What Really Caused the Reformation?

[DB_AND_ALI]

That is exactly what I thought would be said. Both sides would have to concede in order to reunite. My brother once told me that it could be done but the cost to both sides would most likely be more then a person could bear.

If your brother said it can be done , then please ask him HOW !!!
I cannot for the life of me imagine a Protestant minister ‘giving up’ his church when his monetary survival depends on his congregation ! I haven’t even started with Mary…the confessional…the Pope…the true presence ect. ect. ! Some more bad news [from an eternal optimist]…don’t expect unification to come from Africa nor from America. I report that interdenominational dialogue has only just started here in sunny South Africa and people are still trying to remove decade old prejudices on all sorts of issues , including religion.
Hats off to all those folk willing to reach out and show that we have more in common than we realise !

 

[rr1213]

I don’t think that the Catholic Church is capable of conceeding on any issue of major significance to Protestants whether in the cause of unity or otherwise.

 

[Teflon93]

I don’t think that the Catholic Church is capable of conceeding on any issue of major significance to Protestants whether in the cause of unity or otherwise.

What major issue is considered of major significance to all Protestants?

Part of the problem is Protestants for all practical purposes are defined as “any Christian not Orthodox or Catholic.”

For that reason, the road to Rome is easier than the road to all points on the map reconciliationwise.

 

[Teflon93]

If your brother said it can be done , then please ask him HOW !!!
I cannot for the life of me imagine a Protestant minister ‘giving up’ his church when his monetary survival depends on his congregation ! I haven’t even started with Mary…the confessional…the Pope…the true presence ect. ect. ! Some more bad news [from an eternal optimist]…don’t expect unification to come from Africa nor from America. I report that interdenominational dialogue has only just started here in sunny South Africa and people are still trying to remove decade old prejudices on all sorts of issues , including religion.
Hats off to all those folk willing to reach out and show that we have more in common than we realise !

Might I suggest a career in banking? Our industry is hiring. One may still be active in the Church as a deacon—check out “No Price Too High”.

 

[DB_AND_ALI]

How many poor folks could spare the time from making a living to learn how to read? It wasn’t simply a question of learning how to read either. It was a question of having a general education in order to read with understanding. Who could afford the time off work to acquire a general education? The folks in question did not live in 21stC Western countries.

Because for centuries Bibles were handcopied. It took a lifetime to copy a Bible. Bibles, therefore, were more precious than gold. They were chained to the pulpits by both Catholics and Reformers in order to prevent folks from stealing them.

Imagine having to confess to your priest that you have stolen the local bible !!!

 

[rr1213]

What major issue is considered of major significance to all Protestants?

Part of the problem is Protestants for all practical purposes are defined as “any Christian not Orthodox or Catholic.”

For that reason, the road to Rome is easier than the road to all points on the map reconciliationwise.

It really doesn’t matter, does it? Pick whatever brand of Protestantism you wish to discuss and ascertain the significant issues for them. The Catholic Church is still not going to concede on any such significant issue. The only exception may be priestly celibacy, yet that is probably not a major sticking point for most Protestant Churches. Annoying, yes, but not necessarily a “deal buster”.

 

[Teflon93]

It really doesn’t matter, does it? Pick whatever brand of Protestantism you wish to discuss and ascertain the significant issues for them. The Catholic Church is still not going to concede on any such significant issue. The only exception may be priestly celibacy, yet that is probably not a major sticking point for most Protestant Churches. Annoying, yes, but not necessarily a “deal buster”.

It matters to the extent that is impossible to please all Protestants.

After all, Protestants couldn’t even stick with Lutheranism, right?

 

[rr1213]

It matters to the extent that is impossible to please all Protestants.

After all, Protestants couldn’t even stick with Lutheranism, right?

Who said that we would please everybody?

My point is that you can go one-by-one down the list and take whatever Protestant Church you wish to discuss and determine what their fundamental objections are to the Catholic Church and/or Catholic theology. The reality of the matter is that there is very little hope of a corporate reunion because the matters which divide the two Churches would primarily be doctrinal in nature and, as such, the Catholic Church would be incapable of conceeding on any of these issues in the interest of unification or otherwise.

 

[Teflon93]

Who said that we would please everybody?

My point is that you can go one-by-one down the list and take whatever Protestant Church you wish to discuss and determine what their fundamental objections are to the Catholic Church and/or Catholic theology. The reality of the matter is that there is very little hope of a corporate reunion because the matters which divide the two Churches would primarily be doctrinal in nature and, as such, the Catholic Church would be incapable of conceeding on any of these issues in the interest of unification or otherwise.

That is true to some extent; it depends on how doctrinal is defined. If doctrines contradict Catholic dogma, I think you’re right. But as the recent edict regarding the Tridentine Mass demonstrates, the Pope is willing to be flexible where flexibility is possible. Unity is a larger concern for the Catholic Church than for other Christians, I think.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

[sign]
What Really Caused
the Reformation?
:juggle:
[/sign]

Over the final decades of the 15th and the early decades of the 16th century, the costs for administrating the early medieval state had been rising, in a considerable part due to a transition in warfare that forced rulers/estates to rely on costly artillery and mercenaries instead of (unpaid) knights.

The cannon technology again made improvements in the fortifications of castles and city walls necessary. The partitioning of territories among the sons of a ruler resulted in the creation of new political centers (residences), another source of state expense.

The estates of states burdened with a huge debt dealt with the problem by approving extraordinary taxation, usually in the form of indirect taxes, such as tampering with the weights in Württemberg 1514. The bulk of the burden fell on the cities’ burghers and on the peasants, the latter not being politically represented in the estates of most territories.

[sign]
Show me the money!

:twocents:
[/sign]

While most peasants could not read, there were those who could. Martin Luther examined the bible for reference to the sacraments and rejected most of the Catholic sacraments, as well as the practice of celibacy and the institution of monasteries. Peasants examined the bible for reference to the feudal system - *When Adam dug and Eve spun, where was then the nobleman? *link

[sign]
When Adam dug and Eve spun,
where was then the nobleman?
:newidea:
[/sign]

 

[Ani_Ibi]

…The discontent among the peasants came as a result of increasing pressure put on them by the feudal lords or Liebherren seeking to recompense themselves for the losses incurred in the general agrarian crisis that came at the dawn of the early-modern period.

With the repopulation of Europe that came in the wake of the pandemic Black Death, competition for existing land and resources increased and it became increasingly difficult for peasants to survive on what remained.

Plots of land were divided with each subsequent inheritance; the lords continued to extract higher rents and fees as demand for new tenancies increased. Serfdom, which was on the decline in most of Europe, was still quite widespread in the south and southwest of Germany.

Among the obligations expected of the serfs was the payment of a death duty (todfall) to the lord, prior to the estate passing to the heir, which could easily amount to well over a third of what the serf left behind – further reducing what might be passed on to subsequent generations.

A conflict began to arise between the traditional law (genossenschaftliches Volksrecht) practiced within the communal realm of the village, and the external seigniorial law (Herrschaftsrecht) imposed by the lords.

As the peasants saw it, their old “Germanic Law” was being replaced by a “Roman Law” which benefited only the lords. The communal and autonomous structure of the village, or Gemeinde, and the self-regulation that it brought with it served as an obstacle to outside interference.

Through their communities, peasants were able to maintain some degree of independence from their social superiors. It was the defense and self-assertion of the Gemeinde that was to become one of the fundamental issues behind the [Peasants’] revolt… read more…

 

[Ani_Ibi]

The desire was strong with the peasants to spread the Reformation in the countryside, much as had been recently done in the cities. The individual demands of the peasants varied from area to area, but they all tended to press a model of equality based on “divine law”. The most famous and widely distributed of these demands was the famous “Twelve Articles”, drafted between February 27th and March 1st in Memmingen.

1. The peasants demanded that the parishes have the right to elect their own pastors, and the right (if need be) to remove them. This was the only way that they felt that the Gospel could be taught purely, without influence from the old church.
2. The small tithe (consisting of heads of cattle) which the peasants found exceptionally objectionable was to be abolished entirely, and the large tithes (of grain, or the other principal crop) were to be administered by elected church wardens. The portion of the tithe not used by the pastor himself, was to be used to benefit the community.
3. The abolishment of serfdom, as no man has the right to ‘own’ another. It did not mean, however, that the peasants were refusing to be governed by lords or magistrates.
4. The right to hunt and fish freely, due in part to the crop damage caused by game animals – unless the rights to do so had been specifically sold off.
5. The right to freely collect building materials and firewood from the village’s forests – again, unless the rights to do so had been specifically sold off.
6. Labor services expected of the peasants were to be reduced to a tolerable level.
7. The existing conditions of feudal leases were to be observed by the lords; changes detrimental to the peasants were not to be made without some sort of compensation.
8. The reassessment of rents by an outside “fair person”, so that the tenant could at least maintain a decent subsistence from his earnings.
9. In legal cases, which were often seen as being judged by the arbitrary whim of the magistrate, the sentences would be determined by the old written standards.
10. Village lands and commons were to be returned to the ownership of the village, unless properly purchased. If ‘improperly’ purchased, attempt at a peaceful settlement was to be made.
11. Abolition of the death tax or Todfall, as having no legitimate basis.
12. The twelfth article was more of a conclusion than another demand in itself. In it the peasants asserted that their goal was to bring the secular world in line with the Word of God. Furthermore, any provisions that would in the future be shown [through the scripture] to be unjustified would be removed, and any that would be found later on to be justified would be added… read more…

 

[Ani_Ibi]

…Martin Luther himself drafted a pamphlet in late April, “Admonition to Peace; A Reply to the Twelve Articles of the Peasants in Swabia”, wherein he showed cautious support to the cause of the peasants… In the same tract, he also levels fire at the peasants. The peasants firstly have appealed to the gospel, and that is false since they could not all be elect; thus many of them must, by default, be under the command of the Anti-Christ or Satan…

Martin Luther, who had earlier appeared to show some sympathy for the cause of the peasantry, published a second pamphlet in regards to the revolt: “Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants”. In this tract Luther, after witnessing the widespread effects of Müntzer’s teachings, admonished the lords to quell the rebellion by any means at their disposal:

Dear Sirs, whoever can should stab, smite, and strangle. If you die thereby you could not die a more blessed death, since you die in obedience to God’s order… The peasants have a bad conscience and an unjust cause and any peasant who dies is therefore lost, body and soul, and belongs to the devil for all eternity

… read more…

 

[Ani_Ibi]

The Reformation… was a revolution within society, within the dominant culture, and within the general process of history of Western civilization. The Reformation dissolved the hierarchical nature of feudalism and shattered its web of interlocking rights and duties.

It released the frozen assets tied up in ecclesiastical property — over one-half of the agricultural land of Western Europe and probably a greater proportion of its portable wealth. It abolished all the legal sanctions and the customs which kept the economy static. It sanctioned usury and permitted the lender to take any interest he could get…

[sign]Show me the money! :twocents: [/sign]

In the Middle Ages the peasantry had clearly defined rights and duties, sanctioned by immemorial custom and by law — but so had the lord of the manor, and he in turn had his responsibilities and privileges in relation to his overlord, and so on up the ladder to emperor and pope.

With the Reformation the peasant, who at first expected to gain a vague but wonderful freedom from the new social morality preached by the young Luther, found himself being reduced to the status of a serf, with no rights and, instead of duties, the naked compulsion to hard labor.

By the end of the Middle Ages society had become top-heavy with charitable organizations of all kinds which cared for the redundant unemployed, or at least kept them off the labor market. With the seizure of wealth of the Church, only a tiny fraction of these institutions were revived under private or State auspices and the absorption of the labor surplus necessary to a static economy ceased.

From then on until the present day legislators would fulminate against “sturdy rogues” and “welfare chiselers.”

The Poor Laws of post-Reformation Europe, where they exist, all have one assumption in common — poverty is the fault of the poor and indigence is a vice…

Calvinism [claimed that] if God had predestined an elect to salvation, and all other men to damnation from the beginning of time and regardless of their merits, this elect did not form a community, because its membership was unknown and unknowable…

Luther’s was a religion of free enterprise, Calvin’s of capital accumulation. In such a system as the Calvinist theocracies… the poor were convicted prima-facie by their situation. Every member of the elite might not be a member of the elect, but the poor, and especially the indigent poor, obviously were not. The incompetent, the wastrel, the drunkard, and all those who lived only for pleasure rather than profit were self-evidently damned…
read more…

[sign]mean green![/sign]

 

[bobzills]

Protestants seem to feel that “the bad Popes” are bludgeons to be used at will against Catholics, but the Reformers are somehow too sacred to be questioned, even when simply printing their own words.

Does it not say something that one must pick and choose among Luther’s writings quite carefully so as to not be profane, much less uncharitable?

I can certainly understand why Protestants don’t want to discuss the character of the Reformers but don’t see why that is out of bounds in a thread on the Reformation’s causes.

Luther’s writings are profane and anti-semitic in parts, but still Lutheranism and Protestantism succeeded in winning over millions of Catholics to the Protestant side. Why was there this Protestant Reformation in the West, in the Roman Catholic Church, but there was no similar break away (of the same magnitude and direction) in the Eastern Orthodox Church?

 

[ASimpleSinner]

Luther’s writings are profane and anti-semitic in parts, but still Lutheranism and Protestantism succeeded in winning over millions of Catholics to the Protestant side. Why was there this Protestant Reformation in the West, in the Roman Catholic Church, but there was no similar break away (of the same magnitude and direction) in the Eastern Orthodox Church?

The mere fact the geographical divide of Protestantism breaks down the way it does sort of belies the fact that you are, or very soon will become what your local prince becomes. To say it one over millions is like saying the American dream one the hearts and minds of all the Mexicans in Texas after the Alamo.

As to the assertion that there was no similar break in the east. I disagree. The Ancient Church of the East, the Assyrians, the Oriental Orthodox, and finally Islam (the Mac daddy of all Christological heresies mixed and matched) speaks to some of the difficulties Eastern Chrisitianity has had.

Just curious, but Bob you seem to float from the ECF to Apologetics frequently (which I do as well)… But usually there is a gravitation to the source of wherever there is the most virulent controversy and anti-Catholic sentiment. Are you Orthodox, Protestant, or just more or less inclined to go to wherever the greatest amount of anti-Catholic polemic is?

 

[Teflon93]

Luther’s writings are profane and anti-semitic in parts, but still Lutheranism and Protestantism succeeded in winning over millions of Catholics to the Protestant side. Why was there this Protestant Reformation in the West, in the Roman Catholic Church, but there was no similar break away (of the same magnitude and direction) in the Eastern Orthodox Church?

Because Luther in particular allied with secular rulers against the Catholic Church.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Luther’s writings are profane and anti-semitic in parts, but still Lutheranism and Protestantism succeeded in winning over millions of Catholics to the Protestant side. Why was there this Protestant Reformation in the West, in the Roman Catholic Church, but there was no similar break away (of the same magnitude and direction) in the Eastern Orthodox Church?

Because Luther was primarily a politician, not a theologian. As for ‘winning over millions of Catholics to the Protestant side’: much of this was by means of force.

Zwingli

Within Zurich Catholicism was forbidden, but particular hatred was reserved for Anabaptists. From 1525 Zwingli persecuted them mercilessly with imprisonment, torture, banishment and death…

To compel the unwilling neighbouring Catholic cantons to accept his new doctrines, Zwingli urged open war, and drew up a plan of campaign to conquer the mountain cantons and impose his teachings by force.

After provoking a conflict by cutting off food supplies to the Catholic mountain cantons, Zwingli marched out of Zurich with an army. His protestant troops met the catholics in battle at Kappel on the 11th October 1531. However Zwingli’s plan for expansion ended when he was killed in the battle… + …

Calvin

Calvin… became the leading Reformer of Geneva, where he established a virtual theocracy which ruled every aspect of peoples’ lives.In the constitution he drew up for the city, the death penalty was laid down for blasphemy, heresy and witchcraft. It did not take long for this to be applied. Within a few years fifty-eight sentences of death and seventy-six of exile took place in Geneva. +

Cromwell

Cromwell erected a system built on fear, torture and death. Criticising the king, his divorce, or failing to agree that Henry was head of the church, now became high treason…

Victims excuted by Cromwell included Thomas More and Bishop Fisher, as well as countless lesser-ranked people such as the Carthusian Monks, Observant Friars and any who dared to protest at the break with Rome… +

Cranmer

Cranmer presided over the executions of both Catholics and Protestant extremists… +

Latimer

[Latimer] approved the burning of Anabaptists and obstinate Franciscans under Henry VIII. +

Knox

In 1560, following the withdrawal of French troops from Scotland, Knox returned to lead a campaign of reform by riot, moving from town to town accompanied by the Protestant lords and urging his supporters to destroy all “Popish” images in churches and drive out Catholic clergy, monks, nuns and friars. The Catholic population were intimidated whilst most of the country’s monasteries and cathedrals were razed to the ground. Finally reaching Edinburgh, an unofficial “parliament” was called which banned Catholicism on pain of death. +

Luther
I’ve already posted links to material on Luther’s persecution of the Jews and the Peasants. Of Catholics he wrote:

If we punish thieves with the gallows . . . why do we not still more attack with every kind of weapon . . . these Cardinals, these Popes, and that whole abomination of the Romish Sodom … why do we not wash our hands in their blood? +

As I said: political, not theological.

 

[bobzills]

Are you Orthodox, Protestant, or just more or less inclined to go to wherever the greatest amount of anti-Catholic polemic is?

Why would anyone consider a discussion on Luther and the Nazis to be anti-Catholic?

 

[epostle]

Why would anyone consider a discussion on Luther and the Nazis to be anti-Catholic?

“I do insist on the certainty that sooner or later—once we hold power—Christianity will be overcome and the German church, without a Pope and without the Bible, and Luther, if he could be with us, would give us his blessing.”
*ADOLF HITLER *
(“Hitler’s Speeches”, edited by Professor N. H. Baynes (Oxford, 1942), page 369).

“It is easy to see how Luther prepared the way for Hitler.”
*The late DR. WILLIAM TEMPLE *Archbishop of Canterbury
(“The Archbishop’s Conference, Malvern, London, 1941, page 13).

Hitler borrowed and refined the same propaganda tactics as Luther which fuelled the prot revolt. And none of today’s anti-catholic propaganda will tell you the second largest religious group killed in the holocaust were Catholics.

tentmaker.org/books/MartinLuther-HitlersSpiritualAncestor.html#hitler

catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?recnum=1145