Church History: Reformation Roots, Episcopal Church

Kings, Queens, Reformers and Immigrants: In this course we will explore the history of the Reformation that swept England in the 16th Century and of the Episcopal Church that emerged in North America among the English colonists and their neighbors. However, since neither the English Reformation nor the Episcopal Church developed in a vacuum, we will also take time to set the English Reformation in context among other reform movements and the Episcopal Church among the other immigrant churches of the Reformation that came to North America. Featured readings will also introduce the fascinating historical figures that made this history happen.

Instructor: Brad Peterson is a historian of Christianity with a special interest in the reformations and renewals of the Western church in the Early Modern Era. His doctoral research at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California, focused on the vision of monastic life that survived among Protestants of the 16th Century. He has a growing interest in the history of the diaconate. He teaches for the Episcopal School for Deacons at Berkeley as well as for CALL. He has led workshops for the Episcopal Church in Minnesota, the Sierra Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and various local churches. He contributed the article on Luther and monasticism in Luther – A Christian between Reforms and Modernity (1517-2017), a project of the Foundation for Religious Sciences John XXIII, Bologna, Italy. Brad also serves on the Commission on Ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of California and on the board of the Association of Episcopal Deacons. He identifies himself as a “vocational layman.”