One book down, and about twenty-five to go...

Today I finally finished reading through The Reformation: A History, a book trying to cover all the events, groups, and philosophies that sprung up roughly from the late fifteenth century to the early eighteenth. The writing style wasn't bad, but given its length it took a fairly large investment of time to work my way through.

The author of the book is not a Christian, and I found that this tended to become somewhat apparent while reading through the book. His talk of religious "innovation" was a bit bizarre, and he also appears to be an adherent of predictablely modern views on the subjects of certain things like sexuality. I suppose that I like reading books advocating a somewhat different viewpoint from my own. Having to weigh the merits of each thought presented tends to keep the brain alive, whereas I find the continual reading of books adhering only to one point of view tends to lull one into a state of mental lethargy.

Interestingly, particularly given my "love" (or lack thereof) for the organ, were some comments on the place of the organ in Reformed churches. The book suggests that the Netherlands were about the only place where organs were not either removed or neglected, and that in the Netherlands they remained occurred in spite of objections from the clergy. Examples are given of Switzerland and Scotland, and I can think of their modern continuation in churches like the Free Church of Scotland which sings a cappella and with which the Canadian Reformed Churches have a reasonably close relationship.