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Anniversary of the Reformation

We’re coming up on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and there are a torrent of books and talks attempting to explain the significance and the consequences of this movement that reshaped our world. One voice I’ve appreciated is Brad Gregory. In his latest book Rebel in the Ranks he puts forward his thesis that the Reformation didn’t just create that patchwork of churches we call Protestantism but it fundamentally changed how the West defined and understood what “religion” was. For a brief treatment of his thesis you can listen to this lecture as a part of this series of lectures.

Here is an outline of how this process might have occurred. These are some of my composite ideas because I haven’t yet finished Gregory’s book.

Behavioral and Practical Pluralism Exposes Religion

One thing you might notice looking for religion in ancient or traditional places is what today looks like naive assumptive hiddenness. In a lecture on African myths the professor made what he presented as a dramatic point that in the context where these myths emerged “religion impacted all of life”. I thought “huh, same point my Bible teacher in Christian high school made when he told us ‘all of life is religious’.”

You will note in the Western classical period the same thing. Cities had temples and patron gods, emperors were divinized. There was little separation of politics from religion. The Old Testament struggles between Yhwh and the constellation of Canaanite religions we find in the books of Judges and Kings might have felt regressive, provincial and tribal to residents of the large ancient empires.  Pluralism was managed in the empire through poly-theism. Sure you could have your own household God as long as you paid your dues to the civic cult. Wasn’t this the great question Augustine engaged in his great work the City of God? It’s clear from the New Testaments that the Romans understood religious pluralism but it had its limits for them. Those who wished to live at peace with the Emperor needed to acknowledge his place and meet his demands.

In the late Roman period after Constantine you saw a wave of Christian self-definition as the Catholic faith attempted to define itself in its internal conflicts. Councils sometimes called by Christian emperors tried to get the church to resolve internal doctrinal divisions through definition and differentiation. Creeds were written that articulated the Trinity, Christology and canon of Scripture. These movements attempted to define “The Catholic Faith” Read the first sentence of the Athanasian Creed. “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith”

Christian Pluralism in the Christian Roman Period Continue reading →