The Reformation churches establish themselves in Europe
The outworking of the Reformation was unique within each country in continental Europe, Scandinavia, and the British Isles. The extent of reform depended on the strength of opposition from the Roman Catholic Church and the attitudes of the populace toward the church in each of the affected countries. It also depended on which branch of the Reformation churches became the most influential in the affairs of reforming the church. Some may have been directly influenced by the work of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and other early reform leaders while other late-comers to the Reformation were influenced by the followers of those early leaders.
Although the reformers readily affirmed their allegiance to “the scriptures alone” as the authority of the church and living the Christian life, it was far more difficult matter to shed centuries of church practices that conflicted with or undermined faithful adherence to the scriptures. Therefore, the implementation of the reforms in the new Protestant churches often carried with it many of the old ways of doing the business of church. By 1550, the church in the west had settled into three branches: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism (Christianity allied with the state), and Calvinism (theocracy). The branches were similar in that each was a compulsory religion, had strong ties with the state in one way or another, and attempted to use the state to impose a religious monopoly.[1]
In countries with a strong Catholic-state alliance, Protestantism made little if any headway. Spanish royalty was predominantly Catholic and virtually exterminated Protestantism through the Inquisition in the 1550s. Protestantism in the Italian states was shunned by the aristocracy and was of small concern and consequence. France was ruled by a Catholic monarchy but the aristocracy became divided because some sections of France were ruled by Huguenots which comprised over ten percent of the nation’s population that heavily favored Calvin’s brand of reformation. After three internal wars separated by intermittent periods of peace, the Huguenots of France won official tolerance for their faith by the 1590s. However, this was short-lived as the monarchy was Catholic and subsequent leaders embraced a more severe interpretation of papal power and cancelled the edict. In 1559 the Scottish nobility sided with Calvin’s disciple John Knox and rose up against Catholic domination. Protestantism became the state religion of Scotland in 1562. In the Netherlands, Protestant resistance against the Catholics began in the 1560s. As the religious divisions and conflicts grew across Europe, the common theme of the church (whether Lutheran, Calvinist, or Catholic) was to look to the sword of state for assistance. As a result, civil and international war became the norm until the late seventeenth century.[2]
The origin of the bonds between church and state during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries came about whenever one of the three contenders for the allegiance of a nation’s citizenry successfully allied itself with the bearer of the state’s sword. Similar to the mass conversions to Christianity under Constantine in the fourth century Roman Empire and the Christianizing of the barbarians during the middle ages, membership in Protestant churches during those early years of the Reformation was largely the result mass conversions. When the ruling entity (a prince, city council, or state) decided to join the Protestant reformation movement, the ruling entity brought all of the people within their domain into the churches. These mass conversions were mostly of membership in name only and not true conversions and commitments to Christ. As with earlier mass conversions in the church’s history, the Protestant mass conversions brought much worldliness into the church.[3]
The years between 1520 and 1562 were a time of bloody martyrdom for the Protestants. But the worst was to come between 1562 and 1648 when Protestants fought for their very survival.[4] In a belated and half-hearted effort to reunite the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestants, Pope Paul III called for a council to consider reforms within the church in the little town of Trent in the mountains of northern Italy. With two interruptions of several years each, the council lasted from 1545 until 1563. The council developed a creed and a new catechism (religious instruction) for the church. The religious abuses that had caused much of the trouble for the church were corrected, and provision was made to better educate the clergy. Although great reform had been accomplished, the essential character of the church remained unchanged which was considered a triumph for the papacy.[5] The efforts of the Catholics at Trent revitalized the church following the shock of the Reformation and spurred its efforts to stamp out Protestantism. Between 1562 and 1618, the Calvinistic Protestants suffered the greatest martyrdom. In 1618, the Lutherans were also dragged into the conflict with the Catholics. The Catholic-Protestant wars eventually ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia which fixed much of the boundaries of Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism in Europe to the present day.[6]
The Reformation in England
We have reserved for last a discussion of the struggle between Catholics and Reformation-era Protestants for dominance in England. The progress of the Reformation and rejection of papal authority generally was a grass roots affair in every country as most rulers were aligned with the Catholic hierarchy. But the Reformation in England was unique in that it became the first nation-state to reject papal authority but not the church’s doctrine or form of worship.
Henry VIII was eighteen when he became king of England in 1509 and ruled for thirty-eight years until his death in 1547. Henry became embroiled in a controversy with the papacy because of his desire to divorce his long-time first wife and marry Ann Boleyn (second of six marriages) with the hope of producing a male heir to inherit the throne. Failing to receive a timely reply from the Pope, the powerful monarch took matters into his own hands and pushed the Parliament to rubber-stamp the necessary legislation which decreed that Henry was the supreme head of the Church of England. His actions were not meant as a rejection of Catholicism for he had previously rejected Luther’s concept of the church. But Henry’s proclamation of royal supremacy over the church effectively separated the English church from Rome and led to the dissolution of monasteries and the confiscation of church property which Henry sold to the aristocracy and gentry.[7]
Henry’s view of the Church of England (also called the Anglican or Episcopal Church) was that it was still Catholic in doctrine but now rested on the supremacy of the king and his descendants. Henry’s wished for heir (Edward VI) was born in 1537 to his third wife. Edward assumed the throne at age nine upon Henry’s death. Edward lived to be only fifteen and was succeeded by a half-sister in 1553. During his short reign Reformation sentiments grew throughout England. Queen Mary was thirty-seven when she ascended the throne but ruled only five years until her death. Her pronounced Catholic sympathies pushed for a reversion to papal authority. She was called “Bloody Mary” because of her burning of Protestant heretics. Mary’s younger half-sister Elizabeth I became queen in 1558 at age twenty-five and ruled England for the next forty-five years. Elizabeth’s returned the Church of England to the model that matched her father’s position on the supremacy of the monarchy over the church. Many Catholics were martyred not because their beliefs were considered heretical but because they were judged as traitors to the crown by rejecting the supremacy of the crown over the church.[8] Although Henry thought Luther a heretic, many Protestants believed Henry’s rejection of papal authority was a step, however feeble, in reformation of the church. [9]
It appears that the English Reformation was the result of royal intrigues and politics of government, kings, and queens. But perhaps reformation is too strong a word for what had happened in England. The Church of England considered itself neither Protestant nor fully Catholic for the changes were more political and organizational than religious and doctrinal. As a result, unrest and desire for freedom from the strictures of the Church of England continued for a long time after the Reformation had run its course and become settled in other countries. Those members of the Church of England who pushed for a more thoroughly purified were called Puritans. They objected to the rites, ceremonies, and episcopal form of government of the Church of England, they wanted to remain in the church and work for reform from within. Separatists were those who believed the process of reforming the Church of England was hopeless and chose to separate from the church altogether. The Separatists were called Congregationalists or Independents and eventually founded the Plymouth Colony in 1620. Nine years later the Puritans followed and establish a reform-minded outpost of the Church of England at the Massachusetts Bay Colony.[10]
Back in England, their brother Puritans continued to suffer persecutions since the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603. But in 1640, Presbyterian Puritans gained the majority in Parliament and executed two of the chief leaders from among their persecutors, one an Archbishop leader and the other a member of the aristocracy. King Charles took exception to the actions of Parliament and soon plunged England into Civil War. Against the King, the nobles, and country gentlemen stood the Parliament and their allies comprised of shopkeepers, small farmers, and a few men of high rank. The war lasted nine years and ended with Charles I’s execution.[11]
For a time there was a great measure of religious freedom in England including those calling themselves Nonconformists and Dissenters. But the English people soon become dissatisfied with the rigidity of Puritanism and brought back Charles II, the son of Charles I who was executed in 1649. Puritan reforms were now pushed aside by Parliament now strongly dominated by Anglicans. Charles II died and was succeeded by his brother, James II, whose great obsession was to restore Catholicism in England. James II sought aid from Louis XIV of France in his endeavor, but the Protestants found their champion in William III and Mary who came from Holland in 1688 and drove James II from the throne in 1688. The following year religious toleration was granted to all dissenters including Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and Quakers. The only exceptions were Roman Catholics or those denying the Trinity.[12]
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Although presented in a highly abbreviated manner, the first seven chapters illustrate the enormous importance of biblical doctrine (dogma, creed, belief) to the church during the first sixteen hundred years of its history. And this importance is evident through Satan’s relentless attacks on biblical truth over the centuries. The church has often made its authority equal or superior to the Bible in many areas which has led to error and corruption within. Also, the church was attacked from without because it had absorbed much of the humanistic worldview. And since the fourth century, the church had perverted its proper scriptural role and relationship with rulers and governments. All of these attacks had one central purpose—that was to challenge and discredit the truth of the inerrant word of God as revealed in the Bible.
As America’s colonists were primarily of English origin, so too was their religious heritage and experience. Religious persecution by the English kings and queens and the Anglican Church was the paramount reason which led to the establishment of at least half of the American colonies. The colonists’ experiences in England and their 150-year history in American formed the unique nature of Founders’ religious impulse that significantly prepared them for their rebellion against the effronteries of the English crown.
Hopefully, this brief history has given a general understanding of the foundations, circumstances, and experiences which informed the new American church as to the importance of their reliance on biblical truth in living the Christian life and which also guided the Founding generation in establishing a nation based upon biblical principles. But to a large measure this reliance on the Bible has been progressively abandoned by the church and nation since the late nineteenth century.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
[1] Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), p. 288.
[2] Ibid., pp. 290-293.
[3] B. K. Kuiper, The Church in History, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1951, 1964), p. 205.
[4] Ibid., p. 244-245.
[5] Ibid., pp. 233-234.
[6] Ibid., pp. 244-245.
[7] J. M. Roberts, The New History of the World, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 579-580.
[8] Ibid., pp. 581-581; “Henry VIII,” Encyclopedia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-VIII-king-of-England (accessed August 10, 2015).
[9] Kuiper, pp. 223, 229.
[10] Ibid., pp. 249-251.
[11] Ibid., p. 251-252.
[12] Ibid., pp. 253-257
