was the reformation a ghastly mistake?

Christianity: a History continues to be challenging. Tonight, Anne Widdecombe, a high-ranking politician who converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism, presented an account of the Reformation. She talked of Luther and his 95 theses, but concentrated on the impact of the English reformation - and, for contrast, the French Huegenots and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.

I was fascinated by the way that much of the presentation was (as befits a politician) on geo-politics, rather than theology. And how she drew the lasting legacy of those events, not in the theology of protestant, reformed, evangelical churches, but in the bizarre effigy-burning of Lewes in Sussex, and, worse, in the strife in Northern Ireland. It is salutary indeed to contemplate afresh how this potential high-spot of Christian piety - this celebration of justification by faith - is in fact so totally mired in political scheming, and grotesque, extreme violence.

According to my "that was then, this is now" theology, it won't do to try to place today's values onto yesterday. But you have to consider how much of the reformation was about understanding Christian truth, and how much was about ruthless politics. And whether it's good to celebrate it today, or to move on. [Aside: one of my formative moments was an overnight train trip from Rome to Geneva, aged 21. Rome, for all its beauty is profoundly depressing because it is full of so much controlling superstition, spiritual darkness. Geneva, by contrast, the home of Calvin's version of reformed thought, seemed a city of truth, rationality, and grace. Or so it seemed at the time.]

Perhaps it's deep in our make-up that we need an enemy, a means to unite the community by being opposed to something or someone. Christian Europe was divided upon itself, and Protestant and Catholic were at each other's throats. As Europe has drifted towards a secular world-view, the things uniting Christians have begun to seem stronger than the internecine divisions. And with an "enemy" like Islam, who needs to hate Papists?

That's almost certainly simplistic. But in an obscure little post-evangelical corner where there are mainstream evangelicals, and emergents, and a love-hate relationship with Driscoll and all his works, it make you pause for thought.