What if the Protestant reformation never happened?

[yogosans14]

I find it funny when Anglicans/Episcopalians deny they are Protestant. Even the RCC says they are Protestant...

 

[Hentenza]

reading the Bible for a half hour is expensive?

That's not what Johann Tetzel was asking.

 

[Rhamiel]

I find it funny when Anglicans/Episcopalians deny they are Protestant. Even the RCC says they are Protestant...

yeah, but we also say that Protestant "churches" are not churches in the proper sense of the word

are you SURE you want to use the Catholic Church as a source?

anyways, Anglicans see themselves as part of an ancient religion, and not something that was made up 500 years ago
so it kind of depends on how you view the Church of England
an ancient institution that was, for a bit of time, under the coercion of the Bishop of Rome
or is their theology a novelty that has no roots in Apostolic teaching

 

[Rhamiel]

That's not what Johann Tetzel was asking.

that was an abuse, it was noted as an abuse
it was not really a problem in Latin countries, one reason why it was not taken seriously at first, it was mostly a vice among the Northern Europeans

we can look at people like St. Francis, St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross to see Reformers who worked within the Church to bring an end to abuses

to say that Catholic Church would have been the same after 500 years with no Protestant Reformation is like saying Protestantism has stayed the same for 500 years, it clearly has not.

 

[sonshine234]

I find it funny when Anglicans/Episcopalians deny they are Protestant. Even the RCC says they are Protestant...

I am not of the Church of England

 

[Hentenza]

that was an abuse, it was noted as an abuse
it was not really a problem in Latin countries, one reason why it was not taken seriously at first, it was mostly a vice among the Northern Europeans

Yes it was an abuse and there were many abuses by the Catholic Church then. The Catholic Church needed to reformed. It refused to reformed on their own. The reformation made it reform (to a point lol).

 

[Rhamiel]

Yes it was an abuse and there were many abuses by the Catholic Church then. The Catholic Church needed to reformed. It refused to reformed on their own. The reformation made it reform (to a point lol).

the Catholic Church would not last 100 years if it did not reform, it more of a local problem in Northern Europe, it was officially against the rules even at that time

there were internal reforms in the Catholic Church before the Protestant Reformation, there were internal reforms in the Catholic Church after the Protestant Reformation, it is silly to pretend like nothing would have changed if it was not for Protestantism

I even mentioned some Catholic Reformers in my post

 

[Hentenza]

the Catholic Church would not last 100 years if it did not reform, it more of a local problem in Northern Europe, it was officially against the rules even at that time

there were internal reforms in the Catholic Church before the Protestant Reformation, there were internal reforms in the Catholic Church after the Protestant Reformation, it is silly to pretend like nothing would have changed if it was not for Protestantism

I even mentioned some Catholic Reformers in my post

In my opinion, I don't think that the Catholic Church would have reformed on their own. There were many a monk and other clergymen that promoted reformation to no avail for a few centuries prior to the reformation.

 

[concretecamper]

Whether reformation would have or would not have happened is secondary in my view. The best thing to come out of the reformation was the Council of Trent. The documents are filled with scripture and Tradition....a real gift to the Church from the Church. God always bring good from every situation.

 

[Hentenza]

Whether reformation would have or would not have happened is secondary in my view. The best thing to come out of the reformation was the Council of Trent. The documents are filled with scripture and Tradition....a real gift to the Church from the Church. God always bring good from every situation.

The counter-reformation council of Trent, not an ecumenical council, only saved face among the Catholics. No one else thought much of it.

 

[ViaCrucis]

The whole world would be Necromancing into spritism and the emergence of the new age spiritists is indicative of what would have become of the whole world.

You are aware that we're talking about what would have happened if there was no Reformation right? We're not talking about what would happen if an army of orc necromancers came pouring out of the Dark Portal.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[concretecamper]

The counter-reformation council of Trent, not an ecumenical council, only saved face among the Catholics. No one else thought much of it.

Haha..I guess 75% of Christianity qualifies as no one else....classic

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

but Absolute Monarchy did not really come up until AFTER the Protestant Reformation

medieval nations were more of a balance between the Monarch, the Church, the Landed Gentry, Trade Guilds and other social institutions
it could be argued that the Protestant Reformation helped to bring about the Absolute Monarchies of the Early Modern period by weakening the power of the Church

I think you're confusing the twelfth century with the fifteenth. Enlightenment absolutism certainly didn't come about until after the Protestant Reformation, but already on the eve of the Reformation monarchs were consolidating power. Henry VII and Henry VIII of England, Charles VIII and Francis I of France, and even Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain are all good examples. These monarchs were already engaged in the systematic undermining of alternate authorities, whether aristocracies below or ecclesiastical authorities above.

The old medieval order had already been seriously undercut by the time Luther came on the scene. The Protestants certainly aided monarchs in consolidating power vis-a-vis the international church, but Gallicianism did the same thing in France later on, no Protestantism necessary. The general trend from the papacy's triumph in the Investiture Controversy up through the French Revolution was a gradual consolidation of absolute authority in national sovereigns.

In fact, you could make the case that this didn't happen in Germany precisely because of the Protestant Reformation, wherein Protestant princes insistent on traditional claims to power despite the earnest efforts of Charles V, Ferdinand I, and the genuinely pathetic Holy Roman Emperors of the seventeenth century.

Perhaps I'm overstating my case. There were certainly instances in which Protestantism enabled the continued rise of sovereign absolutism. Henry VIII is an equally example on that score. Yet, ultimately, the medieval arrangements Protestantism undermined were no more conducive to the eventual rise of constitutional liberty than the early modern absolutism Protestantism and Catholicism both contributed to. And, especially given the history of colonial Latin America as compared to the American experience and even later British imperialism, I think we can all be at least somewhat thankful things turned out they way they did.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

yeah, but we also say that Protestant "churches" are not churches in the proper sense of the word

are you SURE you want to use the Catholic Church as a source?

anyways, Anglicans see themselves as part of an ancient religion, and not something that was made up 500 years ago
so it kind of depends on how you view the Church of England
an ancient institution that was, for a bit of time, under the coercion of the Bishop of Rome
or is their theology a novelty that has no roots in Apostolic teaching

Or how about... an ancient institution that was eventually brought under the yoke of the Continental Latin tradition, and in throwing off that tradition not only reasserted their ancient cultural heritage and autonomy but also introduced novel theology?

NOBODY WINS!

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Haha..I guess 75% of Christianity qualifies as no one else....classic

I think you mean 50%.

Where were the English, Greek, Russian, Saxon, and Scandinavian bishops when Trent was held, mm?

 

[Rhamiel]

In my opinion, I don't think that the Catholic Church would have reformed on their own. There were many a monk and other clergymen that promoted reformation to no avail for a few centuries prior to the reformation.

St. Francis of Assisi, St. John Chrysostom and other great Catholics were reformers long before the Protestant Reformation ever happened

now, you can argue that the Protestant Reformation helped speed up Counter Reformation (or Catholic Reformation, whatever term you like)

but it is dishonest to say that there was no internal reform in the Catholic Church prior to the Reformation

 

[yogosans14]

that was an abuse, it was noted as an abuse
it was not really a problem in Latin countries, one reason why it was not taken seriously at first, it was mostly a vice among the Northern Europeans

we can look at people like St. Francis, St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross to see Reformers who worked within the Church to bring an end to abuses

to say that Catholic Church would have been the same after 500 years with no Protestant Reformation is like saying Protestantism has stayed the same for 500 years, it clearly has not.

Again if you look up the meaning of Church in the NT you will find it doesnt mean what you really think it means..........

 

[ViaCrucis]

Again if you look up the meaning of Church in the NT you will find it doesnt mean what you really think it means..........

An assembly gathered around Word and Sacrament? Or more broadly the People of God called and gathered by the Word?

I don't think there's any misunderstanding here.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[yogosans14]

An assembly gathered around Word and Sacrament? Or more broadly the People of God called and gathered by the Word?

I don't think there's any misunderstanding here.

-CryptoLutheran

I wasnt talking about you. Catholics see the Church as a organization hierarchy with a Pope, Bishops, and stained glass windows. The Church in the greek is "the called out ones" aka Born Again Christians.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

If the protestant reformation never happened some other christian religious group would have been used in the same manner by the colonial rulers and have suffered the same disgrace