“Thus it is time to affirm once again, with due appreciation for historical contexts, that theological ideas matter, and that theology may be a motor for historical events, and not just driven by them. To think otherwise is an anachronistic ‘Alice in Wonderland’ view of the Reformation in which theology is only the linguistic cloak for the Reformers’ ‘real’ motivations. Indeed, it was precisely theology that enabled the reform impulse effectively to cross social and political polarizations. The modern academic ideal of bracketing personal commitment in order to provide comparative and alternative views for discussion or on the supposition that all is relative or that content is discovered through dialogue was alien to the minds of most of our examples.”

Carter Lindberg, The Reformation Theologians: An Introduction to Theology in the Early Modern Period