According to Esther Chung-Kim, the poor needed care during the Reformation but providing that care was challenging given the circumstances of the period. Plagues, harsh winters, crop failures, economic downturns, and wars all created difficulties for those already living on the brink of destitution. It was these “disruptions in the social fabric” that contributed to “rethinking social welfare and communal identity” (3) by several religious leaders. Thus, the purpose of Chung-Kim's book is to examine “the role of religious leaders in the development of poor relief reforms during the Reformation to provide a greater understanding of how religious ideals and rationales fueled the reformations of church and society” (1). In doing so, Chung-Kim provides a refreshing take on the institutionalization of poor relief during the Reformation, one that shows a variety of methods and approaches as unique as the period in question.
Chung-Kim fully admits that a “single study cannot cover all areas of social, religious, theological, economic, and political history of the Reformation era,” but by examining the contributions of certain leaders, we can better understand the connection “between social reform and theological reform” (24). The first three chapters demonstrate this connection through an analysis of several Reformation leaders. Chapter one begins with Martin Luther and Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt. For Luther and Karlstadt, critique of current practices was the catalyst, and both promoted new laws and measures for care of the poor. The two had different approaches, however: Luther prompted believers to empathize with the poor while Karlstadt sought to change the behavior of those providing relief. Chapter two turns to Johannes Bugenhagen, a diplomat of poor relief. Bugenhagen relied on Luther's reforms but made practical adaptations, including an analysis of poverty and the causes behind it. This allowed Bugenhagen to link poverty to unfair wages, underemployment issues, and economic injustices and to recognize that economic conditions exacerbated poverty. Heinrich Bullinger, a preacher for poverty prevention (chapter three), saw poor relief as a pastoral matter. Using scripture as a theological basis for informing one's flock about poor relief, Bullinger attacked behaviors (drinking, gambling, and “gorging”) that led to begging and insisted that a change in morals was first necessary for a change in poor relief.
Chapters four through seven change pace slightly to consider how the many plagues, famines, and environmental challenges of the period led to a rise in the number of refugees, which in turn created a new problem for Reformation leaders: how to care for poor foreigners. With little outside support, refugees often turned inward and focused on their community; they created relief funds for refugees that were separate from those of the long-standing communities. This was the case for Calvinist, Swiss Brethren, Dutch Mennonite, and Hutterite religious refugees. Each group of refugees had a unique and different approach. The Swiss Brethren (chapter five) established a social welfare program to alleviate the refugee burden through the French Fund financed primarily by donations from wealthy foreigners. The Dutch Mennonites (chapter six), the most grassroots of the groups, supported their members with ad hoc gifts and donations and through poor relief funds. Finally, the Hutterites (chapter seven) followed the example of the Swiss Brethren and the Dutch Mennonites, but did so in a more “regimented fashion”; they “resorted to a complete community of goods, or total sharing” (188) of communal property: Gütergemeinschaft. Of the three groups, the Hutterites found the most success and nearly eliminated begging from their communities.
Chung-Kim's book is a wonderful examination of the centralization of poor relief by various reformers during the Reformation. Luther, Karlstadt, Bugenhagen, and Bullinger all met the challenges of poverty in unique ways, and each was, as Chung-Kim celebrates in her conclusion, a visionary who created innovative programs for poor relief. The most pioneering programs, however, were those created by refugee groups and leaders; groups such as the Hutterites created innovative programs to care for their own, independent from the long-standing community.
By highlighting the many ways to confront poor relief, this work magnificently tackles some recent historiographical trends: “while some historians have seen religious reformers as the impetus for reforming poor relief, others have emphasized the continuity with earlier poor relief originating before the Reformation to portray such earlier poor relief reform as paving the way for later reforms” (9). Chung-Kim moves away from a strict bifurcation of the Reformation and the modern response to poor relief in order to allow more interplay between the two. Chung-Kim also argues that “Protestant reformers were not the first to promote centralized distribution of poor relief or anti-begging ordinances”; rather, Reformation leaders “became the public champions of poor relief reform by making it an essential part of their reform movement” (31). While I agree that the Reformation response to poor relief was unique, I would also argue that most attempts at poor relief in Europe are rooted in the biblical mandate to care for the poor, regardless of periodization. As Chung-Kim states in relation to Calvin's arguments, “to ignore the problem of poverty would be contradictory to the Christian calling” (153). This held true in the Middle Ages as it did during the Reformation, and just as Chung-Kim seeks to create less of a bifurcation between the Reformation and the modern era, so too should there be less of one between the Middle Ages and the Reformation.
This small critique does not take away from the fact that Esther Chung-Kim's Economics of Faith is a worthwhile and engaging read. She links economic transformations during the sixteenth century to vicissitudes in perceptions of faith, particularly by Reformation leaders and refugee communities. Through the support of these reformers, communal responsibility “replaced poverty as a religious ideal so that the truly poor would be cared for and able-bodied persons given work” (14). This simple but important phrase provides the summary for a truly remarkable monograph.
