The Unintended Reformation"

Brad GregoryUniversity of Notre Dame
Mark A. NollUniversity of Notre Dame
Rachel Fulton BrownUniversity of Chicago
Co-sponsored by the Department of History and The Early Modern Workshop
In his latest book, The Unintended Reformation, Brad Gregory identifies the unintended consequences of the Protestant Reformation and traces how it has shaped the modern condition. He argues that hyperpluralism, an absence of a shared sense of the common good, and the triumph of consumerism are each the long-term effects of a distinctive religious movement that marked the end of a period of history in which Christianity provided a framework for a shared intellectual, social, and moral life in the West.
Brad Gregory is professor of history and the Dorothy G. Griffin collegiate chair at the University of Notre Dame. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University (1996) and was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows (1994-96). Before joining the faculty at Notre Dame in 2003, Gregory taught at Stanford University, where he received early tenure in 2001. Gregory has two degrees in philosophy as well, both earned at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. Gregory’s research focuses on Christianity in the Reformation era, the long-term effects of the Reformation, secularization in early modern and modern Western history, and methodology in the study of religion. He most recently published The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society.
Mark A. Noll is the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. Noll’s research concerns mostly the history of Christianity in the United States and Canada. His recent books include Protestantism–A Very Short Introduction and The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith.
Rachel Fulton Brown is Associate Professor of Medieval History at the University of Chicago. Her research and teaching focus on the intellectual and cultural history of Europe in the Middle Ages, with particular emphasis on the history of Christianity and monasticism in the Latin West. She is author of From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary 800-1200, History in the Comic Mode: Medieval Communities and the Matter of Person, and Mary and the Art of Prayer: The Hours of the Virgin in Medieval Christian Life and Thought.