This is thinking in public, a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about front-line

theological and cultural issues with the people we're shaping them.

I'm Albert Moller your host and president

of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Andrew Bedegree is professor

of Modern History at the University of St Andrews in Scotland where he is the founding director of the St. Andrews Reformation

studies Institute.

He is the author of several books including The Invention of News, The Book in the Renaissance,

which was a New York Times notable book in 2010,

an Imden and the Dutch revolt.

His most recent work is Brand Luther.

How an unheralded monk turned his small town

into a center of publishing,

made himself the most famous man in Europe, and started the

Protestant Reformation.

Professor Pedagree, welcome to thinking in public.

Professor Pedagree's new book is entitled Brand Luther, and it has the kind of subtitle that we're accustomed to

seeing in books by the Puritans and others and centuries past. The subtitle

how an unheralded monk turned his small town into a center of publishing, made himself the most famous man in Europe, and started the Protestant Reformation.

Professor Pedagree, the subtitle does really tell us the story of the book.

How did you get on onto this as a scholar?

Well, I was asked by the publisher Penguin to write a book for the great Luther celebrations of 2017 when we are

celebrating the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation and I to do it, but I didn't want to write a biography.

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