Protestants: The Radicals Who Made the Modern World. Alec Ryrie

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       Introduction

      In 1524, Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote a blistering attack on a fanatical new cult that was spreading across northern Europe like a plague. These people claim to be preaching the Bible’s pure message, he said, but look at how they actually use the Bible, twisting it to mean whatever they want:

      They are like young men who love a girl so immoderately that they imagine they see their beloved wherever they turn, or, a much better example, like two combatants who, in the heat of a quarrel, turn whatever is at hand into a missile, whether it be a jug or a dish.¹

      This book is about that cult and how it became one of the most creative and disruptive movements in human history. At present, around one-eighth of the human race belongs to it, and it has decisively shaped the world in which the other seven-eighths live. My aim is to convince you that we cannot understand the modern age without understanding the dynamic history of Protestant Christianity.