Quotes from Brad S. Gregory

general relativity and quantum mechanics cannot both be right,

Not only have past processes made us what we are-"modern" or "postmodern" selves, rather than "medieval" or "early modern" selves-but by explaining them we both account for and implicitly justify present realities.

difference in kind between empirical questions characteristic of science and philosophical questions about the fact of existence itself (a distinction lost on those who think that the universe as a whole, or matter-energy, or anything else that exists, might adequately explain its own being).135

Some scholars in recent years have expressed a certain wonderment that "religion is back"; the wonder is rather that it was thought ever to have departed, apart from the "scholarly wish fulfillment" or projections of those who accepted classic theories of modernization and secularization.30

It is frequently alleged that all human meaning, morality, and values can be nothing more than whatever human beings of different times and cultures subjectively and contingently construct for themselves, or at least that we cannot know whether any among them might be more than this.

human rights" cannot serve as a stable, shared basis for morality in a society riven by fundamental disagreement about what "human" means, as is apparent from the abortion debate.

The Calvinist nobles convey their objections by throwing two imperial representatives out the window of Prague Castle in the famous "defenestration of Prague.

In the 1520s, dozens of free imperial cities are the sites of an aggressive, disruptive Reformation movement as unexpected as an Augustinian friar becoming a publishing sensation and celebrity papal critic.7

To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation appears in August, a scathing manifesto in German by a man now convinced of his role in a cosmic battle between God and Satan.

According to the Gospels, Jesus did not tell his listeners to believe whatever they wished to believe as individuals, or to follow him only in their private thoughts and interior sentiments but not in concrete, public, shared human life.

It was not something called "religion" distinguished from the rest of life, but rather all of life lived in a certain way.

A majority of political representatives that convene at the Diet of Speyer in 1529 vote to undo the changes in religion and enforce the Edict of Worms. A minority of five evangelical princes and fourteen cities protest this vote—the origin of the term Protestants.

When a burdened Augustinian friar in Wittenberg in October 1516 lamented in a letter how busy he was, no Reformation was in sight. Only Luther's religious anxiety and his pastoral concern for Christian souls were present. By the summer of 1521, Martin Luther is Europe's most famous man and its all-time bestselling author.

The first hint of what is to come occurs near the end of Luther's obscurity. In September 1517 the dutiful Johann Rhau-Grunenberg publishes a one-page broadsheet by Luther with a boring title: A Disputation against Scholastic Theology. In his broadsheet, Luther ironically lists concise propositions to be argued over—a central practice of scholasticism—in order to criticize scholasticism itself, sort of like a poet writing a poem to criticize poetry.

Through the medium of print, thorny questions intended for debate among authorized experts have been made available for public comment for the first time. But only a tiny percentage of the population can read Latin. Writing about touchy theological issues in German would be something else entirely, which is why it's so alarming when Luther decides to respond to his critics publicly in the vernacular.

Generally speaking, these Christians want basic changes inspired by the gospel to infuse their traditional, broader understanding of "divine law." They want the right to choose their own clergy. They want an end to feudal taxes and fees they consider burdensome and unjust. They want access to shared woods, fields, and streams for their use. And they want the abolition of traditional serfdom and the oppressive conditions it entails.

with competing claims apparent among groups such as the Diggers, Quakers, Ranters, Baptists, Muggletonians, and Fifth Monarchists