What would the world be like if the Reformation never occurred, and every Protestant Church was Catholic?

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IbnFiktur said:
I’m afraid that a discussion of the Crusades will drive this thread far off topic, but suffice to say… The Pope apologized for them. Certainly they are often described extraordinarily polemically to make the Church look bad (though most academic work tends to rise above this tendency nowadays),** but it would be simply wrong to say that they were not truly terrible. They were.**

If you’re looking for good reading on the Crusades, your local bookstore is not a good option. Chain bookstores tend to only carry popular history, not academic peer-reviewed history. If you have access to a university library, that’s a good place to start. Otherwise, look online for anything published by an university press (ie, “Oxford University Press”).
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Didn’t the Pope (I think you’re talking about JPII) only apologize for what some misguided and sinful Crusaders did, and not for the Crusades themselves? Why wouldn’t you support a “crusade” to make or keep the Holy Land christian, as long as you didn’t hurt innocent people? I would like to see that apology, in context, from the Pope (I think I know of what you are speaking about, but I could be wrong.)

-Chris
 
Byrnwiga said:
Well, there’s a few wars that may not have occurred (e.g. Thirty Years’ War) and the lack of the resulting destruction would have left a few more historical objects, places, and people intact.

There’s a really neat chapter called “Martin Luther Burns at the Stake, 1521” by Geoffrey Parker in a book of essays called “What If?”. Parker suggests that the Catholic Church may have been able to deal with the Reformation and essentially could have ended it. Parker reminds the reader that Luther had not yet written his translation of the Bible, and his absense from some meetings post-1521 would have likely changed the tenor of said meetings (his intransigence being noted) and possibly led to reconciliation. He notes also the possibility of the United States never existing (as we know it) if Luther had died (Charles V and Habsburg hegemony in Europe leading to no settlements in the Americas).

-Byrnwiga
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The USA probably wouldn’t exist at all. The Founders of it were the products of and based its very foundation on Protestant theological, political, and socioeconomic ideaa, as well as Enlightenment ones. I wonder if any modern democracy would exist.

-Chris
 
cmforte said:
Didn’t the Pope (I think you’re talking about JPII) only apologize for what some misguided and sinful Crusaders did, and not for the Crusades themselves? Why wouldn’t you support a “crusade” to make or keep the Holy Land christian, as long as you didn’t hurt innocent people? I would like to see that apology, in context, from the Pope (I think I know of what you are speaking about, but I could be wrong.)

-Chris
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Pilgrims were being slaughtered in the Holy Land, and the Byzantine Empire was being attacked on a regular basis, so the Crusades were ‘justified’ in those respects. The fact that the local populations in the Holy Land preferred being ruled by the Crusaders rather than the Muslims suggests the Crusaders weren’t all that bad.

-Byrnwiga
 
cmforte said:
Didn’t the Pope (I think you’re talking about JPII) only apologize for what some misguided and sinful Crusaders did, and not for the Crusades themselves? Why wouldn’t you support a “crusade” to make or keep the Holy Land christian, as long as you didn’t hurt innocent people? I would like to see that apology, in context, from the Pope (I think I know of what you are speaking about, but I could be wrong.)

-Chris
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Perhaps I should be more clear. The OP indicated that the crusades “weren’t as bad as they were made out to be.” Regardless of the justification for the launch of the crusades themselves, the crusades were terrible, terrible events. For instance, let’s not forget that Christians sacked Constantinople long before the Turks did.

And no, I would not support a war to make the Holy Land “Christian.” The very idea seems quite un-Christian. But I’m afraid we’re far off-topic from the title of this thread (even if not the original post).
 
IbnFiktur said:
I’m afraid that a discussion of the Crusades will drive this thread far off topic, but suffice to say… The Pope apologized for them. Certainly they are often described extraordinarily polemically to make the Church look bad (though most academic work tends to rise above this tendency nowadays), but it would be simply wrong to say that they were not truly terrible. They were.

If you’re looking for good reading on the Crusades, your local bookstore is not a good option. Chain bookstores tend to only carry popular history, not academic peer-reviewed history. If you have access to a university library, that’s a good place to start. Otherwise, look online for anything published by an university press (ie, “Oxford University Press”).
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We could go into many other atrocities as well but I do agree that they would take us far off topic also.
 
IbnFiktur said:
Perhaps I should be more clear. The OP indicated that the crusades “weren’t as bad as they were made out to be.” Regardless of the justification for the launch of the crusades themselves, the crusades were terrible, terrible events. For instance, let’s not forget that Christians sacked Constantinople long before the Turks did.

And no, I would not support a war to make the Holy Land “Christian.” The very idea seems quite un-Christian. But I’m afraid we’re far off-topic from the title of this thread (even if not the original post).
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I apologize I didn’t make myself clearer; I meant in respect to the perception of the Catholic Church. War in itself is always a tragedy, even when a necessity to defend.

But, the impression I had growing up though is that generally the Crusaders were greedy, and using religious ideology to justify plundering. It’s kind of a surprise for me to learn that’s not the case. These kind of misconceptions were spread by mainstream media, like the Costner Robin Hood, games like Assassin’s Creed, or those History Channel “documentaries.”
cmforte said:
The USA probably wouldn’t exist at all. The Founders of it were the products of and based its very foundation on Protestant theological, political, and socioeconomic ideaa, as well as Enlightenment ones. I wonder if any modern democracy would exist.
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My question would be the nature of how European imperialism was done. The closest example I can think of, in how America’s current situation would be, is how the Philippines was converted to Catholicism. Perhaps the people would’ve been more Native American based? Or perhaps, continued European exploitation would’ve continued regardless, and a different type of war would’ve started?
 
In order to answer the question one has to start from what the world looks like today that would be different.

There have been 53 million abortions in the USA. It is probably safe to say that would not be the case.

It is also probably safe to say that there would not be homosexual marriages, doctor assisted suicide, etc., if the secular governments were not in the business of legislating morality, or immorality.

Jesus commanded unityu of His Church. The thousands of denominations is disobedience to the Lord. The consequences of disobedience are severe.

I could make an argument that the world wars would not have happened if the Church were united. The consequences of the enlightenment are a world drenched in blood at the hands of secular civil states untethered by a moral voice, or their own moral voices…
 
Byrnwiga said:
Well, there’s a few wars that may not have occurred (e.g. Thirty Years’ War) and the lack of the resulting destruction would have left a few more historical objects, places, and people intact.

There’s a really neat chapter called “Martin Luther Burns at the Stake, 1521” by Geoffrey Parker in a book of essays called “What If?”. Parker suggests that the Catholic Church may have been able to deal with the Reformation and essentially could have ended it. Parker reminds the reader that Luther had not yet written his translation of the Bible, and his absense from some meetings post-1521 would have likely changed the tenor of said meetings (his intransigence being noted) and possibly led to reconciliation. He notes also the possibility of the United States never existing (as we know it) if Luther had died (Charles V and Habsburg hegemony in Europe leading to no settlements in the Americas).

-Byrnwiga
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But would it have been right to burn Luther at the stake? Could the Church decree sentence him to death for the horrendous heresy he spoused?
 
Rhuarc said:
But would it have been right to burn Luther at the stake? Could the Church decree sentence him to death for the horrendous heresy he spoused?
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No, I think many today realize that burning people is not the right thing to do. That said, the Church’s way of dealing with heresies (at the time) wasn’t simply “arrest-and-burn”, but rather allowing them (normally) to recant on their errant views. Essentially, the goal was to get people to Heaven, even if it required a ‘little’ bit of force. The burning was a last resort to prevent others from being mislead. So yes, the Church could have decreed that, and it certainly wouldn’t have helped the Reformation.

-Byrnwiga
 
minion said:
I apologize I didn’t make myself clearer; I meant in respect to the perception of the Catholic Church. War in itself is always a tragedy, even when a necessity to defend.

But, the impression I had growing up though is that generally the Crusaders were greedy, and using religious ideology to justify plundering. It’s kind of a surprise for me to learn that’s not the case. These kind of misconceptions were spread by mainstream media, like the Costner Robin Hood, games like Assassin’s Creed, or those History Channel “documentaries.”
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Well, you want to avoid generalizations one way or the other. Many Crusaders DID use them as an excuse for plunder. Again, see Constantinople. Sure, there were soldiers in the Crusades who probably fought with pure motivations, but it is dangerous to categorize “crusaders” as all upright, God-fearing soldiers.

That said, there is no doubt that Assassin’s Creed sensationalized everything about the Crusades (it’s a video game after all), and there’s also no doubt that the History Channel very frequently does the same.
 
IbnFiktur said:
Perhaps I should be more clear. The OP indicated that the crusades “weren’t as bad as they were made out to be.” Regardless of the justification for the launch of the crusades themselves, the crusades were terrible, terrible events. For instance, let’s not forget that Christians sacked Constantinople long before the Turks did.

And no, I would not support a war to make the Holy Land “Christian.” The very idea seems quite un-Christian. But I’m afraid we’re far off-topic from the title of this thread (even if not the original post).
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How do you think the Holy Land became non. CHRISTAIN
 
minion said:
This question was bouncing around my brain lately, and I’ve been hearing things like the Crusades and the Inquisition really weren’t as bad as they were made out to be, due to revisionist history, etc…

And, after passing by three different Protestant denomination churches while driving, I resolved to post my question online.

So, would the World be a better place, and more unified? Or would the centralization of power and influence in the Church corrupt high ranking officials, and make current affairs still bad, just in a different way?
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The latter, centralized state churches, like any similar organization become highly corrupt
Churches even more so.

As much as people despise it, competition among churches can invigorate and drive reforms.

Significant reforms took place after the protestent churches started.
 
7_Sorrows said:
why do you think that more than likely you would be living in a ghetto?
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Jewish emancipation came after the Enlightenment/Revolutionary era of the late 18th/early 19th centuries. Without that, there would have been no reason to suppose that policy towards Jews in Western Europe would change - some Popes being more antipathetic, some Popes being more sympathetic - especially in Italy (one of the few places Jews would have been able to live, projecting forward from the policies of the late-Medieval/early Modern eras).

So, what miracle of ‘enlightenment’ that would have meant freedom for Jews to live anywhere and practice our religion unmolested is it that you imagine would have happened that would have freed my Italian ancestors from ghetto life?
 
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