Establishment Eschatology in England's Reformation: Evidence from the Doctrinally-Binding Formularies of Faith, 1534-1571

This book explores the early English Protestants' beliefs about the afterlife and how they arrived at their positions, tracing the progress of eschatological thinking from the Reformation period to the present day. It examines authorized doctrinal works and understudied documents, showing how the reformers navigated past Roman Catholic and radical anabaptist beliefs due to a switch in theological priorities and a fear of the implications of adopting contested views.

Format: Hardback
Length: 178 pages
Publication date: 14 July 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This much-needed book fills a gap in the scholarly literature by exploring what the early English Protestants came to believe about the afterlife and how they arrived at their positions. In surveying the authorized doctrinal works of the English church through the Reformation period, the progress of eschatological thinking is traced from the earliest days of change to the solidification of the formularies that remain binding across the worldwide Anglican Church today.

Fresh observations are made on some well-known texts such as the Books of Common Prayer, Articles of Religion, and official Tudor homilies, and these are complemented by commentary on surprisingly understudied documents of the period, including primers, catechisms, and the paratexts of the early printed English Bibles. The result is a fascinating study of the English reformers' navigation past both Roman Catholic and radical anabaptist beliefs, and it shows that their arrival at a relatively barren destination was due in part to a complete switch in theological priorities and in part to a fear of the implications of formally adopting some of the highly contested views.

Establishment Eschatology will prove to be an important resource for students and scholars of England's early modern religious and cultural history.

Weight: 500g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032305387