Anniversaries have the potential to renew a sense of the past in the present, to spark a fresh awareness of important but neglected milestones, and to prompt the best kind of intellectual debate over the deeper significance of by-gone persons and events. They can, as is well known, also be put to evil purposes. One of the truly black days in recent history was June 28, 1989, when the Serb firebrand, Slobodan Milosevic, used the 600th anniversary of the Battle of the Blackbirds in 1389 (when a small force of Slavs defeated a much larger army of Saracen Turks) to set off the disastrous ethnic cleansing that ravaged the former Yugoslavia.
Yet positive benefit from anniversary celebrations certainly accrued for all who in 2009 marked the 200th anniversary of the births of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln (born, as it happens, on exactly the same day). In 2011 commemorations of the 400th anniversary of the King James translation of the Bible and the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War have been producing a remarkable range of thoughtful retrospections.
So, one can hope, it will be as the clock ticks down to October 31, 2017, the quincentennial of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. On that day 500 years ago a little-known German monk, Martin Luther, posted 95 theses (in Latin) on the door of the Castle Church in Saxon Wittenberg in order to prompt a debate on the Catholic church's promotion of indulgences. The dispute on indulgences (certificates purchased to reduce time in purgatory for relatives or oneself) soon got out of hand. Within four years, this once obscure monk stood before the most exalted ruler of the western world and told the Holy Roman Emperor, the Habsburg Charles V, that he was "bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience."
Eight years later in 1529, those who followed Luther in being willing to exit the Catholic church if their reforming goals could not be met were given the name "Protestants." The occasion was another high-level conclave convened by Charles V where he heard an assemblage of German princes declare, "We are determined by God's grace and aid to abide by God's Word alone, the holy gospel contained in the biblical books of the Old and New Testaments." Within only a few more years, this German "protest" against the emperor's attempt to restore the religious unity of Europe had spread to England, Scotland, the Netherlands, France, parts of eastern Europe and even outposts in Spain, Italy, and other centers of continuing Catholic strength. Within less than a century, Protestants had established European beachheads in the New World.
And today? Nearly 500 years after Luther's initial provocation in Wittenberg, Protestants and Protestant-like movements are all over the map, both literally and figuratively. The recently published "Atlas of World Christianity" enumerates about 500,000,000 adherents to churches and denominations that trace their descent directly or indirectly from 16th century Protestant beginnings and several hundred millions more in "independent" churches with Protestant origins or strongly Protestant characteristics.
The dynamic recent changes in world Christianity that have been well described by Philip Jenkins, Dana Robert and other outstanding scholars have affected Protestants even more than other Christians. A century ago, roughly three-fifths of the world's identifiable Protestants lived in Europe, with another third in the United States. Today, almost three-fourths of identifiable Protestants live outside of Europe and the United States. More Anglicans go to church regularly in each of Nigeria and Uganda than in Britain and America (as Episcopalians) combined. Ethiopia, Tanzania and Madagascar all have Lutheran denominations as large as the biggest Lutheran denominations in the United States. There are far more identifiable Pentecostals in Brazil than in the United States. Among the countries with the most rapid recent Protestant expansion have been Armenia, Cambodia, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Nepal and -- most significantly -- China. As observant students have noticed, the recent expansion of non-western Protestant churches has been driven much less by missionaries from Europe and America than by local believers establishing local movements in response to local needs.
It was a challenge when asked to write the "Protestantism" volume for Oxford University Press's "Very Short Introduction" series to make sense out of a movement with very distinct origins in early modern Europe that now is predominately located where the preoccupations of that earlier time and place are not even a memory. How, in other words, to incorporate into one story both Martin Luther and David Yonggi Cho, the Pentecostal pastor of the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea, which with its nearly one million members has for many years been the world's largest Christian congregation?
An answer could not even be attempted without acknowledging the extraordinary diversity of world-wide Protestantism. That diversity is structural since it describes a broad religious tradition that began as church-establishments in Europe (challenging Catholic doctrine but preserving the Christendom instincts of Catholicism); that then added a voluntary form exemplified best by the constitutional separation of church and state in American experience; and that over the last century and a half added yet another form as Christian groups throughout the world exploit American-style voluntarism in settings far from Europe or America. Moreover, a multitude of doctrinal differences, differing musical forms, different political attitudes and huge differences in wealth and social power overlays this structural diversity.
The result is that in form Protestantism more closely resembles Judaism or Islam than Catholicism. Yet if Protestantism lacks structural or organizational coherence, it is nonetheless still possible to perceive the effects of a common inheritance and to note a number of widely shared characteristics.
Thus, most of the world's Protestants adhere to a characteristic message that defines peace with God (and the possibility of harmony with fellow humans) as a result of the "gospel": God's merciful gift revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They believe that this message comes alive today through the agency of God's Holy Spirit. Protestants characteristically look to the Bible as the fullest revelation of God's general will. Even more, Scripture functions as the divinely-given narrative of God's saving actions in Jesus, a narrative into which all humans are graciously called. Most Protestants, even those within strong denominational traditions, also organize themselves through energetic practices of local agency, action and authority. And most Protestants stress the privileges and responsibilities of individual initiative.
One of the most important questions attending the run-up to Oct. 2017 concerns Protestant influence on the cultures where Protestants have flourished and now are flourishing. Historically, Protestant movements have been identified closely with a number of the West's most significant cultural achievements: the music of Bach, the artistry of Rembrandt, the science of Johannes Kepler and the British Royal Society, the promotion of capitalism (formulated forcibly, but also controversially, by Max Weber), the individualistic democracy of the United States (described memorably by Alexis de Tocqueville).
Attention to such matters has led to both sloppy filiopietistic triumphalism and much uninformed finger-pointing. But it has also stimulated extraordinarily sophisticated attempts to weigh the pluses and minuses of Protestant cultural influence (a noteworthy example is forthcoming this fall from Harvard University Press: Brad Gregory's "The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society").
Commemorations in 2017 offer an ideal occasion to examine the effects of Protestantism in societies where Protestants are newcomers. Could there be someone in Tanzania who, inspired as J. S. Bach was by his deep Lutheran convictions, will transform the music of East Africa? Will a latter-day Weber or Tocqueville find China a laboratory to measure the effects on economic or political life from the confluence of Confucian and Protestant values? Protestant movements will exist -- thriving and decaying both -- long after 2017 has come and gone. As the anniversary year approaches, it is much to be hoped that it will stimulate the right kind of commemorations with the right kind of discerning seriousness.
Protestantism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Protestantism
Yes, the Anglicanism of the British imperial-spread took root in those new lands. But who today attends worship in Britain? Only if you are gettting married or buried. If that is what the passing reference to secularism in this piece is supposed to represent, it is a mere gesture. And gesture is what both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism are largely today. I guess one cannot expect to find that discussion in an encyclopedia, but on the internet it is underway full-out.
Don't compare Britain with the US! Evangelical Christians make up more than 26% of the American population and Catholic Christians 24%. Together, that is more than half the country, not counting all the other forms of Christianity. According to Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the conservative Christian political movement commands 37% of Iowa, 30% of Florida and 33% of South Carolina. Other states have even higher numbers of active Christians. You find nothing like that in Britain (Germany, yes, with the Christian Democratic Union, the predominately Catholic party); Britain, however, is spiritually dead. But in the US, Christianity is hardly "gesture." It is quite alive.
Much of Protestantism is the starkest madness ... it's the same with Catholicism.
Sola Scritura made it necessary for me to confront scripture directly, without intermediaries.
Kind of like the way we face "God" (if you insist on using that word.)
Alone.
Matthew 6:5
The followers of Martin Luther, his disciples including John Calvin, have cast a literal interpretation on the bible. That is not necessarily bad as you point out. BUT the Calvinists uber literal, no errancy in scripture, every word is the breath of God.. and such ARE a huge problem. You don't have to think, cause the ( http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/dabney/5points.htm ) and the Westminster catechism http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds3.iv.xviii.html tell you exactly what to think, and how to interpret the bible. all the discrepancies, errors, are swept under the rug of Gods will or some similar phrase
Oh I'm definitely going to steal that phrase.
:)
Actually, I think it was allowing The Church to exert the tiniest measure of political power.
The murder of Hypatia ...
Alexandrian street riots and attacks on the pagans ...
Hierarchy, clerical bureaucracy, enforcement, authoritarianism...
With the death of the first "heretic" ... the poisoning began.
Satan is the enemy setting up the apostacy false prophets. Out of this many false non scriptural doctrines arose. Constantine the great promoted the one church - even though he was pagan. In this Catholic religion, Constantine promoted the fusion of pagan beliefs and the Christians. The trinity doctrine came out of the Council at Nicaea and other non scriptural teachings were forced into the Catholic belief.
Most of the Founding Fathers of the U.S.A. rejected the theocratic doctrines and dogma of both the Catholic and Protestant Churches of the time.
Instead, they focused on the eternal, universal truths in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, rather than on the ideas of his followers who wanted to build a theocratic, imperial church.
Also, the Founding Fathers used generic terms, like "Creator" and "Divine Providence," rather than terms identifying any one religion -- because they wanted to build "a wall of separation between church and state," as Thomas Jefferson put it.
Jefferson even edited the New Testament to remove what he called "corruptions," and he produced what is now known as the Jefferson Bible -- (though that is not widely known because Jefferson did not publish it and thought our religion is a private matter, between each person and God).
I wish more religious people would be like Jefferson, and most of the other Founding Fathers. (See http://messenger2.cjcmp.org/foundingfathers.html
It is consistent with the teaching of Christ that many would claim they are Christian and thta both true and false followers would grow together side by side. Separation into the many different sects may have helped maintain truth through the ages, but GOD will do his own separating and when the time is right mankind's destiny will be finally realized in Christ. Romans.8:19-21 .....Hebrews.2:6-8
That's what you have today. People want entertainment. They don't want truth.
Being a Democrat my entire life and having never voted for a Republican in a national election, I can even see it.
We Americans tend to fight fire with fire: We fight bigotry with bigotry. We fight discrimination with discrimination. We now seem to be fighting religion with religion. There is the comparison of creationism vs. evolution which are not even related to each other or to politics. There is the religious conflict; do you believe in a god or in science? Both god and science are undefined in these arguments. Most arguments are about belief systems rather than "How do we resolve this problem?"
Both political parties religiously defend their political agenda. Opponents and nonbelievers are considered evil and deserving of ridicule, abasement and pejorative name calling. Maybe this is just entertainment perpetrated by a media seeking profit.
Kosovo is still a matter of bitter religious and tribal contention to this day. Even the anvil of communism wasn't able to flatten that ingrained madness.
It is time to question the roll of the priests, preachers and Bishops within the Church and look seriously at the structures and bureaucracy that surround those positions. Our Churches continue to operate with styles, forms and offices that were instituted in a world where the Church was recognized and respected by people and institutions; but, now we live in a world where many outside the Church question the right of the Church to exist at all. We are increasingly being portrayed as a remnant of the pre-scientific world that should be abandoned in favor of modern rational enlightenment. In previous generations people might question the legitimacy of a particular leader but they didn't question the right of the Church itself to exist.
I believe we, the Church, have a role to fill in the world. We have Jesus Christ to offer and I believe his peace and understanding is desperately needed in an increasingly complex and scary world. So many people have been split apart from their friends, families and support networks and find themselves alone and isolated and increasingly alienated from everyone around them. People, in a smaller world, use to know something like a hundred to a hundred and fifty people by name, but we have people now in our society who only know about fifteen people and those are coworkers. Shouldn't this be an outreach of the Church?
The richest country in Europe is Luxembourg, a "catholic" country. Likewise France. And Germany is as much Catholic as it is Lutheran ( membership of both churches are the same -- 30%), with the predominately Catholic party -- The Christian Democratic Union -- governing Germany. Catholics are hardly poor cousins in Europe. Finally, if it wrere't for Germany and France, Europe would go under. Sweden, Denmark and Norway simply haven't the resources to "save" Europe.