Why were so many religious images and objects broken and damaged in the course of the Reformation? Margaret Aston's magisterial new book charts the conflicting imperatives of destruction and rebuilding throughout the English Reformation from the desecration of images, rails and screens to bells, organs and stained glass windows. She explores the motivations of those who smashed images of the crucifixion in stained glass windows and who pulled down crosses and defaced symbols of the Trinity. She shows that destruction was part of a methodology of religious revolution designed to change people as well as places and to forge in the long term new generations of new believers. Beyond blanked walls and whited windows were beliefs and minds impregnated by new modes of religious learning. Idol-breaking with its emphasis on the treacheries of images fundamentally transformed not only Anglican ways of worship but also of seeing, hearing and remembering.

This work is a series of sermons produced by Emeritus Professor Hans Mol, and based on Biblical texts, the Commentaries of John Calvin on these texts, and on Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. Mol is Australia's pre-eminent scholar in the sociology of religion, particularly in Australia. His 1971 volume, Religion in Australia, was the first attempt at statistical analysis of religion in Australia, which was also internationally significant. Parallel to Mol's interest in the sociology of religion has been his interest in Calvin. Indeed the theological basis of his life has been as a Calvinist. Here in this volume he brings both of these interests together. His sermons, preached over the years in Canberra, seek to apply the teachings of Calvin to a world-view in which the scientific study of religion, and indeed the wider study of sociology, are of central significance. In these sermons, he succeeds considerably in this. The volume is a substantial contribution to scholarship, in that the combination of these two factors has only rarely been attempted. Thus, the volume has originality and will have enduring value. It is especially appropriate that it should be published at this time, in preparation for the 500th Anniversary of Calvin's birth (1509-2009).