Reviews for Religion and Rural Revolt

The average rating for Religion and Rural Revolt based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-11-09 00:00:00 Daniel Crew Although published more than thirty years ago, this book is still a definitive work in its field. Written in a lively and often downright conversational tone, wide-ranging yet crammed with delightfully concrete details and anecdotes, The Religion of Protestants offers a wonderful portrait of ecclesiastical life in Elizabethan and Jacobean society. In the process, Collinson demolishes many of our popular misconceptions about that era--that it was the best of times, or that it was the worst of times. It was neither. This was no golden age of Christendom, when everyone went to church and took the Bible seriously. Indeed, we find all the familiar problems of modern society. Power-hungry and amoral rulers? Check. Corrupt church leaders? Check. Incompetent, uneducated, and/or immoral ministers? Check. Widespread ignorance of Scripture and orthodox theology? Check. A populace that seems by and large apathetic about the faith and inconsistent at best in putting into practice? Check. Absence of children and young people from church altogether? Check. Loose sexual mores, with widespread practice and acceptance of premarital sex? Check. However, Collinson's point is not to paint a gloomy, cynical picture. Far from it; one of his main burdens in the book is to demonstrate the relatively robust health of the English church in this period. The bitter invectives of the Puritans, and their certainty that theirs was a church rotten almost to the core, are shown to be just as without foundation as the "good ol' days" mirage. The reality? The English Church in this period was a lot like many churches in many periods--a mixed bag, with a large number of inconsistent professors and practitioners, and a small minority of fully dedicated and zealous believers, whose leadership consisted of a few true saints, a few true villains, and a generous helping of well-intentioned but imperfect and usually undereducated clergy, who were sometimes too strict, sometimes too lax, but on the whole, slowly nurtured their parishioners into greater piety and maturity. The only downside to this book is that it is addressed primarily to other students of the period. Although, as I said, Collinson writes in a lively style that general audiences should easily be able to engage with, he assumes that you know all the basic background facts--the names of the key people and places, in particular. This is a likely to be a bit of an obstacle for most, but not insurmountable.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-07-03 00:00:00 Wayne Troy Learned, with a wealth of information and evidence,, but dense: like wading through treacle.