The Cross Section - RMB Blog

Disclaimer: The Reformation was not a Golden Age.  The Reformers weren't perfect.  Schaeffer is very positive (me too) about the Reformation due to the effect the movement had on theology and intellectual thought.  However, when you look at the history, there was societal upheaval and injustice which the Reformers were associated with.  Schaeffer only mentions it briefly.  The only thing he says about politics is that the seeds of democracy were sown, which he also portrayed as a positive.  However, with the breakdown of the unified church in Europe political freedom certainly suffered.  You can read more about that at   https://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/ . It is important we don't idolize Reformers and assign them a type of infallibility which has been attributed to Popes.  These were men who sought to understand the Bible and obey God's commands in it.  In some ways they gloriously succeeded.  In others they shamefully failed.  A further disclaimer is that many critics

                                              Michelangelo's "Unfinished" Sculptures                                                         Michelangelo's Pieta Introduction I would like to start off discussing Chapter 3 by presenting pictures of some of Michelangelo's sculptures.  This is helpful for two reasons.  First, Schaeffer uses art prominently to explain the course of thought during the Renaissance.  Second, these two pictures display vividly the course itself, at least the points Schaeffer wants to raise. Chapter 3 was much more straightforward than Chapter 2.  That might be because the Renaissance was more simple than the Middle Ages.  Or it may be that the Middle Ages lasted 900 years while the Renaissance lasted only 200 years, roughly 1400-1600.  Or maybe it was because Schaeffer focused on just one aspect of the era to push forward his narrative about the progression of thought in Western Culture. In the big picture, the Renaissance was all about e