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The Reformation

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Magister Equitum
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Fri Jul 23, 2010 12:07 pm

Quote:

By definition all Missionaries are agents of Religious Propaganda

Ah yes I see what you mean and I agree. You’re depiction seems quite right in outlining the competing missions of the Jesuits and Protestant reformers. However, whereas the Jesuits played an important role in stemming the tide of the Protestant Reformation, their activities were not merely reactionary in the sense that they operated in areas far away from any Protestants. Now, of course, some scholars have presented the position that this was some calculated effort to gain new souls for the Church to balance the loss in Europe. This notion, however, doesn’t adequately capture the Jesuits’ role in the Americas or Asia. Their efforts were not analogous to some sort of spiritual accounting. This ties in, to a degree, with my post about the Catholic Reformation. The Jesuits, assuredly, were instruments of confronting the very real challenge to Catholic hegemony presented in Protestantism. Nevertheless, they can also be considered as embodying the spirit of revival within the Catholic Church which existed independent of the Protestant Reformation.

Now, why am I placing so much emphasis on the Catholic Reformation? Well, here’s my bias: as I mentioned in a previous post, I think that reform could have been conducted through the Church. Likewise I have indicated that there were already processes underway which showed sign of reform when Luther was still an unknown character. So far we have considered the Roman Catholic Church as a monolithic organization which, while useful, limits in some ways our understanding of the times. The silent reform within the Church was essentially a faction – and a powerful and well-connected faction at that—that was naturally countered by an intransigent and conservative bloc. As with nearly all organizations, there are those who would like things to change and others who would like to maintain the status quo. The Church was no different with the reform-minded spirituali and the austere zelanti.

The reactionary forces within the Church were, of course, as much opposed to the Catholic Reformation as they were to the Protestant Reformation. The difference being that the former was seen as a debate within the Church and the latter viewed as a threat to the Church. The bombastic style of the Protestant Reformation, which moved quickly from questioning and debating Scripture (something that has occurred within the Church for centuries) to striving to undermine the entire institution itself, gave new breath to the die-hards within Roman Catholicism. Erasmus and other Catholic reformers went from being praised as pioneers of welcome reform to being suspect for their patience with Protestantism. The line between heresy and a valid interpretation is not nearly as defined as we’d like to think. Luther likely had the chance, if history had been different and had he not become a schismatic, to be counted amongst the great reformers of the Catholic Reformation.

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rickyp
Statesman

Sat Jul 24, 2010 8:30 am

Guapo

Quote:

a 500 year bump? What else does he say? Does he qualify what this bump means? I'm not going to read the book unless you give it a better review

Okay: The evidence of the evolution of Judaism, Christianity and Islam Wright covers off in fair detail with scientific and historical evidence... ... The change from mutiple gods to monotheism in Judaism may have taken as long or longer than the Reformation so a 500 year bump may not be the right term...
He would say that the Reformation is just an inevitable change wrought by "conditions on the ground". Primarily the accessibilty of the scriptures that Christianity was built on to all who could read and not just the religious elite. Religious elites reacted to these changes in ways that both changed the religion and yet secured their positions (always key) ... And Wright would draw parallels right through the evolution of religion as to how religion changed to meet the needs of society. (Particularly Paul's version of Christianity..)
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Thank God for agnostics. Over the past decade, our public conversation about religion has all too often degenerated into a food fight between the religious right and the secular left. Now comes journalist Robert Wright with a gentler approach: a materialist account of religion that manages (sort of) to make room for God (of a sort). "The Evolution of God" is a big book that addresses a simple question: Is religion poison? Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, much ink and many pixels have scrutinized the late Harvard professor Samuel Huntington's prophesy of a coming "clash of civilizations" between the Christian West and the Islamic world. Is Islam a religion of war? What about Judaism and Christianity? The assumption underlying many answers to these questions -- an assumption shared by fundamentalists and "new atheists" alike -- is that religions are what their founders and scriptures say they are, rather than what contemporary practitioners make them out to be. Wright rejects this assumption. No religion is in essence evil or good, he writes. Scriptures are malleable. Founders are betrayed. At least for historians, there is little provocation here. The provocation comes when Wright claims that religious history seems to be going somewhere, as if guided by an invisible hand. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all appear to have a "moral direction," and that direction is toward the good. Christians have contended for centuries that Jesus replaced the Jewish God of wrath with the Christian God of love. Wright argues that this evolution from malevolence to benevolence happens in each of the Abrahamic religions. In each case, God starts out with a whip in his hand and a sneer on his lip. So score one for the new atheists. But the God of vengeance who cares only about his own people gradually evolves into a God of compassion who cares about us all. In the process, the Western monotheisms advance from belligerence to tolerance. Religion's original sin of violence is redeemed. To explain how this "salvation" (his word) occurs, Wright draws from his prior books on evolutionary psychology ("The Moral Animal") and game theory ("Nonzero"). The key argument is that, ever since hunters and gatherers have been hunting and gathering, the invisible hand guiding human history has been working (largely through advances in technology and communication) to create non-zero-sum situations that force historical actors, often against their own inclinations, into ever-widening circles of moral concern. Jews, Christians and Muslims are led (gradually and in fits and starts) toward moral universalism not because religions are inherently good but because believers are inherently flexible -- flexible enough to see when they and their enemies are in the same boat. All this happens, it should be emphasized, on entirely naturalistic grounds. Wright, a self-described "materialist," believes that history is driven not by fiat from on high but by natural selection via "facts on the ground." In his account, Judaism gives rise to Christianity and Islam without even a whiff of the supernatural. And the Apostle Paul -- "the Bill Gates of his day" -- is "just another savvy and ambitious man who happened to be in the religion business." Yet all Wright's talk of "business models" and "algorithms" and "positive network externalities" somehow opens up the conversation about God rather than closing it down. In this oddly old-fashioned book, which recalls Hegel more than anyone else, Wright speaks repeatedly of "design" and "goals" and "purposes" in human history. In the end, Wright allows himself to wonder whether the evolution of "God," the concept, might provide evidence for the existence of God, the reality. "If history naturally pushes people toward moral improvement, toward moral truth, and their God, as they conceive their God, grows accordingly, becoming morally richer," he writes, "then maybe this growth is evidence of some higher purpose, and maybe -- conceivably -- the source of that purpose is worthy of the name divinity." Whether this Gospel of Maybe will make many converts is doubtful. There are bones thrown here and there to atheists and believers alike, but no red meat. So the final judgment may be that the book is too hard on faith to please religious folk and too easy on dogma to please secularists. Still, it is hard not to envy Wright for his Obamaesque hope. There is reason to hope, he writes, that the Abrahamic religions can get along with one another, with science and with the modern world. But Wright also exhibits an even more radical hope: that human beings might learn to talk about religion in a manner that is both civil and intelligent. For decades the faithful and the faithless operated in the United States under a gentlemen's agreement to leave one another alone. Yes, we had our Bryans and our Menckens during the Scopes trial in the 1920s, but after that, belief and disbelief retreated to their respective corners. Then came the religious right and church buses for Reagan, to which Harris and Hitchens and Dawkins and Dennett rightly cried foul. If God is going to be used to prop up Republican policies, it is perfectly legitimate for people with different politics to try to cut the Republican God down to size. And so we find ourselves in the sort of scuffle between believers and unbelievers that hasn't been seen since evolution and the Bible went toe to toe in Dayton, Tenn. In American religion, as in U.S. politics, however, the middle is far bigger than the extremes combined. Most Americans don't believe God and evolution are at war. And only fools want another crusade against Islam. So thank God or "God" or whatever matters most to you for this book, not so much for its arguments as for its tone, which offers the sort of hope even unbelievers can believe in: that we can somehow learn to talk about religion without throwing our food.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post.

To my mind, religion is a product of man. That it should change constantly as society evolves makes sense. The Reformation was just one iteration of change that is inevitable since mankind and his societies change constantly.

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Magister Equitum
Ambassador

Sat Jul 24, 2010 11:11 am

Quote:

The Reformation was just one iteration of change that is inevitable since mankind and his societies change constantly.

If we are to adopt Rickyp`s approach, that social change resulted in the Protestant Reformation, we must then surely examine the changes in society that occurred and their implications. So, let`s put the questions out there: what changed with the Protestant Reformation? What changes pre-dated the Protestant Reformation?

It may be too simplistic to reduce historical events to simple cause and effect relationships, but if we were to do so, then the notion that societal change led to the Protestant Reformation runs into some trouble vis-a-vis the notion of the Protestant Reformation as a liberalizing movement in the sense that we must examine the degree to which the Protestant Reformation brought about the change and the degree to which the change brought about the Protestant Reformation.

I am not particularly convinced by the view that the Protestant Reformation was a liberalizing movement because of the points raised by Danivon in earlier posts. People were persecuted for their beliefs regardless. Catholics persecuted Protestants, and Protestants persecuted Catholics and the Protestants who didn’t agree. If we are to examine the Protestant Reformation based on the events which accompanied it rather than the ideal of freedom of thought which we’d like to impose on it, then the position that the Protestant Reformation was a liberalizing movement is seemingly difficult to hold.

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Danivon
Ambassador

Sun Jul 25, 2010 5:39 am

There were many social changes in place at the dawn of the 16th Century.

The mercantile classes were growing. The Black Death a few generations before had set back society a great deal, but the recovery from that did see the emergence of a class between the landed feudal lords and the peasantry. Also, there were changes to the rural structures as more power was consolidated by landowners, gradually making the peasant classes face a choice between farming or other activities, rather than (as had been the case) a more generalist approach.

The recent discovery of the Americas will have had a major impact in terms of new opportunities for people, as well as bringing in large amounts of plunder which will have had a major economic effect.

The Renaissance, spurred in the past century, not only saw a re-introduction to Roman and Greek art and culture, but to their ideas and beliefs. As a lot of that came via the Islamic world (because a lot of pre-Christian literature was destroyed as heretical in Christendom - cf the burning of the Library of Alexandria, but was preserved, translated and interpreted in Islam by the likes of Averroes), which will have led to a great mixture of ideas coming to attention as never before.

We've discussed the invention of printing, which allows the dissemination of ideas. By the 16th Century books were becoming affordable to the middle classes, who would also have been people more based in a pragmatic view. While economic theory wasn't around, there was more basic knowledge about economic reality. At the same time, the spiritual world that was perhaps more attuned to a pastoral society was not as appropriate for people in towns based on commerce.

There were clear social trends across the 15th-16th Centuries in Northern Europe (the main seat of the Reformation being Germany/Hungary, Holland, Switzerland and the British Isles, influencing some in France and later Scandinavia.

Of course, before Reformation you had Wycliffe and the Hussites. They had already sown some of the seeds for the movements that would come after Luther and Calvin appeared.

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Guapo
Dignitary

Fri Jul 30, 2010 7:40 am

Javelin wrote:

Guapo:
Something you've got to remember is that Christianity is supposed to be specifically based upon the teachings of Jesus Christ - the ethical standards he explained through the use of simple parables. However, within the four Gospels themselves there is very little in the way of Theology, let alone talk about how the proponents of this new religion should be organised. In fairness this is largely due to the fact that Christ was executed before such time as the religion founded in his name encountered any such problems and thus required codifying. I would point out that this is a key difference between Christianity and Islam: Christ allowed himself to be captured and executed, resulting in the great mass of the early organisational work of the Church being performed by others (by falible men instead of God, should you believe Christ to be divine); Muhammed, however, instead skipped town and later returned at the head of an army, surviving well into old age - and thus performing much of the codifying work himself.

I think there is a flaw in this assumption, but I might need more clarification to make sure I am getting you. You say that Christianity is based on the teachings of Christ--this is true, partially. You also say that Jesus didn't give us much in terms of Theology, which you seem to indicate as meaning organization. The flaw I see is that organization is one of the main things Jesus came to destroy.

It's not as if Jesus was trying to create a new religion, altogether. The perspective of the Christian is that Christianity is the fulfillment of the promises made to humanity, via the liberalization of Judaism. The veil was torn, indicating the separating organization of the priesthood was no longer necessary--we are our own priests now. The seed line of Israel for salvation was expanded to all who follow Christ.

It is true that much more doctrine was codified through the disciples. In fact, Jesus was quite clear that his 12 (Paul replacing Judas), would be the ones to spread the message to the world. Jesus was clear that they were to take on the responsibility of "codifying" this new way, but with the same spirit as Christ. It is certainly true that a liberalized religion is more difficult to understand and follow than one with a rigid set of rules, but that is the very nature of Christianity--and one that was reborn with the Reformation.

Javelin wrote:

Thus the point I am trying to make is that the practice and organistation of Christianity was based on interpretation/translation/opinion right from the very start. There was no pure form of Christianity which those of the Reformation could look back to for inspiration. All they had was the Bible, an ancient book that had been translated and retranslated over the years, with one translation seized upon at some point by the Popes as being Holy Writ, and justification for their temporal supremacy over the adherents of their religion. Theological debate within the framework of Papal Supremacy was fine. But should Theological ideas be presented that threatened the idea of Papal Supremacy, then the response was usually a charge of heresy. Sounds like cut-throat politics with a theolgical window dressing to me...

Again, what I think you are recognizing is the anarchistic/democratic nature of Christianity--as compared with other religions. This doesn't mean that there aren't rules and recommendations, but because we all have the same Holy Spirit within us, we are all equal before God, and we ought to be before each other. This Spirit was quenched with the blasphemy of Roman Papalism, but revived with the Protestant Reformation.

This is why I believe that the Reformation revived a spirit of spiritual liberalism and freedom that Christianity originally brought, but by no means completed it. When the Ekklesia completes her maturation, her King will return.

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Magister Equitum
Ambassador

Fri Jul 30, 2010 10:43 am

Quote:

This is why I believe that the Reformation revived a spirit of spiritual liberalism and freedom that Christianity originally brought, but by no means completed it. When the Ekklesia completes her maturation, her King will return.

It remains, to me at least, unclear what exactly is mean by this “spiritual liberalism” and the notion of the Protestant Reformation as a “liberalizing movement.” Whereas you see the Protestant Reformation as an exercise in spiritual liberalism, an alternate perspective may be that the Protestant Reformation gave license to any radical who had read one passage in the Bible to go about revising old heresies and adding new false doctrines.

Of course, the teachings of the Protestant Reformers did not conform with the teachings of the Church. That is to say, they did not conduct their theological debate within the Church (while other groups had conducted their discussions within the Church). I suppose you call it liberty and freedom while I call it heresy and schism. I hope the thesis that the Protestant Reformation was a “liberalising movement” is more substantive.

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Magister Equitum
Ambassador

Fri Jul 30, 2010 7:09 pm

Quote:

Moreover, Tyndale's martyrdom demonstrates the fact that it wasn't about interpretation as much as translation. Tyndale was murdered because, as a linguistic scholar, he translated words from the Greek text that were contrary to the Latin translation.

The view is often presented that the Catholic Church preferred the public to be ignorant of the Word of God and so prevented the translation of Scripture into the vernacular. Repetition has seemingly transformed this feeble assertion into solid fact, but we surely must submit the matter to closer examination.

The Latin Vulgate, that impermeable text which the Church is portrayed to defend against the throngs who thirsted for the knowledge of God’s word, is itself a translation. There were older Greek and Latin versions and translations which came after St. Jerome’s work. Indeed, the Vulgate was translated to make Scripture more accessible to the people of the Western Roman Empire.

To claim that the Church wanted to prevent the general public from accessing knowledge of God is to contend that the Church was acting contrary to her mission to spread Scripture. If we examine the efforts that the Church made in this important endeavour, that is, the propagation of the faith, then the claim cannot hold.

The very statues, paintings and tapestries which the Protestant Reformers condemned as embellishment and idolatry were of a didactic purpose. The stories of the Bible were emblazoned on altars, set in fine glass, and chiselled into walls for all to see. For illiterate peasants, giving them Scripture was of little use, so the Church sought to fulfil her Divine mandate through making the stories accessible to the people by means of art.

During the Middle Ages the Pauper’s Bible gave to the peasant a pictorial rendition of Scripture with a lines of explanatory verse in the vernacular. (Books, however, were extremely expensive, so we don’t know if peasants actually got to see them)

There were portions of the Bible all over the place in the vernacular. The Gospels in the Lindisfarne Gospels in English, the Bible Historiale in French. The Church did not go about burning these translations or condemning the authors. Indeed, the vernacular translations had authorization from the Church hierarchy. Translating Scripture, clearly, was not condemned by the Church.

It is a mistake then to say that Tyndale was condemned and burnt at the stake for translating the Bible. Translating the Bible was not heresy.

Wycliff’s translation, which contained heresy, was resoundingly condemned by religious and secular authorities. In order to prevent such texts from leading the faithful astray the Synod of Oxford in 1408 prohibited unauthorized translation.

Tyndale committed a procedural error in translating without approval. In his work Tyndale included prologues and footnotes slandering the clergy. Now, Erasmus had employed his wit to expose the corruption within the church and with much mirth called for self-reflection. Tyndale, on the other hand, though bile a better means for reform. Moreover, Tyndale’s translation was condemned by religious and secular authorities for its textual errors. The Church could not accept such distortions as Holy Scripture.

Burning Tyndale’s work was not to destroy the vernacular text but to destroy the heresy.

Tyndale, likewise, had incurred the wrath of his King. Henry VIII had agents seeking to capture Tyndale and bring him to trial. The king despised Tyndale’s work because it was a flagrant violation of the King’s command. Additionally, Tyndale had opposed the King’s divorce, a subject that was far above his station and touched upon a very sensitive matter. Tyndale, in essence, had lost favour with the two pillars of authority: the Crown and the Church. What was he expecting? Let us not mistake a fool for a martyr.

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Pigmalia
Dignitary

Fri Jul 30, 2010 7:53 pm

Magister Equitum wrote:

Tyndale, in essence, had lost favour with the two pillars of authority: the Crown and the Church. What was he expecting? Let us not mistake a fool for a martyr.

Same formula killed Jesus, do the math my friend. Wink

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Magister Equitum
Ambassador

Fri Jul 30, 2010 9:16 pm

Pigmalia wrote:

Same formula killed Jesus, do the math my friend. Wink

Good point.

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Guapo
Dignitary

Thu Aug 05, 2010 6:02 am

Magister Equitum wrote:

Liberalization
- the act of making less strict (princeton word web)

Spiritual liberalism
1. In the Israel covenant, man had to go to the high priest with a sacrifice in order to have contact with God. The Holy of Holies was restricted to one man.
1a. In the covenant of Christ, the covenant of charis, salvation is open to all who believe, who call upon the name of Christ, as lord (master) and savior (messiah).
2. In the Israel covenant, man had to accede to the laws of the Torah. Salvation was basically by birth, marriage, and the extremely rare conversion.
2a. In the covenant of Christ, man has to live by faith--a grace of God-- and works are not required for salvation. Works are an evidence of this faith (by the grace or gift of God), but not a requirement for salvation. There is no longer a difference between Jew and Gentile.

This is what I mean by spiritual liberalization.

Protestant Reformation as a liberalizing movement
Externalities aside, the reformation taught that the restricting aspects of the RCC were unscriptural. Man did not need to appeal to an organization--a pagan church system--rather, he is able to go directly to God. Man is able to read the scriptures, and the scriptures ought to be readable by all (Tyndale). The boy who pushes the plow is able to discern as much as a "priest" if he so desires.

The rites and rituals of the pagan church of Rome were no longer required of man for salvation. So in that sense, it was a reversion of original Christianity--a reactionary "liberalization," if you will.

Sorry it took me so long to reply. It's just not been on the top of my head lately. I hope that makes things clear.

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Magister Equitum
Ambassador

Sun Aug 08, 2010 8:38 pm

The points you have outlined under Spiritual Liberalism are consistent with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
Salvific Universality did not arise from the Protestant Reformation. Indeed, the notion was greatly distorted by some reformers which spread notions of an elect and a reprobate.

The difference is, expectedly, with regards to faith and works. Works proceed from faith but they also complete faith. It is this process of completion which makes both necessary for salvation. The divergence, of course, is not a minor one but the Catholic Church and most Protestants are essentially stating very similar positions using different vocabulary and different emphasis.

For example, some would say that works, since they stem from faith, are not necessary for salvation. The Church explains that works stem from faith and are necessary for salvation because a faith completed by works is the criteria, not faith alone.
Now, I’m not trying to simplify an immense and weighty debate within Christianity on the relationship between faith and works and the nexus between the pair and salvation. (Perhaps this is the topic for a separate forum)

What both the Church and the reforms agreed on was that salvation was sola gratia.

With respect to reading Scripture, I’ve mentioned in a previous post that this was by no means impossible. Scripture was in the vernacular long before Tyndale composed his heretical translations. Notwithstanding his textual errors, which were soundly condemned, he pursued his work without authorization. Now, there are those who refer to the Roman Catholic Church as a “pagan church” and think little of the fact that it was this same, supposedly pagan, institution which preserved the Bible long before the Protestant Reformation.

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