This is a great book and invaluable in educating its readers in what the Reformed faith was all about. It starts off with describing the state of worship in the late medieval era just before the Reformation. It documents the early humanist critique of Catholic worship by Erasmus and Lefèvre, etc., showing both the accuracy of that criticism, its effects, and its limitations. It then shows the difference between Luther and Karlstadt over the issue of worship, with Luther tolerating images as long as they were not worshipped and Karlstadt pressing for their destruction.

The book is thus extremely helpful in distinguishing the Lutheran phase of the Reformation from the Calvinist phase. The former was chiefly concerned with soteriology, battled against indulgences, etc., and contended for the historic soteriology of the Apostle Paul and Augustine, that is today summed up by what is generally called the five points of Calvinism. The Calvinist phase was not so much concerned with soteriology as it was with worship. The war against the idols, that is against all the idolatry of Roman Catholic worship, from images of Christ, through veneration of the saints, through the abomination of the mass, and the worship of the host, etc., etc. was what consumed the Reformed theologians from Zwingli, through Bullinger, Bucer, Farel, Calvin, Knox, etc. For Calvin the worship of God and his glory was preeminent over man’s need of salvation. Man needed to be saved, but only for the greater purpose of rendering God that worship that was his due. The Calvinist reformation was concerned about restoring and establishing that Biblical worship that was the very reason for man’s creation.

This of course points out another concern about the contemporary state of Reformed Christianity. That is that while Reformed soteriology maybe under attack with the current controversies over justification by faith alone, the Reformed doctrine of worship, that was the very heart of the Calvinist reformation, is virtually extinct. If that is doubted one need only note that the acceptability of the film, "the Passion of the Christ" is an open and debatable issue in Reformed circles today. It was not in Calvin’s day, and the "War Against the Idols" makes that abundantly clear. Our spiritual forefathers hazarded persecution and death to destroy the idols of their day; idols that are tolerated by contemporary neo-Calvinists.

To really understand the Calvinist reformation and what distinguished the Reformed faith from Lutheranism this book is necessary reading. Many professing Calvinists today are really Lutherans. If you want to tell the difference read this book.