The common stereotype is that the Reformers separated public and private morality and were indifferent to the ethical import of social structures and institutions. Beyond Charity calls this understanding into question by providing an analysis of the historical situation and translations of primary documents. The medieval point of view, formed by piety of achievement, idealized poverty -- either as voluntary renunciation or as almsgiving. In either case the material effects on actual poverty were slight, and the religious endorsement of poverty precluded urban efforts to address this growing problem. The Reformers impelled by their theology, developed and passed new legislative structures for addressing social welfare needs. The key to their undertakings was the conviction that social ethics is the continuation of community worship. In the first half, this book sets forth the medieval context, details Luther's critique of the profit economy of his day, and analyzes the actual social welfare programs that issued from his theology. The second half provides translations of selected legislative programs from the church orders of the Reformation

Charity and Lay Piety in Reformation London, 1500-1620 explores how the English Protestant Reformation was a reflection of genuine popular piety, as opposed to a political necessity imposed by the country's rulers. Through the prism of charity and lay piety, as expressed in the wills and testaments taken from selected London parishes, it charts the shifting religious ideas about salvation and the nature and causes of poverty in early modern London and England over a 120 year period. Studying the evolution of lay piety through the long stretch of the period 1500 to 1620, Claire Schen unites pre-Reformation England with that which followed, helping us understand how 'Reformations' or a 'Long Reformation' happened in London.

In this reappraisal of charity in the biblical tradition, Anderson argues that the poor constituted the privileged place where Jews and Christians met God. He shows how charity affirms the goodness of the created order; the world was created through charity and therefore rewards it.

The role of religion was of paramount importance in the change of attitudes and approaches to health care and charity which took place in the centuries following the Council of Trent. Health Care and Poor Relief in Counter-Reformation Europe, examines the effects of the Counter-Reformation on health care and poor relief in Southern Catholic Europe in the period between 1540 and 1700. As well as a comprehensive introduction discussing issues of the nature of the Catholic or Counter-Reformation and the welfare provisions of the period, Health Care and Poor Relief sets the period in its social, economic, religious and ideological context. The book draws on the practices in different localities in Southern Europe, ranging from the Republic of Venice and the Kingdom of Naples to Germany and Austria. These examples establish how and why a revitalised and strenghtened post-Tridentine Catholic church managed to reshape and reinvigorate welfare provisions in Southern Europe.

Chronicling the history of the Daughters of Charity through the seventeenth century, this study examines how the community's existence outside of convents helped to change the nature of women's religious communities and the early modern Catholic church. This book places the Daughters of Charity within the context of early modern poor relief in France, showing how they played a critical role in shaping the system, and also how they were shaped by it.

Sacred Charity reconstructs the lay religious culture of Spanish Catholics in the late medieval and early modern period. Flynn shows how religious values shaped the nature of aid to the poor in the period before the creation of the modern welfare state.

Spiritual ideals in early modern Europe shaped political and social poor relief structures just as much as rationalization and effective administration colored ecclesiastical charity efforts. Thomas Max Safley examines the roles of the community in responding to poverty, whatever the context: religious, political, or private (the elite).

The story of former Brigham Young University quarterback Joe Evans' conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

By the time of the Calvinist Reformation, the cities of Holland had established a very long tradition of social provision for the poor in the civic community. Calvinists however intended to care for their own church members, who were by definition 'within the household of faith', through the deaconate, a confessional relief agency. This book examines the relationship between municipal and ecclesiastical relief agencies in the six chief cities of Holland - Dordrecht, Haarlem, Delft, Leiden, Amsterdam and Gouda - from the public establishment of the Reformed Church in 1572 to the aftermath of the Synod of Dort. The author argues that the conflict between charitable organizations reveal competing conceptions of Christian community that came to the fore as a result of the Dutch Reformation. This is the first comparative study of poor relief in Holland, which contributes to our understanding of the Reformation throughout Europe.