Page 226 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

protestantism 1527

many clergy became lower-grade civil servants. Depen- language and life of an outstanding leader. By the second
dent upon the government for funds, they were often generation such movements, in order to sustain them-
uncritical of rulers, and Protestant radicals charged that selves and give an accounting of their ways, saw the rise
they were replacing the tyranny of the pope with the of definers. Thus in the Church of England, Richard
tyranny of princes.Yet from the beginning, early Protes- Hooker (1554–1600) brought legal expertise to drafting
tant witnesses to the value of conscience and of relative Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity. John Calvin, arriv-
autonomy in respect to spiritual choices produced a ing on the scene slightly later than Luther or Zwingli,
widespread restlessness that by the middle of the seven- was himself a principled systematic theologian and
teenth century had led to edicts and settlements of tol- defined the Calvinist or Reformed wing of Protestantism
eration in England and elsewhere. with his Institutes of the Christian Religion. Martin
A century later, these protesting impulses and liberated Luther, a man of contradictions who favored paradoxical
consciences served many Protestants as they teamed up language, gave place to university systematicians in the
with political thinkers, revolutionaries, and statesmen, to seventeenth century, giants of dogmatic expression like
distinguish between religion and the civil authorities—to Johann Gerhard. The impulse among the second-
use the terms of American constitutionalist James generation leaders was to reintroduce more legalistic
Madison—or the separation of church and state,Thomas norms and in some cases to adopt the scholastic
Jefferson’s term. Such distinguishing and separation approach to faith which their predecessors had criticized.
became marks of Protestant life in the United States after This meant that they offered philosophical defenses of
1787, and were important instruments in determining the verbal inspiration of the Bible or reasoned apologies
Protestant church life when its missionaries founded for the existence of God and the workings of grace.
churches in Asia and Africa, where no form of Chris- Such defining legalism and scholasticism, especially
tianity was more than a small minority presence. where Protestants were linked with and dependent upon
Not all the external life of Protestant Christians had to civil authorities, could follow a predictable means toward
do with government and politics. There was also an an unsurprising end. That is, they often appeared to
accent on personal ethics, based on the gospel in ideal degenerate into desiccated or fossilized forms, inert,
circumstances, though many evangelical churches devel- incapable of keeping the evangelical spark alive. Such
oped laws and nurtured legalistic ethics. As religion and kinds of settlement bred restlessness.Thus, in a third long
regimes became more independent of each other, the generation or short century of Protestant life, inspired
Protestant ethic of “faith made active in love” inspired leaders and movements from within devoted themselves
Protestants during and after the eighteenth century to anew to the inner life of the individual prayerful soul, the
invent many forms of voluntary associational life. Their piety of believers, and the reform of worship.These eigh-
churches formed groups where leaders and followers teenth and early nineteenth century movements, concur-
could promote charity and reform. The legacy of these rently in the reveil in French-speaking lands, the Glaubens-
inventions in the late eighteenth century, especially in erweckung among German speakers, and the “awakening,”
Anglo-America, is evident wherever the Protestants took “revivalist” or “pietist” movements in the British Isles and
their efforts to convert people, even on continents where the American colonies or young United States, brought
Protestants were never more than a minority presence. forth fresh accents.
Now the concentration was on the personal experi-
Protestant Phases ence of God acting through the Holy Spirit to lead indi-
of Development viduals from indifference or apathy to fervent faith. The
The first generations of Protestantism were what sociol- converts, once “awakened” or “revived,” were to turn to
ogist Emile Durkheim called “effervescences,” bubblings- their reprobate or spiritually lifeless and wicked neigh-
up, hard-to-discipline eruptions, usually marked by the bors and convert them. Then they were to form small