The Reformation and Secularization
Reformation Eroded Absolute Political Power of the Catholic Church
Before Reformation, Monarchy in a Christian country was subject to the Pope's control. The Reformation broke this symbiotic relationship between the Church and State.
Religious Control
Government made great use of the advantages of enforcing religious belief and practice. This was a direct benefit to the absolute power of any monarchy and Absolute Monarchy was the prevailing political system in the 16th century. Keeping people under this kind of authority was not an easy job and the Reformation threw this delicate balance of power into chaos. When the great religious authority of the Catholic Church was brought into question, this opened the door for questioning any supreme governing power. There were already great minds questioning the Catholic Church’s position on many scientific issues and these kinds of questions were now being disseminated through new technologies like the printing press. The Bible itself could now be read by most anyone in the general public who was literate.
Reformation Rebels
Politically, Henry the 8th was responsible for overthrowing the Catholic Church in England. Of course his motives will be questioned as he was seeking a divorce that the Pope refused to grant him but the Anglican Church became the established church. In England the spell of religious power over the general population was broken. There was also a great boon to the economic power on England as all of the Catholic Church’s land holdings were confiscated. In Scotland, John Knox helped to establish the Scottish Presbyterian Kirk which outlawed the religious, political, and economic power of the Catholic Church in Scotland. John Calvin a minister from France was in large part responsible for the overthrow of the Catholic Church in Western Europe. He published the theological literary work, Institute of the Christian Religion, in Switzerland which sent shockwaves through the Christian community that are still felt today. His ideas spawned the notion that each man had an individual responsibility to God. In Germany, while the one who began all of this was Martin Luther who helped to disestablish the Catholic Church in the German States and open this religious debate when he advanced his 95 Thesis in 1517.
Religious Effect on Secularization
These reformers helped to establish the right to religious freedom in people’s minds. This resulted in a world wide religious upheaval we have called the Reformation. These great religious awakenings caused people to begin to value religious freedom so much that even the power of the state sponsored churches that replaced Catholicism faced an ever decreasing religious power over their people. In the last 500 years the Reformation brought about a sharp decrease on the political partnership between Church and State. Religious values have evolved to be seen as an individual right rather than a ritual to be enforced by any political or religious power. The Reformation made it possible and socially acceptable for people to be free to develop their own philosophies without Church interference or censorship. This gave us many great secular men who advanced the same human values that the Reformation espoused but in a secular setting.
Secular Philosophy
These men included John Locke born in 1632 in Great Britain who greatly opposed any kind of authoritarianism. His goal was to get people to use reason and to think for themselves rather than blindly accepting the opinions of authorities such as the Church, State, or even individual people. Voltaire, born as François-Marie Arouet in France in 1694, expanded on Locke’s teachings by valuing skepticism and rationalization. He was a proponent of change but interestingly, he had a great fear of any kind of extremism on any side of an issue. Jean-Jacques Rousseau gave us the great gift of a philosophy that espoused that injustice could be overcome when people were allowed to choose their own form of government. David Hume took all of this a step further and applied the scientific method to philosophy and espoused what some have called radical skepticism.
Many religious philosophers have decried these “advancements” of the reformation as going to far. They believe that these secular philosophies are becoming more intolerant than any religious belief ever was. If the core reasons for the Reformation and the secular philosophies that resulted are adhered to then freedom and justice, in the political as well as the social and religious realm, will continue to be safe.
