Böcker av Matthew Rowley

This first volume of the Global Sourcebook in Protestant Political Thought provides a window into the early Protestant world, and the ways in which Protestants wrestled with politics and religion in the wake of the Reformation. This period saw political authorities and church hierarchies challenged and defended by scholars, clerics, and lay people alike. The volume engages the full spectrum of Protestants, with reference to theology, geography, ethnicity, historical importance, socio-economic background and gender. This diversity highlights how Protestants felt pulled towards differing political positions and used several maps to chart their course--conscience, custom, history, ecclesiastical tradition and the laws of God, nature, nation or community. On most important issues, Protestants lined up on opposing sides. Additionally, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox political thought, as well as interactions with Jewish and Muslim texts and thinkers, profoundly influenced different directions taken in the history of Protestant Political Thought. Even as our own time is fraught with deep disagreement and political polarisation, so too was early modern Europe, and we might read it in the anxieties, uncertainties, hopes and expectations that the sources vividly express.This sourcebook will enrich both research and classroom teaching, whether geared towards general political or religious history, or towards more specialized courses on colonialism, warfare, gender, racism or toleration.

The thirst for power changed Puritan theology, often in ways that went unnoticed. The rise and decline of political puritanism afforded unique theological temptations. As victors or victims, many approached cultural confl ict with a deep sense their cause was righteous - and this often blinded them to the ways they victimised others. This lecture focuses on the darker moments of Puritan history and explains how some of their worst actions flowed from good intentions and admirable qualities. I explore nine ways their theology staggered under the influence of politics. We must remember this history and learn from it if we are to avoid toxic and intoxicating mixtures of piety and patriotism.Dr Matthew Rowley is an honorary visiting fellow at the University of Leicester and a Non-Stipendiary Fellow at the Woolf Institute, Cambridge. He is active as a Research Associate at the Cambridge Institute on Religion & International Studies (Clare College). He received his PhD in early modern religious and political history from the University of Leicester. His thesis was entitled 'Godly Violence: Military Providentialism in the Puritan Atlantic World, 1636-1676'. Matthew holds an MDiv and ThM from Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis where he wrote his thesis on theimitation of biblical violence.