The War of the Camisards was the last of France’s wars of religion and pales in comparison with the Wars of Religion of the 1500s. There were no nobles to lead the peasant armies, its active phase hardly lasted two years, and the war was limited to the Cévennes region in southern France. For two years, the royal troops of Louis XIV battled outnumbered, ill-equipped peasants led by wool combers, shepherds, and farmers. The war mobilized several great marshals of France and ended with negotiations between a decorated marshal of France and a modest baker, Jean Cavalier. The War of the Camisards has been both embraced and rejected by French Protestants. The primary causes for rejection are prophetism, nourished by Old Testament prophecies that God would pour out his Spirit in a time of trouble, and the prophetic call to violent resistance. The War of the Camisards, the devastation of the Cévennes, the atrocities committed in the name of religion, and the damage to the image of France serve as warnings for governments to tread lightly in religious matters and for Christians to weigh carefully how to respond to government repression.

At the dawn of the sixteenth century, there were elements in place to fracture the coercive unity of the Christian religion in Europe. The Protestant Reformation was the beginning of religious, social, and political turmoil in Europe which would destabilize nations and the Catholic Church.

The Wars of Religion must also be understood in the context of times when warfare was ever present on the European continent as nation-states competed for dominance, and the Holy Roman Empire fought with a vengeance against those who challenged her centuries-old authority and domination. The Wars of Religion first broke out in the spring of 1562 and would last for over three decades.

The Bible is the best-selling book of all time, the most translated book of all time, and one of the most influential books of all time. But how did we get the Bible? The question can be answered by studying the history of the canon. How were the books in the Bible recognized as authoritative Scriptures or canonical? We need to understand the history of the canon because if we do not have the Word of God in our hands then there is no Inerrant Scripture, no Revealed Truth, no Sufficient Word, no Immutable Word, and no Saving Word.