Not Solely Sola Scriptura, or, a Rejoinder to Brad S. Gregory's The Unintended Reformation

In The Unintended Reformation, Brad Gregory answers a number of questions regarding the doctrinal diversity and hermeneutical pluralism that resulted from the fissiparous tendency noticeable among the Protestants, particularly thanks to their emphasis on sola scriptura. This essay offers the outlines of a more substantial and sophisticated narrative of the birth of modernity from the anvils of Reformation doctrinal wrangling. Instead of focusing solely on sola scriptura, the essay considers other interpretive supplements: (1) the Conciliarist vs. Curialist conflict and the corresponding issue of power struggle within church and state; (2) the discovery of the “racial and religious” other and the resultant issues endemic to Spanish colonialism, which had the unintended effect of vitiating the fabric of Catholicism's credibility; (3) the significance of immigration and refugee movements as an interpretive heuristc for both the Reformation period and the contemporary world.