Growing up in a home where church history was important, I felt fairly well-acquainted with the significant figures of the Reformation.  Their names were familiar to me and I had a general  idea of what had been accomplished by such men as Martin Luther, Jan Hus, William Tyndale, and our own Anabaptist heroes: Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, and Menno Simons.  With the simplistic prejudice typical of children, I assumed that of course the Anabaptists were the ones who had finished the Reformation well.   The others had made a brave start but had then gotten derailed with issues such as infant baptism; debating the doctrine of the Trinity; or taking up the sword, thus to perish by it. 

Years later, attempting to acquaint our own children with church history, I found the available information limited and confusing.   Christian writers contradicted one another, with each denomination honoring those who held its particular position; secular writers had little interest in the subject other than its political repercussions.  Books by Anabaptist writers (admittedly few) tended to glorify the part played by our forebears; books by non-Anabaptist writers ignored us or summarized our contribution in a sentence or two.  I began to wonder if a disinterested reporting of the actual events could be found.

The Unquenchable Flame: Discovering the Heart of the Reformation provides just such a resource:  a detailed and yet accessible (not much over 200 pages) overview of main Reformation events and figures.  It is well-researched and told with contagious enthusiasm and an apparent lack of denominational partisanship.  Author Michael Reeves is familiar enough with the subject to summarize skillfully while adding little-known details and dashes of humor.  Beginning with a brief background of the religious climate that sparked the Reformation, Reeves then sketches biographies and doctrinal positions of some of the era’s leading characters.

The longest chapters are devoted to Martin Luther and John Calvin, although pre-Reformers such as John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, Petrarch, and Desiderius Erasmus merit thumbnail sketches in the laying of historical groundwork.  While Luther’s ninety-five theses are often thought of as the dramatic start of the Reformation, he was actually still a loyal Catholic at that point and was merely protesting the misuse of Catholic practices such as relics and indulgences!  His progress through frustration and fear  to realizing the great truth of justification by faith is interspersed with the stories of Ulrich Zwingli, Andreas Carlstadt, and other would-be reformers who did get derailed into forcing “fast-track reform.”

John Calvin, a somewhat misunderstood and maligned French scholar, is featured realistically yet sympathetically.  Reeves says, “Calvin never intended to found something called ‘Calvinism,’ and he hated the word!”  Calvin’s mistrust of Anabaptists seems to have been provoked by the actions of a few radicals; he disliked anyone who gave the Reformation a bad name through hotheaded actions or questionable theology.  His Institutes of the Christian Religion was designed to “look at all things through the spectacles of God’s Word” (p. 118).

On the subject of the Reformation in Britain, Reeves illustrates how politics hampered the spread of true evangelicalism,  alternately sketching the  religious and political figures involved.  The reformations of Scotland and England were both politically driven, yet in different ways; the heart of the true Reformation was doctrine, not merely political or social reform.  The time was ripe for the Puritan attempt to “reform the Reformation” with their passionate love for the Bible and its study and exposition.  You will meet well-known Puritans such as John Bunyan and the lesser-known but intriguing Richard Sibbes, followed by a sobering assessment of what caused the Puritan movement to lose its theological depth.  The book closes with a chapter entitled “Is the Reformation Over?” in which  Reeves concludes that the need for reformation  is as significant as ever: in a culture that tries to use self-esteem and positive thinking to deal with the age-old problem of guilt, the Reformation has “the most sparkling good news!”  Two appendices contain a helpful timeline for the Reformation along with suggestions for further reading (some available online.) 

This book is well-written and an enjoyable read; probably its main attraction for me lay in its realistic portrayal of historical characters with their confusions, errors, and feet of clay as well as shining discoveries of truth.  Reeves’ commentary on the Anabaptists was the longest I have yet seen in a non-Anabaptist publication.  I noted with appreciation that he neither glorified his favorites nor vilified opponents of his cause.  One caveat:  some of the Reformers came of peasant stock and were likely to use coarse language.  If you are reading this book aloud to your family, you will want to edit judiciously.