Content area
Full text
"Just as in the Time of the Apostles": Uses of History in the Radical Reformation. By Geoffrey Dipple. (Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora Press. 2006. Pp. 324. $30.00 paperback.)
This book examines the ideas about history of different individuals and groups in the Radical Reformation. Since history was such an important element in Reformation discourse and appeals to history were as important to Radical Reformers as to magisterial Reformers, it was important for Reformers to ask the question: where had the true church been throughout most of Christian history? In answering this question the Radicals were led into arguments about history to justify their reforming programs.
Since the pioneering work of Franklin H. Littell, historians have assumed that the Radicals, and especially the Anabaptists, wanted to restore and foliow the model of the primitive church of the apostles in their own day. It was their dedication to a restitution of the primitive church that set them apart from other Reformers and reforming agendas. To this hallowed view Dipple adds a number of important nuances, for all practical purposes reformulating our understanding of the Radicals' view of...