Is the reformation something to be celebrated as a positive or should it be seen as something sad that should never have happened. Poll coming
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Reformation - positive or negative?
- Thread starter JohnKnox87
- Start date
Willtor
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I voted, "I'm Protestant and negative." A Reformation in the etymological sense (i.e., a renewal) would have been quite positive. But division in the Body is a shameful thing.
I would very much like to see reconciliation. I doubt reconciliation looks like a single hierarchy (not that I'm against that), but a general sense of ecumenism and collaboration in justice and shared communion is what I work towards.
I would very much like to see reconciliation. I doubt reconciliation looks like a single hierarchy (not that I'm against that), but a general sense of ecumenism and collaboration in justice and shared communion is what I work towards.
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I'm EO, and I really can't vote one way or the other because there are positive and negative things mixed up in it. I sort of see an analogy with the French Revolution. The good and bad in the impulses which began both, the processes by which they operated, and the results they got, are all so intertwined that it just has to be seen as a big "mess" of good and bad.
As of this day it's the best word to describe Protestant Christianity. It's certainly not all bad, it's certainly not all good, but it is quite a mess. IMHO.
As of this day it's the best word to describe Protestant Christianity. It's certainly not all bad, it's certainly not all good, but it is quite a mess. IMHO.
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Gracchus
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As I am against organized religion I approve nearly anything that disorganizes it. It is like dissipating a poison or breaking up an oil slick.
The fact that religious people are willing to kill, torture, imprison, anathematize and spurn over nonsensical dogmas is evidence of how baseless most religious belief really is. The only way for society to survive religious diversity is to ignore it. Thus religion becomes less poisonous.
The fact that religious people are willing to kill, torture, imprison, anathematize and spurn over nonsensical dogmas is evidence of how baseless most religious belief really is. The only way for society to survive religious diversity is to ignore it. Thus religion becomes less poisonous.
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I'm EO, and I really can't vote one way or the other because there are positive and negative things mixed up in it. I sort of see an analogy with the French Revolution. The good and bad in the impulses which began both, the processes by which they operated, and the results they got, are all so intertwined that it just has to be seen as a big "mess" of good and bad.
As of this day it's the best word to describe Protestant Christianity. It's certainly not all bad, it's certainly not all good, but it is quite a mess. IMHO.
I agree that it was a mixture of good and bad but I still think the positive outweighs the negative, hence I see the reformation as primariliy positive. For me the reformation was the recovery of the gospel of Christ. This was worth all the negativeness that resulted from the split.
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Willtor
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As I am against organized religion I approve nearly anything that disorganizes it. It is like dissipating a poison or breaking up an oil slick.
The fact that religious people are willing to kill, torture, imprison, anathematize and spurn over nonsensical dogmas is evidence of how baseless most religious belief really is. The only way for society to survive religious diversity is to ignore it. Thus religion becomes less poisonous.
Now _there's_ a balanced and nuanced view of religion.
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Implies 'coming out of a dark place', i.e. the Dark Ages, of, among other things, religion. The Reformation allowed true 'biblical' Christianity to emerge for the first time since the Apostalic age.
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Willtor
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"Dark Ages" is a misnomer. Scholars generally don't even use that term for the Middle Ages, anymore because it's so far off base. When it is used, it describes the very early Middle Ages, and is a descriptive term of our knowledge about the period on account of the paucity of data -- not as an intrinsic characteristic of the period, itself. Even this use is falling out of favor as discoveries of the period are made.
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I settled my mind. Since Gracchus voted positive, I'm voting negative. Francis Bacon said something about "many divisions in religion introduces atheism", and atheism has certainly become more popular since they started reforming (or "deforming") Christianity.
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How silly.
Enjoy your Catholicism and theocracy.
Theocracy? As in, John Calvin? As in, early Rhode Island?
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SolomonVII
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I am Catholic and I understand that the fullness of Christian truth is yet expressed in Catholicism. Nevertheless, I voted positve because the point of what is truth must always be argued and struggled with, but never forced.
Likely the witch crazes would never have become so extreme were it not for the hysterical suspicions raised by this schism, bu then again neither would America have been born either were it not for the rise of a judeo-christian ethic built on the new hope of building a New Israel in a new land. The wars of religion devastated whole countries, but Christianity was reinvigorated too, not just through Protestant piety, but through the Catholic Counter-Reformation too, which arguably is still active today with the purging of hebephiles from the Church culture.
Criticism is a good thing. for it is in fire that the finest metal is forged. The hotter the kilns of destruction are made, the stronger the metal the emerges.
Likely the witch crazes would never have become so extreme were it not for the hysterical suspicions raised by this schism, bu then again neither would America have been born either were it not for the rise of a judeo-christian ethic built on the new hope of building a New Israel in a new land. The wars of religion devastated whole countries, but Christianity was reinvigorated too, not just through Protestant piety, but through the Catholic Counter-Reformation too, which arguably is still active today with the purging of hebephiles from the Church culture.
Criticism is a good thing. for it is in fire that the finest metal is forged. The hotter the kilns of destruction are made, the stronger the metal the emerges.
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SolomonVII
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There are no Catholic or EO theocracies in existence in the world today.How silly.
Enjoy your Catholicism and theocracy.
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SolomonVII
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Partially. On the other hand, the rise of the nation states and the waning of the power that the Church held under, say, an Innocent III were all developments that both proceeded and even fueled the Reformation. Certainly the breaking of any type of Christian theocracy in the East proceeded the Reformation too, and is 'thanks' to the defeat of Byzantium by the Islamic theocracy. Neither Reformation nor Enlightenment figured into breaking that system. And to the extent that the Russian Revolution which finished off any semblance of theocracy for the rest of the EO Catholics, the Enlightenment thinking that led to Marxist-Leninism-Stalinism proved to be a very dark kind of light indeed.
To the extent that Catholic theocracies existed in Europe at the time of the Reformation, they were displaced by Protestant theocracies as a rule. It took a lot of conflict, a lot of spilled blood, and eventually the success of the American Revolution (against Anglican 'theocracy') as an alternative before a new model came into being
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