Martin Luther and the Deformation

[Madaglan]

It seems that the names of so many human eras are implicitly anti-Catholic. The term, “The Dark Ages,” implies that nothing of intellectual worth was created during this time. The “Renaissance” suggests that something good has been reborn after a period of death. Then we have “The Reformation,” which suggests that there were doctrinal errors in the Church that needed to be changed. Then we have “The Enlightenment,” a time during which man supposedly grew in knowledge. These are just a few, but I personally find them very sickening. I would rather term “The Dark Ages” as the “The Age of Faith”; the “Renaissance” as the “Great Relapse” (the term Chesterton uses, I believe, to show how pagan nonsense was revived); the “Enlightenment” as the “Obfuscation”; and the “Reformation” as the “Deformation.”

I think it’s sad that we English-speaking Catholics have been deprived of Catholic terms to apply to these periods. Has there ever been an earnest attempt to change these and other related names?

 

[Church_Militant]

Madaglan,
I have long since began calling that disaster that began in 1517 The deformation because of all the irreparable harm done to the body of Christ. I fully agree with you!

 

[RobedWithLight]

The Dark Ages was called “dark” perhaps because we know little about it, probably due to the widespread anarchy and invasions at the time, as compared to the era immediately preceding it(late Greco-Roman antiquity), and the era that immediately followed it (the Carolingian Renaissance). The little we know of this period called the “dark ages” is eloquent testimony to a great catastrophe which fell upon Europe at the time. In any case, you are largely correct, historical labels have not been too kind to Catholics.

Gerry

 

[MaggieOH]

Perhaps it was the Dark Ages because of the devastation that was being felt in Europe as the result of a certain invasion that is occurring again in our own times . Please note I am trying to be politically neutral, but it does not take much imagination to guess who or what was happening at the time of the Crusades.

MaggieOH

 

[RobedWithLight]

MaggieOH:

Perhaps it was the Dark Ages because of the devastation that was being felt in Europe as the result of a certain invasion that is occurring again in our own times . Please note I am trying to be politically neutral, but it does not take much imagination to guess who or what was happening at the time of the Crusades.

MaggieOH

Quite correct.

However, the Gothic, Hunnish, Vandal and Lombard invasions antedated the invasion of Europe by the Saracens. And Europe was already deeply mired in the Dark ages for centuries at the time when the Saracens were becoming a major threat, a threat which was only stopped in 732 A.D.

Gerry

 

[Malachi4U]

Church Militant:

Madaglan,
I have long since began calling that disaster that began in 1517 The deformation because of all the irreparable harm done to the body of Christ. I fully agree with you!

Great point!:clapping:

 

[Milliardo]

I have never called it the Reformation; I simply call it the start of Protestantism. They never reformed anything–in fact, many of them left the Church instead of making any true effort at reformation.

 

[Contarini]

Madaglan:

It seems that the names of so many human eras are implicitly anti-Catholic. The term, “The Dark Ages,” implies that nothing of intellectual worth was created during this time. The “Renaissance” suggests that something good has been reborn after a period of death. Then we have “The Reformation,” which suggests that there were doctrinal errors in the Church that needed to be changed. Then we have “The Enlightenment,” a time during which man supposedly grew in knowledge. These are just a few, but I personally find them very sickening. I would rather term “The Dark Ages” as the “The Age of Faith”; the “Renaissance” as the “Great Relapse” (the term Chesterton uses, I believe, to show how pagan nonsense was revived); the “Enlightenment” as the “Obfuscation”; and the “Reformation” as the “Deformation.”

I think it’s sad that we English-speaking Catholics have been deprived of Catholic terms to apply to these periods. Has there ever been an earnest attempt to change these and other related names?

Madaglan,

There’s another possibility–you could try to use terms that aren’t offensive to anyone. “Dark Ages” has almost completely been abandoned by historians. If it’s used at all, it’s only used for the difficult centuries in the early Middle Ages when Europe really was undergoing a lot of turmoil, invasions, etc.

“Renaissance” has been applied to several other earlier “rebirths”: historians talk about the “twelfth-century Renaissance” and even the “Carolingian” and “Ottonian” Renaissances. You’re working with a severely outdated terminology–historians are way ahead of you here. (Mind you, I can’t blame you on this one, since I tried introducing my students to the terminology “twelfth-century Renaissance” and it totally confused them. So I’ve gone back to the more traditional terminology, while pointing out that the “Renaissance” was only a “rebirth” of culture in limited ways and mostly in the Italian context.)

As for “Reformation,” again people have been talking about the “Catholic Reformation” for quite a while. (Although John O’Malley prefers the term “early modern Catholicism.”) So there’s nothing intrinsically anti-Catholic about the term. No one in their right mind denies that some kind of Reformation was needed, even if we aren’t very happy with either the Catholic or the Protestant “Reformations” as they actually took place.

Insulting, pejorative terminology is always a bad idea, even if it’s deserved. It makes serious historical study more difficult than it needs to be. (The only exception is when the terminology is abstruse enough that it can shed its pejorative connotations altogether–“Gothic” being the prime example of this.)

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

MaggieOH:

Perhaps it was the Dark Ages because of the devastation that was being felt in Europe as the result of a certain invasion that is occurring again in our own times . Please note I am trying to be politically neutral, but it does not take much imagination to guess who or what was happening at the time of the Crusades.

MaggieOH

Actually the Crusades were only possible because Europe had recovered from the Dark Ages. They marked the beginning of the “High Middle Ages,” one of the most glorious periods in the history of Western culture (though in my opinion deeply marred by persecution and other forms of violence).

Edwin

 

[thessalonian]

I call it the deformation as well. When you look before that period three was the Catholics and Orthodox (who split off originally in 1054), some small groups such as the Coptics and Nestorians who are very Catholic in what they believe, and some come and go heretical sects. But 1515 came around and Martin Luther decided he was the best in the world at interpruting scripture and division like a cancer took Europe by storm. Luther himself said “there are more theologies than heads”. Anyone ever heard of a plan called “divide and conquer”. Now who’s plan might that be. Jesus “I pray that they may all be one”?. I’ll give you another guess. This is the fruits of Sola Scriptura in particular.

It is the sin of Korah’s rebellion where they tried to establish their own magesterium and teachers over Moses, God’s anointed.

Jude 1
11: Woe to them! For they walk in the way of Cain, and abandon themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error, and perish in Korah’s rebellion.

1: Now Korah the son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, and Dathan and Abi’ram the sons of Eli’ab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben,

2: took men; and they rose up before Moses, with a number of the people of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men;
3: and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them,** “You have gone too far! For all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them; why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?” (isn’t this what Luther was saying, we can all interprut scripture)**
4: When Moses heard it, he fell on his face;
5: and he said to Korah and all his company, “In the morning the LORD will show who is his, and who is holy, and will cause him to come near to him; him whom he will choose he will cause to come near to him.
6: Do this: take censers, Korah and all his company;
7: put fire in them and put incense upon them before the LORD tomorrow, and the man whom the LORD chooses shall be the holy one. You have gone too far, sons of Levi!”
8: And Moses said to Korah, “Hear now, you sons of Levi:
9: is it too small a thing for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself, to do service in the tabernacle of the LORD, and to stand before the congregation to minister to them;
10: and that he has brought you near him, and all your brethren the sons of Levi with you? And would you seek the priesthood also?
11: Therefore it is against the LORD that you and all your company have gathered together; what is Aaron that you murmur against him?”
12: And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abi’ram the sons of Eli’ab; and they said, “We will not come up.
13: Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, that you must also make yourself a prince over us?
14: Moreover you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor given us inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come up.”
15: And Moses was very angry, and said to the LORD, “Do not respect their offering. I have not taken one *** from them, and I have not harmed one of them.”
16: And Moses said to Korah, “Be present, you and all your company, before the LORD, you and they, and Aaron, tomorrow;
17: and let every one of you take his censer, and put incense upon it, and every one of you bring before the LORD his censer, two hundred and fifty censers; you also, and Aaron, each his censer.”
18: So every man took his censer, and they put fire in them and laid incense upon them, and they stood at the entrance of the tent of meeting with Moses and Aaron.
19: Then Korah assembled all the congregation against them at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And the glory of the LORD appeared to all the congregation.
20: And the LORD said to Moses and to Aaron,
21: “Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.”

It didn’t go well with them in the end. One can also reflect on the rebellion of Aaron and Miram who decided that they could hear the word of God as well as Moses. They were punished as well.

Blessings

 

[Angainor]

Church Militant:

I have long since began calling that disaster that began in 1517 The deformation because of all the irreparable harm done to the body of Christ. I fully agree with you!

The deformation of what?

You reside within the high walls of Catholicism. You have to understand that there are many who live outside those walls. They are believers and followers of Christ. They are part of the body of Christ. The body of Christ is not “deformed”.

Catholicism itself is not deformed either. It stands.

 

[Zooey]

I have never considered the term “Dark Ages” to be anti Catholic. It–to me–simply refers to the fact that when the Roman Empire fell, & before, when it was coming apart at the seams, as it were, a great deal of knowledge was lost.
Far from blaming this on the Catholic Church, I believe that it was the Christians who kept the world from reverting even farther. The church, especially in the convents & monasteries, kept alive much that would otherwise have disappeared, due to the depridations of the various barbarian, pagan bands that tried to drag us down.
Was this a dark time for human civilation? Yes, it was, but, thankfully, we were able to recover from it. Something we would almost certainly have failed to do, without the Church.
God bless.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Angainor:

The deformation of what?

You reside within the high walls of Catholicism. You have to understand that there are many who live outside those walls. They are believers and followers of Christ. They are part of the body of Christ. The body of Christ is not “deformed”.

Catholicism itself is not deformed either. It stands.

It’s not by any means clear that terms favourable to Catholicism would be any better ​

This is the trouble with a book title such as “The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries” - it is a blanket which smothers the variety of what in fact happened: and, it obscures the fact that “The Age of Faith” was also an age of unbelief.

Maybe the history of the Reformation should begin, not with Luther, but with the history of the Church itself: 1517 is convenient, but it is also misleading, for it leaves out the Hussites, and it leaves out the Waldensians, which leads to an unbalanced treatment of 1517 And All That; as though there had not been earlier reform movements, or earlier rejections of Papal authority, or earlier unrest in Germany, or earlier attempts by rulers to domesticate the Church.

Perhaps the invention of moveable type is the true beginning of the Reformation - it has the advantage of all but co-inciding with the fall of Constantinople: perhaps 1453 is the true beginning of a new era in Western history.

The choice of date - if any - depends on what one is attempting to date. ##

 

[ScottH]

I take it back one step further- I’d say the spirit of disbelief has its roots in the 2nd Crusade, when we (Christians) got slaughtered. The thought before then was “With God on our side, we can win against any enemy.”

Now- I’m not discounting the crusades (like a certain TERRIBLE anti-Christian movie just did…) but I am saying that they showed that we were not invinceable.

Men of great faith witnessed horrors that made them question their faith, and made them wonder if God was truly with them.

Or we could take it one further- we can say that the roots of doubt could have started when we lost the power to heal overtly (like healing the blind in His name.)

I think a fasicnating historical study could be made on researching when we lost some of the very “acute” powers granted at Pentacost. (And that predates the Reformation by quite a few.)

I wonder why? Oh if only this lowly non-Catholic could enter the Vatican Library and do such research.

 

[dirtydog]

ScottH:

I think a fasicnating historical study could be made on researching when we lost some of the very “acute” powers granted at Pentacost. (And that predates the Reformation by quite a few.)

I wonder why? Oh if only this lowly non-Catholic could enter the Vatican Library and do such research.

Why go to the Vatican - unless you believe all the conspiratorial garbage about the “hidden” texts within? We and the Orthodox still pray over people, and when God wills it, miracles still happen. Or perhaps you think we should be some sort of Jedi-like group - or maybe we can just recruit Benny Hinn?

 

[2BobTanner]

The term, “The Dark Ages,” implies that nothing of intellectual worth was created during this time.

The Dark Ages was called “dark” perhaps because we know little about it, probably due to the widespread anarchy and invasions at the time, as compared to the era immediately preceding it(late Greco-Roman antiquity), and the era that immediately followed it (the Carolingian Renaissance). The little we know of this period called the “dark ages” is eloquent testimony to a great catastrophe which fell upon Europe at the time.

I have never considered the term “Dark Ages” to be anti Catholic. It–to me–simply refers to the fact that when the Roman Empire fell, & before, when it was coming apart at the seams, as it were, a great deal of knowledge was lost.
Far from blaming this on the Catholic Church, I believe that it was the Christians who kept the world from reverting even farther. The church, especially in the convents & monasteries, kept alive much that would otherwise have disappeared, due to the depridations of the various barbarian, pagan bands that tried to drag us down.
Was this a dark time for human civilation? Yes, it was, but, thankfully, we were able to recover from it. Something we would almost certainly have failed to do, without the Church.

You might want to read:
How the Irish Saved Civilization
:irish1: :irish2:

 

[ScottH]

dirtydog:

Why go to the Vatican - unless you believe all the conspiratorial garbage about the “hidden” texts within? We and the Orthodox still pray over people, and when God wills it, miracles still happen. Or perhaps you think we should be some sort of Jedi-like group - or maybe we can just recruit Benny Hinn?

Dirtydog,
Whoa… easy my man. Put the lightsaber away, Anakin.

I was actually indicating tha the vatican library would be a fasicnating place to do this kind of study. I wasn’t making any inference to hidden texts, or downplaying that within the library.

Sheesh…and some of you folks call the Protestants touchy! Whew…

My point is that I think we need to admit that the Holy Spirit- for whatever reason- does not work as “blatantly” as it did at or near the time of the apostles, and the writing of acts. I’m not saying that I know the will of God better than anyone, and I sure as heck am not advocating Benny Hinn.

I’m just saying I’d like to study the history of the blatant, overt powers of Christ granted at the time of Pentacost, and continued thereafter for a time… and perhaps see where the overt, easily witnessed miracles started to wane on the scale in which they existed in the book of Acts.

And I think this “lessening” phenominon- for whatever reason God willed it- probably became an issue in the church, even an unspoken one, when obviously those who replaced the apostles and/or the first Christians did not have the same overt gifts granted to the original apostles in acts.

I’m sure some people wondered “Are we doing something wrong here? Cephas was healing the sick and speaking foreign languages… yet we can’t.”

 

[tom.wineman]

I think of Martin Luther as starting the Fragmentation.

As to the " Dark Ages ." I thought that it was because there were more knights back then