3.3 A History of Christianity

1. Response to Reform 3.3 A History of Christianity

2. “To every action there is a equal and opposite reaction” was also true for the Reformation. With the tight shackles of religious conformity removed, Christian thought ranged from conservative consolidation to radical recklessness derived from literal interpretation of scripture. Response to corrupt excess brought joyless pietism and informing on neighbours; spies and imprisonment for actions no longer approved. Religious intolerance continued – the new Christian leaders themselves disposed of opposing thinkers and challengers by banishment, beheading and burning. Persecutions, burnings and beheadings of “heretics”-on both sides- in the name of God continued. Wars of Religion raged over Europe. After 100 years of fighting, in 1650 Europe was still divided politically and religiously. Precious and ancient books, saved from invading “barbarian” tribes,were burned, churches and monasteries sacked in a new wave of pillage – this time by Christians. The heads of a number of Churches, not just Rome, still argued over power and privilegewith princes and kings. Success or Chaos?

3. Catholic Counter-Reformation • The response of Rome to the reformers was initially to employ age-old tactics- attack the reforms with argument; excommunication, pressure on civil authorities to convict, banish, and outlaw reformers; use of torture to recant, burning, beheading, hanging, hang, draw and quarter. • With secular as well as religious rebellion breaking out, “Protestants” no longer feared the wrath of Rome. • Rome eventually realised that the reformation was much more than just a few rebels and responded by calling the Council of Trent in 1545. Luther burns the Leo X’s Papal Bull excommunicating him in 1520.

4. The Jesuits • One of the great “weapons” used by Rome in response to the reformation was the preaching of the newly formed religious Order, the Society of Jesus. • Formed by Ignatius of Loyola ((1491-1556) in 1540 of some of the brightest and best scholars of the time. The Jesuits spread over Europe with missionary zeal to reform the Catholic Church. • The Jesuits set up schools all over Europe and were responsible for winning back a proportion of disillusioned Reformers to Rome. • s9.com

5. First Missionary Expansion • Portugal and Spain were largely untouched by the Reformation, perhaps due to the brutal suppression of dissent. • The invention of Portugese sailing ships were as significant for Christianity as the printing press. • Ships now opened up the East and the Americas for Missionary activity, especially by the Jesuits.

6. Rome Fights BAck • Catholic missionary activity to Africa, Asia, the Americas was to return vast wealth to the Catholic church and a surge in membership. • Ironically, the experience of the Jesuits in the East, where their efforts largely failed, seemed to demonstrate that the message of Love of Jesus was most effectively spread by the sword, as was done brutally by the Spanish in the Americas not persuasion, as used by Francis Xavier and companions in China and Japan.

7. A Third World Church • The brutal conquest of the Americas by the Spanish under Cortez and others and the mass conversion of the natives has resulted in 40% of Roman Catholicism today being from Latin America.

8. The Council of Trent 1545-1563 • By specifying Catholic doctrine on salvation, the sacraments, and the Biblical canon, the Council was answering Protestant disputes. • The council also issues numerous reform decrees on priestly training, the Mass, veneration of saints; Church structure and management; roles of laity and clergy. • The council published a Catechism for the whole church, stating categorically the beliefs of the one true church. • The tone of the council was aggressive towards reformers, declaring Protestantism heresy and its teachings anathema. • It represented a circling of the wagons for Catholicism, which retreated into its own world for more than 400 years.

9. Sex, The Jesuits and the Baroque • The impact of the council of Trent and the hardline to Reformers that the Catholic Church took, resulted in a Catholic Church turned in on itself, “closed ranks” against the Protestant heretics, confident that it had reformed itself of its worst excesses. • The Catholic Church’s response to its problems with sexuality and women continued. The decree to cover the genitalia of males in all previously produced artwork, (but to leave naked women exposed) is an indication of the inability of the Church to face up to its issues with sex and women. Celibacy for priests was again mandated. • The Jesuits used Baroque art to promote the new, self-confident Catholic belief that it was still the true Reformed Church and to promote Catholic theology.

10. Protestant Austere Pietism • One Protestant response to the excessive wealth and self indulgent lifestyle of much of the pre-Reformation clergy and nobility was a call to what Calvin described as “devout” Christian lifestyle, which involved abstinence from gambling, drinking and dancing, plain dressing and sober habits. • Many considered the lifestyle prescribed as austere, harsh and controlled and led to spying on neighbours, annual inspections of homes for religious symbols and even the death penalty for adultery in Geneva. • This dour, mirthless Christianity seemed to go to the opposite extremes of the lifestyle criticised in the Catholic church. • Examples are the Swiss Calvinists, Scots Presbyterians and the English Puritans (“the Godly). • historyforkids.org

11. Intolerance of Dissenting Views • There is significant evidence that despite claims of religious freedom won by the Reformation, key leaders such as Luther, Zwingli, Knox, Cranmer and Calvin were intolerant of dissidents. • Key reformers still advocated the burning of “witches” as they had made pacts with the Devil. • In England, “Papists”, reformers, Anabaptists, supporters of Luther- all went to the stake, or were hung drawn and quartered in the chaos of Henry VIII’s reign and that of his children Edward, Mary and Elizabeth. • Luther advocated of the massacre of peasants in their revolt in Germany in 152 CE. • The principle which the Reformation had upheld -the right of private judgment in matters of faith -- was as completely rejected by many Protestant leaders as by the Catholics . . . • thereformation.info

12. Pillage • The property of churches, convents and monasteries passed to the looters over great areas of Christendom: Scandinavia, the British Isles, the Northern Netherlands, much of the Germanies and many of the Swiss Cantons. The endowments of hospitals, colleges, schools, guilds, were largely though not wholly seized. • Under cover of the Gospel, Princes and Kings were often only intent on the plunder of the Churches. • Protestant leaders such as Erasmus and Philip Melanchthon condemned the looting. • Others, such as Zwingli, advocated the ordered removal of statues and painting over of art.

13. Reformation Wars • The early years of the reformation were mainly violence free, but rebellion by protestant groups against Catholic kings and princes led inevitably to war. • The peasants revolt in Germany in 1524 was savagely put down by Protestant and Catholic Princes alike, at the urging of Luther. • Wars between Catholics and Protestants occurred in France (1562-1598); Spain (against the Dutch and English Protestants); Germany (Thirty Years war 1618-1648) and England (1642-1649). • The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of Protestant Huguenots in France in 1572 is one of the worst examples of religious warfare in Christian history.

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