Religious Identity in an Early Reformation Community

Download or read book Religious Identity in an Early Reformation Community written by Michele Zelinsky Hanson and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debate over the usefulness of the confessionalization thesis, as a way of understanding the Reformation's impact on later Sixteenth-Century Europe, has distracted attention from the experiences of people in the early years of reform. Based on interrogations recorded in Augshurg, Germany, in the first half of the sixteenth century, the compelling portraits of individual believers presented in this book provide a rare insight into the lives of ordinary people during one of the most controversial periods in religious history. Speaking about their faith and encounters with others in their own words, they rephrase the debate in terms of contemporary experiences. The resulting study challenges previous assumptions about the importance of belief in constructing religious identities and reveals the potential for accommodation amidst conflict.