Review of BBC 2 programme “Reformation: Europe’s Holy War” with David Starkey

Nov 6, 2017 by Jill

by J S J Marshall:

According to recent reports, up to 200,000 mainly young people gathered recently in the main square of Kiev to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. The Ukrainian president passed a decree recognising the anniversary. Given that Ukraine was hardly an epicentre of the Reformation, the contrast with the UK could not be greater. Here we should I suppose be grateful for a one hour BBC 2 documentary fronted by the irrepressible and entertaining TV historian David Starkey on the Reformation. Like the proverbial curates egg it was “good in parts”. Dr Starkey bounds around various historical sites, there were some clever graphics using printers ink to show the Reformation spreading through print and in the inevitably compressed one hour time frame quite a lot was covered. Though Calvin, Zwingli, the Counter Reformation and indeed the rest of Europe were not even mentioned: the focus was very much pre 1540 on Luther in Germany and Henry VIII, William Tyndale and Thomas More in England.

On the positive side, the programme paid careful attention paid to what Luther’s ideas were and especially how they spread. The importance of sola scriptura and sola fides came across clearly as did the way in which Luther’s early attack on purgatory and influences broadened out into a much more general attack of the whole doctrinal edifice of medieval Catholicism. As Starkey said “the church had forgotten Christ and become fixated on wealth”. Joel Osteen you see had his forerunners! Luther’s central idea was of course the question (as now) of authority: once you accept “sola scriptura” as the cornerstone everything else flows from that. Andrew Pettegree, the author of an exceptional new book on Luther “Brand Luther” was interviewed. To understand Pettegree’s ideas more generally you need to read the book, but the programme managed to convey the gist of Pettegree’s ideas. Luther was not only a superb theologian but also what we might call nowadays a brilliant marketeer. He was not a theologian debating abstract ideas in Latin with other theologians but a man with his finger on the pulse of everyman and everywoman. He boiled down complex theological ideas into short and easy to read pamphlets. The 95 theses in Latin became 20 points in a few pages in German. Rather than two hour sermons he produced snappy, pithy, easy to read pamphlets which were expertly marketed and attractively branded. Luther also was heavily involved in the business process of actually getting his ideas out. Of course all this was guided by the Holy Spirit but nonetheless it is amazing to realise how quickly Luther’s ideas spread. Within 5 years he had produced 60 original books and was the worlds best selling author.

Similarly William Tyndale’s massive contribution to the Reformation in England was recognised. Ironically, the first recorded arrival of the 95 theses in England was as an attachment to a letter sent by the humanist scholar Erasmus to the man who was to become Tyndale’s sworn enemy, Sir Thomas More. Debating ideas in Latin was one thing: Starkey points out the revolutionary impact of the bible in a language that everyone who was literate could read. Uniquely in England – because of the fear of the Lollards – the bible was unavailable in any shape or form in the vernacular. The bible as the programme made clear went from something the ordinary man or woman knew about only as a concept, which could only be accessed or interpreted by their priest, to something that was directly available for all. As Starkey says, thanks to Tyndale, “The bible comes alive”.

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