THE CHRISTIAN REFORMATION AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE MODERN POLITICAL SYSTEM, 1517-1648

1
CHAPTER 14

• THE CHRISTIAN REFORMATION AND THE EMERGENCE OF
  THE MODERN POLITICAL SYSTEM, 1517-1648

2
Reformation

• In this period we find passionate conflict among
  religious zealots over points of doctrine such as
  the presence of Christ in Holy Communion.
• Luther
• Calvin
• Loyola

3
Why Religious Conflict?

• A modern observer might ask why the protagonists
  could not simply agree to disagree and allow
  persons to believe as they saw best.

4
Religion is Ultimate Service

• To answer that question we must put ourselves
  into the minds of sixteenth-century men and
  women.
• They assumed that religion was the ultimate
  service that God required of human beings and
  that only the Christian religion was true and
  pleasing to God.

5
Bitter Controversy

• In such a climate, religious controversy was
  certain to become bitter.
• It should not be surprising that religious
  discord could so often turn violent.

6
Church and State

• Given the close relationship between church and
  state, religious controversy became a dominant
  theme in the emergence of modern nation-states.

7
Religion as Pawn

• These new nation-states were ruled by powerful
  monarchs who viewed the religious lives of their
  subjects in terms of
• national allegiance
• international rivalries.

8
Religious Violence

• Religious conflicts
• were generated by the consciences of individuals
• were generated also by the competition of
  national rulers
• spawned a century and a half of violence and
  strife in Europe, culminating in the bloody
  Thirty Years War.

9
Religious Acheivements

• The passion that fueled religious conflict,
  however, also stimulated remarkable achievements
  of the human spirit.

10
Martin Luther

• Martin Luther's German translation of the Bible
  is a work of extraordinary poetic and religious
  power.
• It has profoundly shaped German culture.

11
Thomas Cranmer

• A more gracious, if less intense passion also
  inspired The Book of Common Prayer by the
  Christian humanist Archbishop of Canterbury,
  Thomas Cranmer.

12
Great Influence on English

• This masterpiece, like the works of Shakespeare,
  has exercised a strong and lasting influence on
  the development of English language and thought.

13
YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND

• The Protestant Reformation with emphasis on its
  roots, Luther's role, and the ways it spread over
  Europe.
• Reformation in England and the rise of
  Anglicanism.
• The reforms of Zwingli and Calvin.

14
YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND

• The efforts Catholics made toward correcting the
  abuses that had crept into the church.
• The interweaving of religion and nationality
  during the era of Philip II, Elizabeth I, and
  Catherine de' Medici.

15
YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND

• The complex issues that brought about the Thirty
  Years' War and its manifold significance for
  European history.