SOURCE: "The Reformation," in How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, Crossway Books, 1976, pp. 79-104.

In the following essay, Schaeffer contends that the Reformation was both a rejection of the increasing humanism of the Roman Catholic Church and a stimulus to new developments in the arts.

While the men of the Renaissance wrestled with the problem of what could give unity to life and specifically what universal could give meaning to life and to morals, another great movement, the Reformation, was emerging in the north of Europe. This was the reaction…against the distortions which had gradually appeared in both a religious and a secular form. The High Renaissance in the south and the Reformation in the north must always be considered side by side. They dealt with the same basic problems, but they gave completely opposite answers and brought forth...