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Gregory’s recent book ‘The Unintended Reformation’ . Luther’s writings on
the Jews were no advance on mediaeval anti-Semitism, and in fact were prob-
ably more severe than most other mediaeval authors, so there is no room for a
romanticised picture of the Reformation as a pure form of Christianity. How-
ever, it was at its best movement centred around a simple idea, which offered a
new vision of Europe, based on a strong sense of self-worth and identity that
turned people away from self-absorption towards a love for God and neigh-
bour, gave a vision of social equality which reduced the gap between rich and
poor, a mentality that understood the needs and language of ordinary people,
and that offered a distinctively Christian vision of the world, robust enough to
withstand some of the challenges that faced it from the outside.
These four factors are of course very familiar to us. We too are living in
one of the most individualistic and self-absorbed of human cultures, with an
obsession with self-expression, and self-discovery. Charles Taylor in his magis-
terial work “Sources of the Self” traces the story of how in the modern world,
in contrast to the medieval past, the entire cosmos has become disembedded
from its source in the divine, society has become disembedded from its place
in the cosmos, and individuals have become disembedded from the society in
which they found their place. The result is an extreme individualism, where our
identity is no longer given, but has to be constructed internally. The result of
this is a very competitive form of social life where we have to establish our
place in the world on the basis of our own internal achievements, talents, looks
or self-projection, leading to a great deal of anxiety as to whether we really are
acceptable – not before the judgement of God, but before the much harsher
judgement of Tinder, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
We too are in an age of great inequality between rich and poor, an in-
equality which has led to the migrant crisis, as those in impoverished parts of
the world, often ravaged by warfare and conflict, seek a more prosperous future
in the attractive cities of Western Europe.
In recent years we have also seen a revolt against the elites. Brexit and
the election of Donald Trump in the USA have both been seen as revolts of the
disenfranchised against remote centres of power in Washington and Brussels
that did not seem to relate in any organic or personal way to the needs of or-
dinary people, who often felt left behind in the prosperity that had come to
some, but not to all.

9 Gregory, B. S. (2012). The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized
Society. Cambridge Mass., Belknap Press, Harvard.

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