Meic Pearse: The Age of Reason

The Baker History of the Church, Vol. 5,
ISBN 0-8010-1278-3, 2006

The Age of Reason describes the church history from the Wars of Religion to the French Revolution, , covering the time period from 1570 to 1789.

Highly recommended - an eye-opener.

This is not an edifying book, on the contrary: it's mainly the history of fights between and within churches and denominations. The book makes very clear that the age of reason was not an age of Christian tolerance and it is honest about it - there is no covering up of the "not so nice" behavior of Christians of all creeds during that time. And that makes it, in my view, a very important book to read: to get an honest look without at where one's own denomination (whichever it is) is coming from.

I own quite some books on church history, but none of them did treat this era as thoroughly and impartially as this one, most have a tendency to treat only the nicer or the more heroic parts (whichever those are in their view).

The book is written more from an historical than from a theological point of view. Not only historical but also theological developments are described historically - there is no right or wrong creed.

This history of the church has a feature rarely found in church histories: it is not written from a denominational viewpoint, at least it was not possible for a (critical) reader to find out which that could be. The positive and problematic aspects of the denominations during that time are shown impartially - which can make it difficult but also eye-opening for people who like to see theology and history exclusively or mainly from the viewpoint of their own denomination.