What if the Protestant reformation never happened?

[LittleLambofJesus]

Originally Posted by PreachersWife2004

This may well be why your papal decrees are called bulls.
​

I have never had a papal decree.....but if I did, you would be correct to call it bull!!!! God Bless

Good for you!
Those who live by the "bull", get gored by the "bull"

Papal bull - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


A Papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a pope. It is named after the bulla that was appended to the end in order to authenticate it.......

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[Gxg (G²)]

If not Luther, someone would have said/done something. The time was ripe for a significant upheaval in the social and religious landscape of Europe.

As it stands, not everything that happened during the Reformation was necessarily of the Reformation. The Reformation itself was more-or-less the catalyst that set off a powder keg in Europe that was already ready to blow anyway.

It's simply, in my mind, unlikely that the 16th century wouldn't have seen something happen.

I might even posit that without the rather sober minds of Luther, Melancthon, Calvin (etc) who were willing to engage diplomatically with the powers that be (both ecclesial and secular) the ordeal could have been a far, far more violent one (and it was already pretty violent with the Radicals spurring on the Peasant's Revolt and fanning the flames of fanaticism and rebellion)

-CryptoLutheran

Agreed....

 

[Gxg (G²)]

in what sense?I know the dark ages was a great time for Christians

If I may say...

There were many ways in which the Dark Ages were't dark at all - and in all realness, the Dark Ages in their negativity only went so far.

As it is, Africa is pretty fascinating when seeing the ways that the culture has always been very rich - for in example, there are 7 Medieval African Kingdoms Everyone Should Know About since while Europe was experiencing its Dark Ages ( a period of intellectual, cultural and economic regression from the sixth to the 13th centuries), Africans were experiencing an almost continent-wide renaissance after the decline of the Nile Valley civilizations of Egypt and Nubia - with the leading civilizations of this African rebirth being the Axum Empire, the Kingdom of Ghana, the Mali Empire, the Songhai Empire, the Ethiopian Empire, the Mossi Kingdoms and the Benin Empire.

​

But prior to that amazing history (already forgotten due to stereotyping on how Africa was compared to Europe), the Biblical history helps in many ways to shape the stage for those things coming to pass - and sadly, with the Reformation, you would probably have seen a lot more in the way of actual addressment of the ways that African culture shaped the Bible and history.

For the Reformation was largely a European phenomenon that impacted many things practically - especially as it concerns the ways that images of how we see others were transformed. As said elsewhere:

...many of the Reformers later on had slaves ) since it is a historical fact that the Protestant Reformation and the Inquisition both indirectly influenced the development of the Transatlantic Slave Trade ...in light of how in different nations, religious persecution by Catholics of Protestant sects, Protestant persecution of Catholics, and the Spanish Inquisition of Jews and other non-Christians led people to migrate to the New World to escape religious persecution and many Christians believed that the conversion of the indigenous population to Christianity was imperative ....some in Africa converting others to the beliefs of the Reformers by force and leading to situations as we see today .

We see how Dutch missionaries were active in trying to convert Taiwan's population to Christianity - in light of how Protestant missionaries established schools where Biblical religion and the Dutch language were taught - and by 1650, the Dutch had converted 5,900 of the island's inhabitants to Protestant Christianity.....with he same missionary efforts also undertaken in the other Dutch territories......as missionaries were sent by the Dutch East India Company in the Far East to the Malaysians in the early seventeenth​

century (alongside Indonesia) - meaning that in the Dutch controlled territories, there was clear Protestant Christian rule, and there were efforts made to evangelize the native populations. For during the era of Protestant Reformation, in the continents of Asia and Africa, British colonial rule was not yet as extensive as that of the Dutch...nor did it do as much good in promoting the Reformed faith as the Dutch.. But in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, British rule was to prove more enduring, and its effects more extensive.​

And yet we already see where the Dutch Calvinists - especially in places like South Africa - were EXTREMELY uncomfortable with racial diversity (due to the Eurocentric focus) and we know what came of that when seeing the history of treatment with blacks in South Africa.since the Dutch - like the Puritans - have seen South Africa as a promised land, a New Jerusalem... ( more here and here in The Gospel According to the Marginalized - Page 71 where the "eclectic" sources of South Africa's racial ideology are examined- "Dutch neo-Calvinism, German Romanism and other issues).​

• -Apartheid in South Africa: Calvin's Legacy?
• -The Pilgrim Underground: Calvinism and Apartheid​
• -Calvinism, Slavery and Apartheid - theological contemplations​
• -Calvinism, 1652 and Apartheid: The Development of Afrikaner ​

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Where the Bibles chained in many churches? Yes. Why? Was it to keep the peasant from having one? No. It was keeping someone from stealing them, because a Bible during that time was a small fortune. On average it took a monk about 20 years to copy the Bible. 20 years! Not a few hours, not a few days, not a few weeks, not even a few years. Bibles were in short supply and it wasn't possible for individuals to have their own, unless they spent the time copying the words of the Bible for themselves.

Instead of giving the people their own individual Bibles, the Church did the next best thing. She read it to them, in the Mass and in the Divine Office each day. She illustrated it to them through the Sacred Art found in the Churches. She sang it to them through the Sacred Music offered.

The people then probably knew the Bible better than the people today, even though everyone has access to the Bible. Because the people then knew just how precious the Word of God is.

Very excellent points - ones I had not considered before and thank you for sharing them

 

[Erose]

Very excellent points - ones I had not considered before and thank you for sharing them

Your welcome. People have a problem of always equating what we have now to another period of time. Thus when they hear that Bibles were chained in the churches, they just assume that the Church just withheld those Bibles and prevented the people from getting their hands on them, because today Bibles are so easy to get. That hasn't always been the case.

I mean I got probably 10 to 15 Bibles at my house, could you imagine how much they would be worth 1000 years ago? If they were written in Latin of course.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Your welcome. People have a problem of always equating what we have now to another period of time. Thus when they hear that Bibles were chained in the churches, they just assume that the Church just withheld those Bibles and prevented the people from getting their hands on them, because today Bibles are so easy to get. That hasn't always been the case.

I mean I got probably 10 to 15 Bibles at my house, could you imagine how much they would be worth 1000 years ago? If they were written in Latin of course.

It's hard to consider economics in the same vein as scripture and tradition

 

[PreachersWife2004]

Your welcome. People have a problem of always equating what we have now to another period of time. Thus when they hear that Bibles were chained in the churches, they just assume that the Church just withheld those Bibles and prevented the people from getting their hands on them, because today Bibles are so easy to get. That hasn't always been the case.

I mean I got probably 10 to 15 Bibles at my house, could you imagine how much they would be worth 1000 years ago? If they were written in Latin of course.

Please note that it wasn't just the chaining of bibles in the church that lead people to believe the church was withholding the scriptures.

Bibles were pretty easy to get back then - just not the bibles the Catholic Church wanted people to have - and not just because of heretical teachings.

 

[Erose]

Please note that it wasn't just the chaining of bibles in the church that lead people to believe the church was withholding the scriptures.

Bibles were pretty easy to get back then - just not the bibles the Catholic Church wanted people to have - and not just because of heretical teachings.

Yeah you are write they were pretty easy to get. All you had to do was copy your own from one of those Bibles chained to the pew. 20-30 years of copying and you got your own Bible.

 

[Erose]

Even with the advent of the printing press, it still took a month to copy a Bible. They were cheaper to get yes, but still out of the grasp of common folks.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

Back in college, when I was LCMS, I took a class at Xavier University on the Reformation. It was a very balanced class taught by a Jesuit priest. Once he and I were discussing this issue and he surprised me by saying that if Luther had arrived on the scene anytime before Hus, the Reformation would have been kept inside the Church. In fact, he thought it might have been likely that there would have been a lay order of 'Luther-inians".

 

[Albion]

Back in college, when I was LCMS, I took a class at Xavier University on the Reformation. It was a very balanced class taught by a Jesuit priest. Once he and I were discussing this issue and he surprised me by saying that if Luther had arrived on the scene anytime before Hus, the Reformation would have been kept inside the Church. In fact, he thought it might have been likely that there would have been a lay order of 'Luther-inians".

There certainly are good reasons for agreeing with your professor. After all, Luther was a very conventional person and highly respected. But the Church of the times couldn't deal with any more controversies, so he had to be hushed up rather than absorbed.

Francis of Assisi, by contrast, was not even ordained and, in addition, was considered much more of a loose canon in what he--with his rag tag band of undisciplined and untrained followers--represented. Yet the Papacy decided to tolerate his eccentricities because the institutional church ca.1200 was strong enough not to feel threatened by all of that.

 

[Root of Jesse]

Please note that it wasn't just the chaining of bibles in the church that lead people to believe the church was withholding the scriptures.

Bibles were pretty easy to get back then - just not the bibles the Catholic Church wanted people to have - and not just because of heretical teachings.

Now that's what I call Bull. Got anything to back it up?

 

[Albion]

Please note that it wasn't just the chaining of bibles in the church that lead people to believe the church was withholding the scriptures.

Bibles were pretty easy to get back then - just not the bibles the Catholic Church wanted people to have - and not just because of heretical teachings.

That's true. But the "too valuable not to be chained to the church wall" story is so colorful that it's as far as a lot of people care to inquire.

 

[PreachersWife2004]

Now that's what I call Bull. Got anything to back it up?

Namely your church's list of banned books. There's a good number of bibles on that list. If they were so hard to get anyway, why bother banning them?

I love you can use the narrative to make your church so loving and gracious in that "she read the common man the scriptures".

Bah. How can one be like a Berean, as the bible tells us, if you can never actually read what the bible tells us?

 

[Erose]

Now that's what I call Bull. Got anything to back it up?

No. No she doesn't. Only the Protestant propaganda she grew up with evidently.

 

[Rhamiel]

that is like saying the US government is "anti-money" because the government does not allow counterfeit bills

there have been translations of books of the Bible in the vernacular that have been available to Catholics through the ages

Old English Bible translations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Erose]

Namely your church's list of banned books. There's a good number of bibles on that list. If they were so hard to get anyway, why bother banning them?

Like I asked before. Do you have a problem with your church using Catholic Bibles? I have never seen a Cathlic Bible in a Protestant church. Have you?

I love you can use the narrative to make your church so loving and gracious in that "she read the common man the scriptures".

Well considering most 'common men' couldn't read... I guess in your world they shouldn't have the opportunity to at least hear the Word of God, if they couldn't read.

Bah. How can one be like a Berean, as the bible tells us, if you can never actually read what the bible tells us?

So you think all people who cannot read are damned?

 

[Erose]

That's true. But the "too valuable not to be chained to the church wall" story is so colorful that it's as far as a lot of people care to inquire.

Yeah the truth is very colorful, but the truth doesn't seem to fit the world of many Protestants I guess.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Back in college, when I was LCMS, I took a class at Xavier University on the Reformation. It was a very balanced class taught by a Jesuit priest. Once he and I were discussing this issue and he surprised me by saying that if Luther had arrived on the scene anytime before Hus, the Reformation would have been kept inside the Church. In fact, he thought it might have been likely that there would have been a lay order of 'Luther-inians".

Very astute observation - seeing how much politics often alters how well someone is or isn't ....and because we don't know the nature of political platforms, we end up thinking someone was more important than they really were - but they could have been just like anyone else.

To me, it's similar to Rosa Parks. She wasn't the first black woman to refuse to give up a seat - and many others before here weren't as lucky or prominent. In fact, there were others who were ignored by blacks because their profiles (as with Claudette Colvin) were too controversial to gain a public acceptance and sympathy (even though Claudette was the one who truly began the successful bus boycotts 14 months before Rosa Parks came up).

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Back in college, when I was LCMS, I took a class at Xavier University on the Reformation. It was a very balanced class taught by a Jesuit priest. Once he and I were discussing this issue and he surprised me by saying that if Luther had arrived on the scene anytime before Hus, the Reformation would have been kept inside the Church. In fact, he thought it might have been likely that there would have been a lay order of 'Luther-inians".

What really annoys me, as I've said a number of times now, is that Hus' main points, unlike Luther or Calvin's, were points of practice that Vatican II accepted: communion in both kinds and worship in the vernacular. Today he would be a good Catholic. In the fifteenth century, he was burned under the orders of an "ecumenical" council. Shameful.