John Wyclif: Myth & Reality
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The book needs less detailed background material.
Although the book provides detailed and accurate background material, it could have been condensed. As it is, it takes a long time of reading before getting into the actual biographical facts of Wyclif's life. It perhaps could be less academic. On the plus side, it does provide a balanced and more accurate portrayal of John Wyclif.
March 28, 2011
no "hero worship" here
A great deal of information contemporary to wycliff's time and environment, which I wasn't really interested in, though I suppose necessary to the development of the book. Seems not to think highly of him either as a person or a "reformer."
March 4, 2011
Deeply disappointing.
I can see why this title is in the bargain bin. What a deeply disappointing piece of revisionism! The author, an academic medievalist, spends more of her efforts writing about medieval universities than about her subject, and essentially wants to reduce a very real doctrinal struggle to a mix of academic jealously and Church-State politics. She is also hostile to her subject, as one can see from this quote about Wyclif's condemnations of simony, apostasy and blasphemy in the medieval Western church: "These three books are indicators of an extreme state of mind, a distress which was influencing Wyclif's sense of proportion, exacerbating the effects upon his equilibrium of the public condemnation of his views about the Eucharist. John Hus later paid him an undeserved compliment, when he claimed that 'there are three kinds of heresy according to the most famous doctors, simony, blasphemy and apostasy', for the grouping of this trio seems to be special to Wyclif and not a commonplace at all." She uses all the usual tools of revisionism, including arguing against the historical record, selectivity in use of resources (she ignores the testimony of the Poor Preachers) and ignoring inconvenient details that work against her thesis. Her conclusion? "He had some interesting ideas." I suppose that is why the Roman hierarchy dug up his bones and burned them -- his interesting ideas. CB is doing Christians a disservice by not donating the excess copies to some local composting operation, where the rotting paper might do some good fertilizing lilies.
November 5, 2010
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