Abstract

In the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Paolo Pombeni asks Tiziano Bonazzi and Heinz Schilling to discuss its political impact on the transition to «modernity». In asserting the primacy of conscience, the Reformation undoubtedly affected the «constitutional life» of the Western world. Schilling overturns the traditional image of Luther's authoritarianism, underlining how the Augustinian monk combined the legacy of medieval republicanism with the modern need to establish a political order in a turbulent era. Bonazzi analyzes the multifarious aspects of the US political religion, stressing the importance of the Second Great Awakening in both making individuals powerfully aware of their own autonomy, and pushing the American political system and society toward a precocious process of democratization.