Fragmentation from Christendom to the Protestant Reformation - Research Paper Example

?Fragmentation from Christendom to the protestant reformation Fragmentation from Christendom to the protestant reformation was not beneficial to the evolution of European culture and political thought Introduction Christendom vanished in the sixteenth century and the protestant reformation followed instantly. The Counter-reformation crashed the old Christian unity which had been the foundation of medieval thinking. Catholic Christendom unleashed violent conflicts which could not be stopped even by superpowers. Moreover, the rise of religious pluralism motivated a new secular strength in policy making among states. Radically, the world shape had been altered; creating a fresh identity of European communities of what was once Catholic Christendom. Knowledge about their culture had been growing rapidly from thirteenth century (Hillerbrand 89). Across the Atlantic, a new world had been discovered and accurate knowledge of the oceans and the lands beyond Islam became widespread. This coincided with the fragmentation of the old idea of Christendom, replaced by a new geographical idea, Europe that included all people from different European cultures and who shared a common history. This included the protestant sects, Roman Catholicism, and those in the Orthodox. Whether or not protestant reformation comprised improvements in the lives of European communities is debatable, since there were negative and positive impacts in personal, cultural, social, theological, and political pragmatisms. The impacts of Fragmentation from Christendom to the protestant reformation on Culture and political thought Culturally, arts with an exception of architecture and music realized a loss of ecclesiastical support from protestant reforms, and more so, Luther reforms. The movement of reformers used vernacular as opposed to Latin and thus popular music was not as weakened as the Liturgical language used by the church. Consequently, this helped raise the music status since composers were free to develop pieces which were more appealing to people of a specific culture and language, thus encouraging diversity (MacCulloch, 75). Architecture remained exuberant and grand as the numerous denominations competed to put up worship houses. However, other arts lost denominational recognition by protestant restructurings. The patronage of visual arts and religious images were not supported by the protestant churches. At the beginning, struggles among reformers about iconoclasm resulted in conflicts over the images place in the sanctuary. For instance, the differences between Luther and Calvin’s hostility to visual images hampered the support given by churches for art. Culture was affected in such a way that, financing art needed a huge amount of resources, both in creation of the art and in supporting the artists. The Catholic Church drew funds and other resources from many churches diffused over continental Europe, while the Protestants had limited resource base. The situation was made more severe since the princes and the break-away churches were struggling to prevent their recap back to Christendom and the struggle for survival prioritized. This cultural insolvency led to a loss of visual arts for Protestants who would have otherwise gained a deep sense of pleasure and satisfaction from viewing art to reinforce their religious convictions. However, the vernacular Bible version such as the King James Version and Luther’s played a significant role in the development of modern English and German literature (Mitchell & Buss 67). Protestant revolution was not beneficial to the lives of European communities politically since autonomist groups gathered support via identifying with certain denominations. This led to breakup of Western Christianity despite the fact that, for a Christian to put more loyalty towards a political group or nation instead of their faith contradicts with the idea of brotherhood and Christian unity found in the Bible. The fragmentation of Christianity basing on nationalistic lines changed the political framework of Europe and ignited religious disputes which surrounded Europe to date (MacCulloch 90). These religious wars were harmful to citizens because they led to numerous military and civilian causalities, thus democratizing the society with the break up of the church which was united before. The rise in nationalism, recognition of citizens with others of the same ethnic or religious group, such as German or Lutheran; Spanish or Catholic; and not a larger religious or political entity, such as Christendom or Europe, proved damaging. Groups of subjugated and oppressed people regarded local political unions holding to ethnic and religious heritages in which they were the majority as more attractive than being minority followers in a multi cultural empire. European principalities and monarchies which used a common religion in unifying their dynamic populations experienced unrest from the separated factions. With the reform movement led by Luther, the nationalist groups, who sometimes consisted of disenfranchised peasants, associated themselves with one of the emerging Christian denominations so that they could draw more support to their foundation, like the German Peasant’s Revolt association with Luther’s teachings. While nationalists argued that this improved a nation’s unity and prestige, it also failed to slow the march to war. Ultimately, citizens of one country viewed those of other nations as foreigners; ignore a more cosmopolitan Christian and European heritage. Europe’s political landscape was changed by protestant reforms because most of the nationalist groups were successful in breaking up from Catholicism and the multi-ethnic domains ((Mitchell & Buss 94). The Westphalia treaty of 1648 symbolized change since power in Europe would no longer be centralized with the church in Rome allowing public entities such as England and France to emerge from the disputes with a safe base for their independence. The fragmentation from Christendom to protestant reformation therefore resulted in the creation of a European continent which was no longer held jointly by a shared thread of Roman Catholic principles. The reformation can be traced to the disappearance of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, where a pope was to represent God on earth, and as a vicar for Christ, who also acted with cardinals to maintain Christianity in Europe, principally unified under a certain institution (Hillerbrand 108). With more protestant following Luther’s pace and interpreted the Bible separately, no single authority ever existed to determine what was right, resulting in more divergences from past traditions. Shortly, this manifested itself in a military realm with the several religion Wars which raged all over Europe in the Sixteenth century. The cause of this political instability was the anxiety created between the Catholics and the Protestants and the nations associated with either denominations as these nations or groups fought for doctrinal dominance. Contributing to tension and loss of life were the many denominational followers which were local minorities displaced several years ago as these groups vied for power superiority. Finally after large scale American settlement commenced, most of the settlers came from border religious factions seeking land on which they could freely participate in religious practices. The persecution that various communities imposed on each other further worsened tensions between the Catholics and Protestants. For example, the inquisition by the Catholic Church, while designated by their leaders to persuade their political rivals and opponents, was organized basically to find and do away with heretics like the protestant Huguenots in French catholic and other non-Catholics. The reforms did not benefit the social, cultural, or political situation in Germany since theological and political views finally limited reformers’ support in some ideals. Conclusion As much as the fragmentation from Christendom to protestant reformation did not signal noticeable improvements in the physical lives of European Christian communities, the existential idea of the reforms could confirm otherwise. Determination depended strongly on the acceptance or rejection of the assertions by reformers, the existence of the life-after, accessible solely to Christians and the collapse of the Roman Catholic Church. If one accepts the assertions by reformers, and particularly Luther’s, then he may reason that the fragmentation was necessary and brought in an improvement in spite of the cost of Christian unity and human life. However, if one rejects the reformation, then he may consider the fragmentation to be the cause of centuries of European political and religious strife which claimed people’s lives and continues to date. Works Cited Hillerbrand, Hans J. The Division of Christendom: Christianity in the Sixteenth Century. Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007. Print. MacCulloch, Diarmaid. The Reformation. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2003. Print. Mitchell, Joseph R., Helen Buss Mitchell. Taking Sides: Clashing Views in World History. London: McGraw-Hill Contemporary Learning Series, 2007. Print. Read More