Andrew Meredith’s Reviews > The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church > Status Update
Andrew Meredith
is 33% done
"Kristeller’s definition of humanism captures its essence: a return to classical antiquity with full confidence that its ancient perspective contained the seeds by which present society could be reborn."
"If classical antiquity contained the remedy, then dedication to the retrieval of classical sources—Greek and Roman—was essential. Ad fontes—back to the source—became the theme song of Renaissance humanism."
— Mar 28, 2026 10:35AM
"If classical antiquity contained the remedy, then dedication to the retrieval of classical sources—Greek and Roman—was essential. Ad fontes—back to the source—became the theme song of Renaissance humanism."
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Andrew’s Previous Updates
Andrew Meredith
is 83% done
"Liberation from the papacy was not substituted with a captivity to the individual but the freedom to interpret the Scriptures with the church catholic (universal), according to the analogy of faith."
— Apr 17, 2026 11:25AM
Andrew Meredith
is 75% done
In Calvin’s own words, “When I ponder the intended use of churches, somehow or other it seems to me unworthy of their holiness for them to take on images other than those living and symbolical ones which the Lord has consecrated by his Word.”
— Apr 16, 2026 09:21AM
Andrew Meredith
is 70% done
"If the contest were to be determined by patristic authority, the tide of victory—to put it very modestly—would turn to our side." - John Calvin
— Apr 14, 2026 07:09AM
Andrew Meredith
is 65% done
The Anabaptists were an eclectic group of schismatics; some were unbelievably violent, some were seditious, most were separatist, some heretical, etc.
In short, they were everything Rome accused the Reformers of being. They threatened to legitimize every inculpation, and the Reformers strenuously opposed them for it.
— Apr 10, 2026 12:22PM
In short, they were everything Rome accused the Reformers of being. They threatened to legitimize every inculpation, and the Reformers strenuously opposed them for it.
Andrew Meredith
is 60% done
"The Reformers would not recognize the modern impulse to keep doctrine at bay until the Scriptures are understood."
— Apr 08, 2026 12:45PM
Andrew Meredith
is 52% done
"I testify on my part that I regard Zwingli as un-Christian, with all his teachings for he holds and teaches no part of the Christian faith rightly. He is seven times worse than when he was a papist."—Martin Luther
— Apr 05, 2026 11:47AM
Andrew Meredith
is 45% done
A long, long chapter on Luther beginning with his early education and ending with the Diet of Worms.
Barrett is doing well defending his main thesis: Luther never wanted to leave Rome. He wanted to REFORM it from the crazy levels of corruption it had reached in his day.
— Mar 31, 2026 06:51PM
Barrett is doing well defending his main thesis: Luther never wanted to leave Rome. He wanted to REFORM it from the crazy levels of corruption it had reached in his day.
Andrew Meredith
is 37% done
The popular notion that the Reformers were anti-tradition is a gross mischaracterization. "No less than Rome, the Reformers stood for a tradition and were adamant they stood within the catholic tradition. Their conflict with the papacy was not a choice between Scripture and tradition, but a conflict between their view of tradition and the papacy’s view of tradition."
— Mar 30, 2026 06:43PM
Andrew Meredith
is 29% done
Comparing and coordinating the theologies of Duns Scotus, Ockham, and Biel, Barrett traces the decay of scholasticism that Luther reacted so strongly against.
— Mar 27, 2026 09:16AM
Andrew Meredith
is 23% done
And now it's time for a brief section with Barrett extolling the wonders of Platonism...
This is where I get skeptical of "The Great Tradition."
— Mar 26, 2026 07:35AM
This is where I get skeptical of "The Great Tradition."
Humanism was not a school of thought or a philosophy per say. It was an "attitude." An attitude specifically toward the Greco-Roman world as a kind of golden age to be retrieved through learning.
"While Erasmus limited himself to the Greek and Latin, Tyndale took a step further by translating the Greek into the vernacular. Why take such a risk that could end in death? Erasmus did not take the risk. Tyndale did because he was convinced that translating the Scriptures into the vernacular was synonymous with making the evangelical view of grace accessible in the vernacular. Erasmus may have been discontent with abuses in the church of Rome, but he was not so discontent with the church’s theology to put his own life on the line like Tyndale. Erasmus may have inspired other humanist endeavors, but Tyndale inspired a reformation. The difference was between philosophia Christi and solus Christus."
"The irony was not lost on humanists and Reformers alike: the method of the humanists—ad fontes—resulted in the excavation of not only texts but a theology they could not agree with."