History of the Reformation -
Was it a Sham?

Although the Reformation was politically significant, in starting the process of bringing the church under secular control, it was very much a non-event in spiritual terms. Perhaps the biggest single misapprehension holding the Protestant church back in our time, is the notion that it has already gone through all the major reform it needs, in the Reformation, and that all it needs to do now is get around and "witness" to as many people as possible, and tell them how wonderful it is. Most of the reform the church needs, both Catholic and Protestant, is yet to come, and their witness will be unimpressive until after this real reform takes place.

Although the Protestant churches were sponsored by secular rulers, they continued to exert a lot of control over the government of society. In the Reformation days it was still considered appropriate for churches to do this. To John Calvin, the church was supreme, and should not be restricted in any way by the state.^[7] It meant the Protestant churches were very little different from the Catholic church in the way they controlled society - they just did it on a smaller scale, and were more answerable to secular rulers. Church and state were still closely linked; the Reformation did little to change that. It was not until the Enlightenment and the spread of democracy in the last two hundred years that this started to change.

The American President and founding father, Thomas Jefferson, was a champion of religious freedom. He was, however, also a champion of the then revolutionary concept of the separation of church and state. In 1802, he wrote to the Danbury Association of Baptists that he would see built and retained "a wall of separation between church and state." The First Amendment to the American Constitution (of 1791) had laid down that there should be neutrality in religion, that there should be free speech and right of assembly, and that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." The Constitution also rejected all religious tests for office-holders. The United States became the first modern secular state. Some parts of the church have never accepted the necessity of the separation of church and state, yet under it a wide variety of churches have flourished in America.^[8] Under the Separation Law of 1801, a similar separation of church and state was achieved in France.

This was a critical point of departure for the church. Different parts of the church have made different responses to the separation of church and state. Some have accepted it as reasonable and moved forward into the modern age. Others, the fundamentalists, baulked at it, and have been fighting it and stagnating ever since. These religious conservatives often say they do accept the separation of church and state, but, as we shall see, their beliefs and actions belie them.

The papacy responded to its progressive loss of political power by increasingly emphasizing what it called its "spiritual" power - its power to control people's lives. It policed its edicts on how people should conduct their personal lives both directly, through religious courts such as the Inquisition, and indirectly, by playing on people's anxieties about their sexuality, and their fears about what would happen when they died. The church's edicts on morality to this day so often focus on sexuality and reproduction because this is the domain of every person's control over themselves, where people make choices which don't directly affect others. The church has gained its control over people's sexual and reproductive lives by the divide-and-conquer tactic of making people feel guilt-stricken and fearful about such a normal and reasonable thing as enjoying sex, whether it be through masturbation, or through the use of contraception to enable people's sex lives to extend beyond reproduction into the area of recreational sex.

This extension of control and manipulation over the lives of individual people is what the Counter Reformation was really about. As with the Protestants, there was a certain amount of genuine reform. The sale of indulgences, which precipitated the Reformation, was stopped. The Oratory of Divine Love, a society of progressive and influential Catholics, and a number of saints, such as Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, contributed to some important spiritual renewal which was lacking in main-stream Protestantism. In addition to this, though, the Catholic church used the Inquisition in a big way to enforce its authority over people, and the Jesuits to spread Catholic ideas through education and missionary effort. The familiar Jesuit saying, "Give me a child until he is seven, and he will remain a Catholic the rest of his life," reflects their philosophy. The Catholic church also tried more than ever to control people's thinking, and insist on the absolute authority of the papacy. The Council of Trent issued the Tridentine Index of prohibited books, which was kept and updated until it was finally abolished in 1966. In the sixteenth century it censored nearly three-quarters of all the books in print.^[9] Pope Pius IX's bull of Ineffabilis Deus (of 1853) established the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, claiming that from the moment of her conception she was entirely free from original sin. This provided a solid basis for the veneration of Mary, and at the same time strengthened Pius's own authority. Ten years later Pius's Syllabus of Errors condemned political liberalism, rationalism in all its forms, liberal theology, Freemasonry, religious toleration, and even the Bible Societies. At the first Vatican Council (of 1870) Pius IX capped off his elevation of the "authority" of the papacy with his dogma of "papal infallibility," which taught that the pope is infallible when speaking ex cathedra on matters of faith and practice.

This was the pope's response to the growing influence of rationalistic thought, such as that promoted by Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Many subsequent popes have used this power to lay down the law to Catholics. Often this has been done in a very arbitrary way, as when Pope John XXIII's successor, Paul VI, ignored the advice of his wide-ranging and respected committee, and issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae prohibiting the use of artificial birth control by Catholics. The overwhelming consensus in the church was to allow artificial birth control, but the pope totally ignored what his church was telling him, and decided against birth control purely on the basis of his own "infallibility," and in the tradition of wielding "spiritual" power to gain control over people, which the church practiced down through the centuries. This return to hard-line conservatism and arbitrary authority, after the enthusiasm generated by the reform of the second Vatican Council (1962-65), in fact greatly undermined the real authority of the papacy. An increasing number of people had become liberated, through education, from the hold of this sort of manipulation, and were coming to see the manipulation itself as being wrong. Many Catholics felt angry and betrayed by the pope indulging in such arrogant behavior. It is common knowledge that most educated Catholics in western countries have blatantly disregarded this encyclical on birth control; only in third-world countries has it been widely obeyed, and there it has greatly contributed to the population explosion, and the consequent misery this has produced. In 1993, right against the tide of change in his church, Pope John Paul II reaffirmed the Catholic Church's insistence that artificial birth control is intrinsically evil, in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor. Its release was accompanied by many claims of its irrelevance to most Westerners, but fears as to its adverse effect in third-world countries like the Philippines, where Catholicism is taken very seriously, and where there is massive overpopulation and widespread poverty. At this time, throughout the world, there were 23,000 new unwanted pregnancies occurring every day, about eight million each year. For many Catholics, the actual evil of the human misery caused by the ban on artificial birth control far outweighed any theoretical "intrinsic evil." This encyclical was an acknowledged attempt to stem the tide of liberalism in the church, but the pope may as well have been King Canute, sitting on his throne on the beach, ordering the tide not to come in. Its greatest effect, in the West, has been to cause large parts of the church to dismiss the papacy as being irrelevant to their church. There is nothing in the world so powerful as an idea whose time has come, and this is what liberalism is in Western Catholicism.

The liberal papacy of John XXIII, and the reform of Vatican II, stand out as bright lights in the darkness of Roman Catholic History. The second Vatican Council was called to improve the pastoral work of the church, and ushered in a new era of Catholic thought. It showed an openness to many theological questions, including dialogue with Protestant churches and other religions. The Jesuit Karl Rahner, who typified the post Vatican spirit, believed that the people of God extend beyond the Catholic church, and even the other churches, to include all of humanity.^[10] The early sixties was a stirring time to be a Catholic, and the early return to arbitrary conservatism, after John XXIII died, was bitterly disappointing to progressive Catholics around the world. Many sincere and devoted Catholics left the Roman church at this time, but many also stayed, and kept their progressive ideas, continuing to work quietly for reform, in spite of the papacy. In the interests of unity, the papacy has, for a long time, largely tolerated these rebels, who, to a large extent, act independently of the Vatican. Only pope John Paul II has seriously attempted to suppress them, and in vain.

In South America, Liberation Theologians adapt Catholicism to cater to the urgent needs of oppressed people, and go as far as using Marxist analysis to help determine the way the church should care for society. They have achieved impressive results in improving the lot of the poor. In North America the former Dominican Matthew Fox is one of the main advocates of a widespread Catholic Feminist theology. To make up for past wrongs, he advocates changing the Bible to make its language gender inclusive, and proposes the adoption by the church of the essentially pantheist perspective of "Creation Theology," incorporating a renewed worship of ancient earth goddesses. He believes we are all heirs to God's "original blessing" rather than to original sin.^[11] He has also been a major force in bringing to light the evils of the witch craze, which, in the Catholic Church, via the Inquisition, was perpetrated by his own Dominican order. The Catholic priest Bede Griffiths ran an Hindu-style ashram in India, and preached around the world on the similarities between Hinduism and Christianity, and of the urgent need for them to cooperate to revitalize each other.^[12] This progressive side of Catholicism is in stark contrast to the official church, which continues to be conservative and authoritarian. Issues such as birth control, celibacy of priests, the sexual abuse of children in the church's care, and ordination of women, are racking the Catholic church. While the Vatican continues to fail to properly address these issues, and others raised by liberals, Roman Catholicism will keep on stagnating. Yet at least there are the seeds of renewal within Catholicism, in its saints and in its liberals. If it can let go of the dead wood of its past, acknowledge its corruption, and see that much of its tradition just isn't worth keeping, then the Catholic liberals and the main-stream may well be able to work together. The Roman Catholic church might then be able to go permanently into "Vatican II mode," and create a church which really would be able to meet the spiritual needs of the sophisticated, concerned, and discriminating people of the twenty-first century. If such an accommodation is not achieved, though, the Catholic Church will effectively split. The papacy will become like a diseased branch, cut off from the nourishment of the vine, gradually withering away, while liberalism will blossom, as its roots become more and more firmly established in the community.

The dead hand of the past, and the seeds of renewal, are also present in the Protestant church. Within Protestantism they manifest differently, though. The Protestant hankering to return to a past era, when the church controlled society, manifests as fundamentalism. A prime example of this is the Moral Majority movement in the United States, which evolved into the Christian Coalition. Under it, conservative Christians began to play a major role in politics. They twice helped secure the Presidency for Ronald Reagan, and continued to support the Republican Party after his departure. In return for their support, these fundamentalists expect Republican administrations to bring in legislation to enforce observance of their moralistic, so-called "Christian" values. They want abortion outlawed, prayers to be said in schools, and "decent," middle-class, values to be established. Neither they, nor the Republican party, however, take on the issues of structural social injustice which are plaguing America, and which Jesus and the old-testament prophets were so concerned about in their time. Ironically, it is liberals, who make much less of a show of being Christian, who promote these social justice issues through their own agencies and the Democrats. Implementing social justice through reform involves helping people who need it and want it; it is selfless service of the type Jesus commended. Implementing laws which punish people for so-called "moral crimes" is imposing a value system on others, and taking away their God-given free will. It is selfish and power seeking. Jesus clearly avoided doing it, and if his example means anything, Christians should too. Setting a good example, and having high expectations of others, as Jesus did, are far better ways of promoting right behavior.

Fundamentalism usually attracts the Christian spotlight, with its high political profile and tele-evangelists, but for every fundamentalist in the church there is also another caring, loving, tolerant Christian with a more liberal outlook. By and large this liberal outlook is reflected in the World Council of Churches. In this liberal Christianity, the separation of church and state is accepted, and energy is not spent trying to reverse it. Instead there is a concentration on helping the poor and dispossessed, properly caring for the world God entrusted to us, and trying to find common ground between believers of different denominations and faiths. Unfortunately, the historical problems of church and society have often caused these liberals to react to more conservative religion by being very rationalistic, often to the point of not believing in the miraculous, or the power of the Spirit in individual lives. At the same time Pentecostal Christians, with their personal faith in the saving power of the Spirit, often lean toward fundamentalism. This is the strange dilemma of modern Christianity, and it is tearing it apart. If only the concern for spirituality of the Pentecostal movement could be combined with the social concern, love and tolerance of the liberals, then Christianity could really begin to meet the needs of spiritual seekers in our society. I believe the tacit acceptance of many false doctrines and attitudes from the medieval church is preventing such a joining of the best with the best in the church. A cleansing must take place first, before healing is possible. Then the conservatives will be able to see that much that is traditional in the church is actually holding it back, and the liberals will be able to see that the corrupt and the miraculous aren't at all just one package, and can be separated. Until this cleansing takes place, the church in western countries will continue to stagnate, because it will keep on failing to meet the needs of discriminating people, and will keep on leading more emotional people down a path of selfishness.

There is a very good reason why the church has been so successful in Africa, when it has been languishing in western countries. African culture delights in the charismatic and ritualistic, and is at home with a conservative interpretation of the Bible. It also honors hierarchies and titles, and readily accepts strict discipline.^[13] The church structure of our past suits most African societies much better than it now suits ours. Also, since the church is new in Africa, the dead weight of the past isn't holding it back in the same way it does in the West. Africans have been quick to adapt Christianity to their culture, and a wide variety of local churches have arisen, mostly emphasizing the Pentecostal experience of the power of the Spirit. There may be some lessons for the West in the way the church has succeeded in Africa, but it is unlikely to be as simple as that we should just imitate it; the differences between the two societies, and their past exposure to Christianity, must be taken into account.

The church in the West is dogged by its past, but it doesn't have to be forever, unfortunate as this past is. A twentieth century Indian saint, Sri Yukteswar, said this about what has gone before:

"Forget the past. The vanished lives of all men are dark with
many shames. Human conduct is ever unreliable until anchored
in the divine. Everything in the future will improve if you
are making a spiritual effort now."^[14]

It is advice the Western church can heed. But in order to make it possible for the church to forget the past, it needs to acknowledge with Albert Schweitzer that:

"What has been passing for Christianity during these nineteen centuries is merely a beginning, full of weaknesses and mistakes, not a full-grown Christianity springing from the spirit of Jesus."