Research On Religion » Henry VIII

James Felak on the Counter-Reformation

tonygill — Sun, 22 Oct 2017 08:00:29 +0000

As we wind down our seven-episode series on the Protestant Reformation, we give the “other side” a chance to make their historical case. Prof. James Felak, a professor of history at the University of Washington (and frequent RoR guest), sits down with Tony to discuss the Catholic response to Luther’s protest. Known popularly as the “Counter-Reformation,” Dr. Felak notes that it really should be termed the Catholic Reformation as we note how Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and others broke with the Church in a schismatic movement. We start the discussion with a look at the religious and political landscape leading up to Luther’s challenge. Fifteenth century Europe was characterized by three key factors that conditioned the Reformation, Felak argues. First was the increasing strength of secular kingdoms relative to the Roman Catholic Church, which prompts a variety of power and financial struggles between the crown(s) and the popes. Growing corruption within the Church presented the second challenge to Christianity during this century, which leads to the third factor — indulgences. Out of curiosity, Tony asks when the Catholic Church began to be called the “Catholic Church,” rather than just the Church given that Catholicism is now used as a term of contradistinction to Protestantism. James mentions that he wonders the same thing too when teaching courses on Christian history, and we more or less agree that the term Catholic Church is put into greater usage in the 16th century. (Listeners are encouraged to weigh in on this question.)

We then move to the early 1500s and the “immediate” (by late medieval standards) reaction of the Vatican to Luther. Tony poses a counterfactual to his historian guest, asking what would the Christian timeline looked like had the Holy See just ignored Martin Luther. There were two popes involved in pushing back against Luther, and times of leadership transition can be difficult. Prof. Felak responds that the Protestant Reformation was a “slow train moving” and it was likely to happen at some point. We talk about how Johann Eck became involved in debates with Luther and how Luther’s pamphleteering left the Vatican no choice but to respond. The printing press made ignoring the issue very difficult. We review the events of the Diet of Worms and then springboard forward to the Council of Trent that sets the “Counter-Reformation” in motion. James points out that Rome was really responding to at least five “reformations” over the first half of the sixteenth century, only one of which was Luther. This included movements spurred on by Zwingli, Calvin, Arminians, other radical reformers, and the breakaway English Church. The Council of Trent — which occurred over several decades (and James explains why) — initiated a two-prong response which was to, first, reform the institutional Church, and second, to answer a variety of doctrinal challenges to the faith. As for the first, there was greater emphasis placed on educating the clergy via rigorous seminary training, incentivize bishops to preach in their own dioceses, and ensure subsequent popes chosen had a strong moral character. There was also a movement to promoting religious orders, which we talk about later. As for the doctrinal pushback, the Catholic Church reaffirmed the seven sacraments, the doctrine of purgatory, and intellectual reasoning regarding the issue of “faith alone or good works.” James spends time to explain the Catholic view of faith and works.

The conversation veers towards a discussion of the religious orders that were promoted to respond to these new institutional and theological challenges. The Jesuits were the most famous of he orders to arise at this time, but Prof. Felak documents a number of other ones, including the shoeless (discalced) Carmelites. He puts this in context of the older orders that emerged centuries before (e.g., Franciscans) and notes the new orders were much more engaged in the world and proselytizing than the earlier ones, including a renewed dedication to education of the clergy and laity. James brings up folks such as Charles Borromeo and Teresa of Avila. Tony asks about the Inquisition, and James responds by pointing out there were four distinct inquisitions including one prior to the Reformation (the Medieval Reformation), the Roman, Spanish, and Portuguese. The latter two had a more political flavor as the Iberian peninsula was not dramatically touched by Protestant reformers and these campaigns were run by kings, not clergy. We finish with some of James’s personal thoughts on how the Reformation affected Christianity and the Catholic Church, as well as how the Reformation has been viewed over the past five centuries. He shares an interesting tale of being in a Seattle bookstore and his thoughts on Lutherans as compared to other Protestant denominations. Recorded: October 6, 2017.

Rodney Stark on Myths of the Reformation

tonygill — Sun, 17 Sep 2017 08:00:00 +0000

Everybody knows that the Protestant Reformation ushered in what eventually became an era of scientific enlightenment, economic development, and secularization to Europe. Or did it? Prof. Rodney Stark, co-founder of Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, says “Nonsense!” to many of these so-called historical truths as we walk through some common myths and misconceptions of the famous religious movement that Martin Luther set rolling. We begin first by noting that there really wasn’t just a single Reformation, but at least three including Luther’s protest, Calvin’s subsequent religious movement, and King Henry VIII’s English Reformation, which wasn’t so much a change in theology as it was a transfer of authority. Prof. Stark also points out that once Catholicism’s exit door was opened and excommunication was off the table as a form of punishment, Protestantism became a fissiparous movement that underwent continual reformations leading to thousands of recognizably distinct Christian denominations today. We further learn that “Protestantism” was a term first used by the Catholic Church, and not by the individuals protesting Rome’s monopoly dominance of Christian theology. The next myth that we wander into is that the Reformation (writ large for all the various reformations) was a religious rebellion of the masses. Here Rod points out that Europe was not deeply religious in the sense of being steeped in official Catholic doctrine, but rather was a mish-mash of popular Christianity, pagan rituals, and other non-Christian superstitions and rituals. The lower classes seldom attended religious services during the supposed “golden age” of Christianity, and when they did it was often raucous affairs, not the solemn worship services often depicted in paintings and literature. Social movements, he points out, are rarely ever spurred on by the poor, but rather by economic and cultural elites that have the time and motivations to organize collective action. We address the German Peasant’s War (sometimes Revolt) of 1524-25 as possible evidence of a popular religious uprising, but this was merely the one in a long string of sporadic peasant revolts against unfavorable economic conditions. Rod notes that the reason why some regions of Europe tended to “go Protestant” while others stayed Catholic had little to do with popular sentiment and more to do with elite politics and the economic position of princes to the Vatican in terms of debt owed. Poland is brought up as a curious case of a region that initially sided with Protestantism, but then returned to the Catholic fold. Rod further points out that Protestantism did not lead to an uptick in formalized religious worship, citing the work of a historian who actually took a census of church attendance and rolls during the 16th century.

The next issues that we tackle are not so much myths as they are misfortunes. Prof. Stark explains why he sees Protestantism as providing for the cultural and political conditions that gave rise to European nationalism, that had some beneficial aspects in coagulating states, but also led to a number of extremely vicious wars between rival geographies. Rod further notes that what the Protestant Reformation(s) did was really end Christendom, the spiritual language that kept Europe pieced together during some rather fragmented centuries, at least amongst the political elite. We then go on to discuss whether or not Christianity was the impetus behind the Scientific Revolution and, eventually, the Enlightenment. Rod corrects the record about the so-called Dark Ages in that there was still a great deal of scientific and technological progress that was occurring in the centuries prior to Luther, and that the seeds of capitalism were also sown and growing long before there could have been a Protestant Ethic. Rod explains that many of these notions were promoted by scholars who held an anti-Catholic agenda (e.g., Voltaire) and were uncritically accepted by scholars up to present day (although he also points out that many contemporary historians are setting the record straight). All this then leads us to consider the purported rise of individualism and secularization in the modern (post-18th century) era. Again, Rod emphasizes that Europe never really secularized because it always was relatively secular in terms of large numbers of people avoiding religious institutions, and what constitutes the notion of “individualism” today has always been around in some form.

We finish off with a brief discussion of one of Prof. Stark’s other recent books, Why God? Explaining Religious Phenomenon. His main critique here is that social scientists have typically approached religion as something that has nothing to do with God, citing the likes of Emile Durkheim who considered religion to be something other than an institutional connection to the transcendent or supernatural. Rod corrects the record by noting that scholars need to take the actual beliefs of the people they study seriously, and if they say they are creating organizations for the purpose of worshiping God, then that must might be what they are doing. He leaves us with some critical words of wisdom, which is always to be suspicious of the received wisdom. Recorded: August 21, 2017.

(Note: Prof. Stark has always been one of my informal academic mentors, and was a close neighbor of mine when he lived in Washington State. Following our formal interview, we had a nice chat about bears, bobcats, and coyotes in the area that I live. We shared a number of other “everyday stories.” It was a simple conversation, but a truly delightful one that should remind us about the importance of living one’s daily life.)