical tradition, and the laws of God, nature, nation, or community. On most important issues, Protestants lined up on opposing sides. Additionally, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox political thought, as well as interactions with Jewish and Muslim texts and thinkers, profoundly influenced different directions taken in the history of Protestant political thought. Even as our own time is fraught with deep disagreement and political polarisation, so too was early modern Europe, and we might read it in the anxieties, uncertainties, hopes, and expectations that the sources vividly express. This sourcebook will enrich both research and classroom teaching in politics, theology, and history, whether geared towards general political or religious history, or towards more specialised courses on colonialism, warfare, gender, race or religious diversity.

This informed Christian response to more than one hundred common questions regarding the ethics of war demonstrates the viability of just-war reasoning in responding to contemporary geopolitical challenges.

One of the most important thinkers on just war and pacifism describes, analyzes, and evaluates various patterns of thought and practice in Western Christian history.

The Story of Civilization, Volume VI: A history of European civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300–1564. This is the sixth volume of the classic, Pulitzer Prize–winning series. An engrossing volume on the European Reformation by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Will Durant The sixth volume of Durant’s acclaimed Story of Civilization, The Reformation chronicles the history of European civilization from 1300 to 1564. In this masterful work, you will encounter: -The schism within the Roman Catholic Church and the formation of early Protestantism -The theology of Martin Luther and his societal impact -The rise of Humanism and the life of Desiderius Erasmus -The royal monarchies of England, France, Spain, and Italy -The imperial conquests of Christopher Columbus and the discovery of the Americas -The Bohemian revolution of Eastern Europe, the unification of Russia, and the rise of the Ottoman Empire -The teachings of John Calvin -The Counter-Reformation of the 16th century

Through a wide-ranging and close analysis of archival sources, this book re-evaluates both the role of royal authority and of local agency in the French religious wars in the lead up to the Edict of Nantes of 1598. Drawing on extensive research, it provides a new perspective on the political, religious, social and cultural history of the conflict.

Service, the Path to Justice is a timely antidote to cynicism and despair in a world of growing inequality and injustice. The authors argue that serving others is the basis for human survival because only through service to others will injustice be eradicated and peace prevail. Redekop and Beitzel focus on the concept of voluntary service—public participation motivated by the value of loving one’s neighbour as oneself—as morally worthy social action in which the doer and the recipient of the action benefit equally. This approach to social action counteracts the inequality and injustice inherent in society’s structures. The development and practice of self- giving in Mennonite, Brethren, and Quaker denominations is analyzed, bringing sociological, ethical, and applied perspectives to the examination. The practice of voluntary service is immediately available to everyone, and the win-win benefits flowing from this approach to social action promote sustained public participation for social action. This is an enlightening and optimistic view of the power of an individual to bring kindness, fairness, and peace to the world.