From the gullibility-is-not-a-fruit-of-the-Spirit department:
Sometimes the story goes like this: The Catholic Church attacked the Holy Land in 1095 and relations between Christians and Muslims have been poisoned ever since. This simplistic interpretation is not only false, it misses the real significance of the Crusades. They reacquainted Europe with her past, helped bring her out of the so-called Dark Ages and mark the beginning of a new era in Western history, the High Middle Ages, which laid the foundation for transforming epochs like the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution. They also led to the thought of one of Catholicism’s greatest philosophers, St. Thomas Aquinas. . . .
Intellectual revitalization is the real significance of the Crusades. Fields like science, mathematics and philosophy made more progress in the twelve and thirteenth centuries than in the preceding six centuries combined. The Black Death momentarily curbed intellectual growth in the fourteenth century, but by the fifteenth century, Europe was poised to become the world’s dominant civilization.
Old Life 
You persistently, continually and even obstinately, continue to question beg and instead of embracing a hermenuetic of cohesion and continuity, instead rely upon an atheistic skepticism to hurl insults at your mother. You invincibly ignorant schismatic of a separated brother, who nevertheless, because of the Roman Magisterium’s boundless magnanamosity are unwittingly embraced in communion with Rome. Congratulations.
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Generally products from the RC Spin Department are more clever than products from the Patriotic Evangelical Spin Department. Here, not so much.
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@Sean – Huh?
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Mikelmann,
True. At least Rome didn’t give us The Patriot’s Bible.
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Here’s one of his references; Steve Weidenkopf Lecturer of Church History at the Notre Dame Graduate College of Christendom College;
“Christendom College is a four-year coeducational Roman Catholic Liberal Arts College with undergraduate and graduate programs offered on three campuses in Front Royal and Alexandria, Virginia, and Rome, Italy.
Founded in 1977 in response to the devastating blow inflicted on Catholic higher education by the cultural revolution which swept across America in the 1960s, Christendom’s goal is to provide a truly Catholic education in fidelity to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church and thereby to prepare students for their role of restoring all things in Christ.”
Steve Weidenkopf;
“The Crusaders understood they were participating in an armed pilgrimage for the restoration of ancient Christian lands. The Crusades were defensive wars aimed at the restoration of property not unprovoked aggressive campaigns of conquest.”
“The fact remains that the vast majority of crusaders were pious warriors fighting to liberate the land of Christ from the yoke of the Muslims in order to bring peace. ”
“Standard practice at the time dictated that a city that refused to surrender at the sight of a siege army would suffer any and all consequences of a successful siege; this is why many cities agreed to terms before commencement of the siege.
Both Christian and Muslim armies followed this policy. If a city surrendered before the siege, the inhabitants were allowed to remain in the city and keep their possessions. Crusaders allowed Muslims to keep their faith and practice it openly upon surrender. In the case of Jerusalem, most of the city had fled at the news of the incoming Christian army. When the Crusaders broke through the defenses and took the city, they did kill many inhabitants, including non-combatants; others were ransomed and some were expelled.”
“None of the anti-Jewish “armies” made it to the East, after their rampage of murder and plunder, the brigands dispersed. So, these groups cannot accurately be called Crusaders. Although numerous Jewish populations were harmed during the time of the crusading movement, these attacks were not directly part of the movement as none of the main armies participated in them and the Church did not sanction the attacks, rather, she worked to stop them.”
Me: See, this is what coherence and continuity looks like. Where’s Fr. Pachence when I need him, he’d disown these guys at ‘hello.’
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Sean was just channeling. You never know what channel he’s going to be on. Sometimes he’s like the old dial TVs where you can make it stop halfway between channels and you just stare at the fuzzy pattern for hours. At least that’s what I did. Back in the day.
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Robert, but did Calvinism really give us capitalism and literacy? Or is that a form of culturalist prosperity for the higher brow? It’s as hard to swallow as papal infallibility.
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MM, that’s what I mean when I say these guys remind me of evangelicals. It’s this fundamentalist impulse that I just don’t recognize, it wasn’t part of the ‘dinner table’ conversation, except as the butt of a joke. It’s creepy. It’s like if F.V. went ahead and crossed the Tibe……….hey wait a minute.
KB, sorry. But Darryl just refuses to adhere to the officially sanctioned bounds of RC historical and theological evaluation and discussion as sealed under the CtC ring of the Fisherman(formerly known as Benedict but now; “the guy with the red dossier in the abbey just in case pope emeritus”) . Darryl is intent on proving his invincible ignorance. That means another 100 ‘Our fathers’ and ‘hail mary’s’ and at least $5 in candle lighting and knee bending for the ecumenical dialoguers and who knows how much more torment in hell for me.
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Zrim,
Near as I can tell, at least in this country, it was the Puritan drive to teach people to read the Bible that led finally to widespread literacy and even public education. I’ve read many who have attributed free-market captitalism in part to the Protestant work ethic and the Reformed understanding of the eighth commandment. Where am I wrong historically?
Obviously, Calvinism (or Calvinists if you prefer) aren’t solely responsible for such things, and I don’t mean to suggest that they were. And I’m not saying necessarily that capitalism and widespread literacy are from the hand of God Himself. Can we not, however, recognize that traditional Reformed understandings are conducive to such things in ways that other theological traditions are not.
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“traditional Reformed understandings”
And what are those?
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Food for thought:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2012/08/puritans-the-original-republicans/
As for your reflexive snideness toward Roman Catholicism, we should note that Aquinas is a pre-Reformation thinker, some 250+ years before Luther and the Reformation, and indeed many of the Reformers [the Calvinist Theodore Beza, the Lutheran Philipp Melanchthon, the Anglican Richard Hooker] kept the Aristotelian-Thomistic method even as their scriptural interpretations demurred from Rome’s.
Further, just as al-Gazzali [d. 1111 CE] rejects the Greek “falisifas” in the name of a fideistic Islam, the Golden Age of Islam begins to close. Just as the West rediscovers Aristotle [via the Muslims, BTW], Christendom leaves the Dark Ages and becomes the world’s leading civilization, a status it has not [yet] surrendered, although the West is certainly working on surrendering the “Christian” part.
Of course as a librarian and a historian Darryl Hart knows all this, but I thought I’d pass it along for those not in on the joke. I do agree with Darryl that the Crusades are perhaps not the best hero for this story.
*”Abū l-Walīd Muḥammad bin ʾAḥmad bin Rušd, commonly known as Ibn Rushd or by his Latinized name Averroës”
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Robert, so is the bumper sticker “If you can read this, thank a Calvinist”?
But again, it seems overly ambitious to ascribe fairly complicated cultural goods to a particular theological system and a little more sober to attribute something like Reformed churches to Calvinism. So, no, it isn’t immediately obvious how the traditional Reformed understandings are conducive to certain cultural goods in ways Lutheranism isn’t. Frankly, it sounds more like wanting to capture Christianity for culture in order to gain clout. But I’m sure Tom thinks it’s neat-o.
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Tom, quoting, “Puritanism was not merely a religious doctrine, but it corresponded in many points with the most absolute democratic and republican theories.”
Tom saying, “as for your reflexive snideness toward Roman Catholicism. . .”
Me, Tom, have you heard that the Puritans put the snide in snideness toward Roman Catholicism.
But it’s history when you cherry pick from the past. Got it.
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Zrim
Posted August 1, 2013 at 8:49 pm | Permalink
Robert, so is the bumper sticker “If you can read this, thank a Calvinist”?
But again, it seems overly ambitious to ascribe fairly complicated cultural goods to a particular theological system and a little more sober to attribute something like Reformed churches to Calvinism. So, no, it isn’t immediately obvious how the traditional Reformed understandings are conducive to certain cultural goods in ways Lutheranism isn’t. Frankly, it sounds more like wanting to capture Christianity for culture in order to gain clout. But I’m sure Tom thinks it’s neat-o.
I go where the evidence leads. You can’t understand the American founding without understanding Protestantism, particularly Calvinism. I say this as one with no dog in the fight. I figured the Founding was Aquinas and natural law–which it is–but discovered the road also runs straight through Geneva.
[Go directly from Roman Catholicism to the Enlightenment modernity of Voltaire and Rousseau, and we get the French Revolution, which was a whole different bag of bananas.]
As for Gutenberg, Luther, Tyndale & the Bible being responsible for increased literacy, you can google the arguments. The Gutenberg Bible was the Vulgate one, St. Jerome’s, the Catholic one, in Latin. 1455 CE or so.
Which brings the Thomas More-William Tyndale public debate back into focus. 100 years after the Gutenberg Bible–which you could say was the end of the RCC’s exclusive hold on the scriptures regardless of any attempts to restrict it–Tyndale, following Luther’s German edition, translates the Bible into English.
And let’s note here that Henry VIII hasn’t broken from Rome yet. Sir Thomas More is his theological right-hand man, not yet executed over the Anne Boleyn thing; the Anglican Church of England does not yet exist, and “Lutheranism” is not even a blip in Anglia.
William Tyndale is a Calvinist. There’s your link to the English-speaking world.
Click to access moretyndale.pdf
[Well, I find this stuff interesting even if nobody else does. These discussions make me look stuff up, and I share it as sort of a thank you to everybody for getting my curiosity rolling. Make of it what you will.]
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Tom, “I say this as one with no dog in the fight.”
Really? Your whole status as a blogger requires Protestantism and Calvinism to be crucial to the American Creation.
Now you know how even want-to-be historians are biased just like theologians.
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James Davison Hunter had some interesting thoughts on point. The notion that “it is ideas that move history” is “pedestrian Hegelianism.” He continues:
“Ideas are important, of course, but without understanding the nature, workings, and power of institutions in which those ideas are generated and managed, one only understands half of what is going on in culture. It is better to think of culture as a thing, if you will, manufactured not by lone individuals but rather by institutions and the elites who lead them. Institutions such as such the market, the state, education, the media of mass communications, scientific and technological research, and the family in its socializing capacities are not organizationally neutral but have their own logic, place, and history that interact with ideas and the ideals for which they are carriers.”
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Zrim,
Well, I’m not a R2Ker, so I guess it would sound that way to you. 🙂 (BTW, I’m no theonomist either. If we get a scale and put Theonomy at 0 and R2K at 100, I’m probably about a 50–51. Maybe a 49 on some days.
To be clearer, I think that Protestantism is more conducive to such things as widespread public literacy and capitalism than Roman Catholicism. Maybe I’m just completely wrong, but it seems that such things took hold first, at least since the Reformation, in countries with a dominant Protestant influence.
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D. G. Hart
Posted August 1, 2013 at 9:54 pm | Permalink
Tom, “I say this as one with no dog in the fight.”
Really? Your whole status as a blogger requires Protestantism and Calvinism to be crucial to the American Creation.
Now you know how even want-to-be historians are biased just like theologians.
There you go again, Mr. President. This addiction to
ad hom gottaad hominem has to go. It’s not about me, bro. You’re not listening.I didn’t start the American Creation blog, Darryl. I was sponsored/brought in by Jonathan Rowe, with whom I frequently disagree, and who has become a fast friend. My “status” relies on the strength of my arguments and research. I barely even post—like here, my influence resides in the comments sections.
As it turned out, Jon’s even from my hometown. He came to see me in the hospital when I broke my femur while visiting my dad in Philly last winter. So
mebbemaybe someday you’ll come see me in similar dire circumstances. Or I you.Now that’s something to look forward to, eh? 😉
[Papelbon, after high-horsing on the Phillies’ crap season by noting he’s been doing HIS job, just blew the save. Not even going to go there, bro.]
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Tom, I know it’s not about you. It’s about inconsistencies, and yours are stunning considering your know-it-all demeanor.
I also know that you are a junior member at American Creation.
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Zrim and Robert,
I think you are both correct. Robert is correct that one cannot help when crossing the border from San Diego into Tijuana to wonder how to civilizations with the same local resources, topography, etc. could look so different. Surely the the RC, Protestant differences have much to do with it. But Zrim is correct that the Protestant work ethic, as it’s come to be known, is not endemic to a particularly Reformed or Calvinist theology, but simply a broader Protestant theology. My take anyway.
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So that’s why the west side of Rockford looks and feels like East Germany–because of the damn Italians and St. Mary’s Oratory and St. Peter’s Cathedral. Thank goodness I live on the East Side, where I can safely go to those capitalistic Big Box Stores Calvinism gave us.
Oh, and the near East Side is decaying a bit, probably because the handsome brick bungalows were built by Pietistic Swedes who didn’t know their Lutheran Confession. And 20-some Lutheran churches and not one my husband and I feel comfortable bringing our kids to! If only the German Lutherans had more influence in Rockford, it wouldn’t be what it is today! And we’d still have a street named Berlin!
I doubt RC/Protestant differences “have much to do” with the differences between San Diego and Tijuana. It probably has something to do with the amount of money American visitors spend in Tijuana and WHAT they purchase, and maybe the military base in San Diego also contributed to Tijuana’s kitschy, dangerous atmosphere. There’s a demand and the Mexicans meet it.
As far as education and literacy, the systems and methods developed over the last 400 years from all confessions have been outstanding (whatever you say about parochial schools). It was an across-the-board renaissance, even though the Jebbies, Robert, and Melanchthon-gave-us-classical-education Lutherans all claim their own people started it, with everyone else copying.
(And for those who criticize church schools, you should distinguish the modern “Christian” school–which just Jesusafies public curriculum and standards, or is coasting on a denomination brand name and reputation–from a school like-minded parents and pastors organize and support to meet their children’s needs. I would be happy to help start a school at my church OR a school in my neighborhood, since I know and trust the parents and families. Those are my communities, so those are the natural groups of people I would approach to start a school.)
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Todd,
Yeah, I probably overstated things to attribute such things only to Reformed theology. I didn’t mean to. I was just thinking of the American context where Presbyterians have been so influential. But you see the same things or similar in Lutheran-based Germany and much of Scandinavia as well as Church of England Britain and Australia.
My essential point is that if you believe everyone can read the Bible and understand its basic message—a Protestant point—that is going to drive you to be concerned for literacy. When you won’t even have worship in the vernacular, which Rome did not allow for so long, it doesn’t matter if the people can’t read because the church didn’t even care that they couldn’t understand the spoken word.
Where Protestants have had the most influence, people have enjoyed the most prosperity. Even an exception like Japan proves the point considering the influence of Protestant America on that culture post WW2.
At the end of the day, I’m not saying that such things are necessarily inevitable or that Protestantism is their only cause. There is a complex web of interrelated factors. But I think we are short-sighted not to acknowledge the Protestant connection. Protestant ways of doing things lead to certain assumptions becoming dominant in a culture, for good or for ill, and create an environment that is more conducive to such things as freedom of religion, literacy, economic prosperity, and so on that one did not find in cultures where the Roman Catholic Church was in control.
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Also, if I were Calvinist, I wouldn’t put too much claim on California. Since when did a Calvinist ever name a city San Diego? Maybe you meant San Diego has flourished under federal funds and rich WAPS who can afford to choose their climate (and indulge their flesh in Tijuana).
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Robert, Katy, and Todd, it’s an interesting discussion. My parents still bring up NINA(No Irish Need Apply) and have an image of protestants as Bourgeoisie and at the same time idiots-Southern Baptists, evangelicalism. They laud RC schooling and catechesis as producing children too smart to be protestant(oops). Then you mix in the Noreastern and midwest labor unions which were filled to the brim with RC’s and all the societal agencies the RC’s fund and man, none of those RC cultural mores remind me of Tijuana. There are so many different points of intersection it’s hard to distinguish it all.
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Katy, there’s no accounting for the names of American cities. Toledo friggin’ Ohio!!?!
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I think you’re confusing the Reformation with Colonialism (a cash cow for Europe) and the Industrial Revolution. (Perhaps you think the former caused the latter, but that’s another discussion)
While I agree the RCC was initially hesitant and downright hostile to Biblical literacy, it’s not quite fair to blame them for a high illiteracy rate in general when 1) the printing press wasn’t invented and 2) most people didn’t have time to sit around learning how to read. You have to have leisure time–as in not working 15 hours a day–to spend time reading. It’s unfair and simplistic to blame the Roman Church completely for the socio-economic atmosphere (likewise unfair and untrue for a Romanist to say the Prots killed the arts and any refined culture–which IN APPEARANCE seems true, really.) While the Protestant Reformation encouraged all people to read the Bible, they mostly heard it (in their own language!) read in church, sometimes daily. Psalm, Epistle, Gospel. (BTW, Lutherans in the cities still heard services in Latin until the 1700s because they knew Latin.)
Sorry to comment so much on this. I just think history is lot more complicated. Think how annoying it is to us when a RC gets on his high horse about the Reformation causing all of our modern maladies. Well, that’s what it sounds like we’re doing–without the Reformation, and the Puritans particularly, literacy would not be so widespread.
No hard feelings, Robert. My Midwestern hackles are probably oversensitive to giving too much credit to New England for anything.
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Robert, Japan’s economic prosperity is due to Protestanism? Oh, please do detail.
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Katy, I vote for the neighborhood school option (for the reasons you state). But we already have one, courtesy of the state. Thanks, Thomas Jefferson.
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Robert, you wrote: “Where Protestants have had the most influence, people have enjoyed the most prosperity. Even an exception like Japan proves the point considering the influence of Protestant America on that culture post WW2.”
Ancient Egypt and Rome prospered without any Protestant influences whatsoever. I’m not trying to be glib, but your theory is easily undermined by that fact, which sure seems to suggest that the theory is at least somewhat religiously narcissist. I’ve no problem admitting that Protestants have had a hand in the development of certain western goods, but by the same token so did Roman Catholics and Deists. And if that’s true then the idea that “Protestant ways of doing things lead to certain assumptions becoming dominant in a culture” becomes less convincing.
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Darryl, true. My husband and I spent a good 20 minutes once figuring out why there were so many Muslim names for central Illinois farm towns (Medina, Mahomet). I thought it might have been a Mormon thing. Turns out it was the Masons.
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Tijuana is a bit of a servant of an indulgent and hedonistic America. But Mexico is this mixed bag of european(spanish) aristocracy and indigent indian stratification, they seem to hate each other equally. The religious side is RC superstition mixed with RC liberation theology but now countered with a pentecostal protestantism-I suspect riding the RC superstition plank into protestantism. Politically they have a long history of lawlessness and the president’s robbing the treasury on their way out. Any way you look at it, I don’t want their culture.
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We Michiganders almost had Toledo but instead got the UP. But pasties are good and sustained me through college–I think they flow naturally from Calvinism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo_War
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Well, our state schools aren’t really schools anymore, thanks to a discrimination lawsuit. And 5-6 districts (in a city of 150,000) became one huge district. None of the public teachers in town I know send their kids to the public schools. It’s easier to argue that there should be no parochial schools or private options when your public schools are at least teaching the three Rs.
Believe me, this mama would love to send her kids away to a good school, with teachers who are her friends or acquaintances for 6-7 hours a day (whether they open with Luther’s Morning Prayer, or a Fanny Crosby hymn, or some Maya Angelou greeting card quote).
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Fanny Crosby! Bleh. Fanny Crosby makes all my parents criticisms ring true.
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Right, but my point is I’m not concerned about the “confession” or “mission” of a school, as long as they spend most of the time reading, writing and figuring (which our state schools as practiced by our city do not). Religion will be at home and at our church’s catechism class.
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Katy, no good public school advocate would ever contend that there shouldn’t be any private or parochial schools–in fact, quite the opposite, as in competition is a good thing. But if your local schools are sub-par then clearly you don’t live in Little Geneva where Calvinism makes everything superior.
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Katy for Principal (don’t tell the Baylys).
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Katy, I got your point and I’m with ya. Fanny Crosby just causes an immediate visceral reaction. If there’s more than one in a service I’ve been known to excuse myself.
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Zrim, this isn’t a pick up bar.
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Comport yourself, man.
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Ha! The whole point is so I can do other stuff while the kids are in school. I probably would teach after my youngest enters elementary. Head Mistress should be reserved for someone twice my age.
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Katy, you gotta love those secret societies.
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Katy: No worries. I don’t want to attribute much good to New England either.
Katy and Zrim: I’m not trying to be simplistic, and both of you raise good points.
Zrim: But did Ancient Rome and Egypt have anything like the vast middle class that has existed in the more recent West?
It just seems to me that when you combine the Protestant doctrine of vocation (even Lutheran—that’s for you, Katy 🙂 ), post-magisterial Protestant freedom of religion sensibilities, emphasis on personal Bible reading, and views on private property as seen in the HC and WCF (probably Lutheran confessions as well, I’m not as familiar with those), you create an environment where it makes perfect sense that the economy and governments developed as they did. That’s not to discount non-Protestant influences or even ancient influences of Greece and Rome as mediated through Christianity, but even there I think you can make an argument that the deists were trying to be Protestants without all that, you know, supernatural stuff. The RCs are a bit more complicated, but the totalitarianism the traditional doctrine of the papacy can encourage certainly seems to put a damper on the creative freedom of the individual that has led to much of the widespread economic prosperity in the West. And even where more traditionally Roman Catholic cultures have enjoyed similar prosperity, one could still make an argument that it was Protestant-majority countries that led the way. Britain. The United States. Germany (of course a lot of RCs there).
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Mikelmann,
Japan was rebuilt after WW2 by the U.S. was it not? U.S. used to be majority Protestant or Protestant-influenced, no?
Perhaps the connection is incidental or non-existent, but there just seem to be too many coincidences between economic prosperity and Protestant influence:
Hong Kong and the British
China adopting a free market system developed in the West under, at the bare minimum, Christian influences.
I’m not saying being Protestant = success. I’m saying that it seems that cultures with a majority-Protestant population have a certain ethos that has some correlation with prosperity. But of course, I could be wrong.
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Zrimley, you mean like Cornish pasties? Finally something important to talk about.
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And since we’re talking about omelettes, pasties, women, and what a particular theology/ecclesiology will necessarily produce in people or society, I’d just like to posit that Reformed people are thinner than either their RC or evanjellydonunt counterparts. My church’s obesity percentage is minuscule compared to most churches. Pietism (especially female, various faiths), or P&W praise team participation seem to almost require, encourage, or cause excessive girth. There, I said it.
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Robert, IMO when one looks at ths chain (Reformation) -> (majority of Protestantism in US) -> (capitalism) -> (post-WWII rebuilding) -> (prosperity in Japan), there is enough doubt between the links that it seems weak to associate the first link with the last one. Even if you went to the micro-level it would seem to be difficult to confidently associate Protestantism with prosperity in an individual, never mind the prosperity of a nation.
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Robert, with a number of the examples you cited, and I know you allow for complexity, but it sure seems you can get a lot done on the backs of slave populations or native indigents.
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And, following up on Sean, was the industrial revolution Protestant? If so we have to own capitalistic excess with its greed and general disregard for individual dignity and health. Perhaps the excesses of today’s unions should be traced back to Protestantism, since they were formed to combat the excesses of alleged Protestant capitalism. If we take the good do we take the bad?
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Nice to see the Talking Heads front man has taken up writing history.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsksSWOxq2Y
Best concert film of all time.
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Sean,
Point taken. Although one might argue that American prosperity really occurred post-slavery, largely because of industrialization. One might also say that even Protestants have never implemented all their own principles rightly—we do believe in total depravity after all.
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Mikelmann,
If we make any evaluation we look at the good and the bad. We blame Protestants where they did not implement their own principles correctly or consistently. We blame Protestants where their principles were were wrong even when they were implemented correctly or consistently and we reform.
Am I really saying anything that is that controversial? Have not many attributed the success of the U.S., at least in part, to the “Protestant work ethic”?
I appreciate the concern of all in this discussion to keep the church doing its job and the state doing its job, to not want to Christianize culture as the far right does. In large measure I agree. But I think that in trying to do that, we can make the opposite error of not seeing the Protestant influence as having any causal effect on such things as economics and culture.
But I’m not R2k, so please don’t throw that abundant Tomato harvest that results from the prevalence of Southern Presbyterian influence on farming at me. 🙂
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Robert, I am not sure I will ultimately disagree you with. At this point I’m just poking at it to see what it is.
And here’s another poke: are curbs on capitalism unProtestant? Workplace safety laws? Minimum wage? The social safety net?
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The Crusades were responsible for human flourishing the same way American southern slavery was responsible for the Beatles.
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Erik, maybe that will get David Byrne into the OPC.
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D. G. Hart
Posted August 2, 2013 at 6:22 am | Permalink
Tom, I know it’s not about you. It’s about inconsistencies, and yours are stunning considering your know-it-all demeanor.
I also know that you are a junior member at American Creation.
Not any more. Another thing you know that’s not so. Your radar is so consistently wrong, that I certainly can’t charge you with inconsistency. ;-P
As for your alleging inconsistencies, that’s the prison of the sophist–seeking error on the other fellow’s part, rather than truth for both you and him. That’s no way to go through life, son.
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Am I the only one who’s noticed that Herr Hart bears a passing resemblance to David Byrne? If you must look like a hipster, better to look like Byrne than Thornbury.
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@Robert I recall guy claiming that Marxism wasn’t all bad because Lenin was an early promoter of nationwide universal education. My response was that even if it is true that Lenin invented and promoted the idea of universal education for the first time in the history of the human race, it doesn’t make the concept Marxist (or justify the horrors of communism) any more than Mussolini’s success at getting the trains to run on time makes efficient public transport “Fascist”.
The fact that Calvinism (and protestantism more generally) found a home in NW Europe does not make everything that came out of those cultures from 1600 onward Calvinist. Maybe the culture that led to a strong work ethic and embraced literacy also made the culture more fertile ground for Calvinist ideas. This is why I remain skeptical of a “Calvinist” resistance theory, work ethic, etc…. Not because I don’t believe that a lot of Calvinists promoted and embraced a unique argument for resistance theory (or worked really hard), but because no one has yet made the case that Calvinist ideas (i.e. the theology of the Magisterial reformation) themselves led to the development of a resistance theory (or a unique work ethic). My (limited) understanding is that this is partly why Weber’s thesis has fallen out of favor.
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sdb
Posted August 2, 2013 at 5:39 pm | Permalink
@Robert I recall guy claiming that Marxism wasn’t all bad because Lenin was an early promoter of nationwide universal education. My response was that even if it is true that Lenin invented and promoted the idea of universal education for the first time in the history of the human race, it doesn’t make the concept Marxist (or justify the horrors of communism) any more than Mussolini’s success at getting the trains to run on time makes efficient public transport “Fascist”.
The fact that Calvinism (and protestantism more generally) found a home in NW Europe does not make everything that came out of those cultures from 1600 onward Calvinist. Maybe the culture that led to a strong work ethic and embraced literacy also made the culture more fertile ground for Calvinist ideas. This is why I remain skeptical of a “Calvinist” resistance theory, work ethic, etc…. Not because I don’t believe that a lot of Calvinists promoted and embraced a unique argument for resistance theory (or worked really hard), but because no one has yet made the case that Calvinist ideas (i.e. the theology of the Magisterial reformation) themselves led to the development of a resistance theory (or a unique work ethic). My (limited) understanding is that this is partly why Weber’s thesis has fallen out of favor.
Two different things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic
Further information: Grace (Christianity) and Good works
It is argued that Protestants, beginning with Martin Luther, had reconceptualised worldly work as a duty which benefits both the individual and society as a whole. Thus, the Catholic idea of good works was transformed into an obligation to consistently work diligently as a sign of grace. Whereas Catholicism teaches that good works are required of Catholics as a necessary manifestation of the faith they received, and that faith apart from works is dead (Js 2:14-26) and barren, the Calvinist theologians taught that only those who were predestined (cf. the Calvinist concept of double predestination) to be saved would be saved.
Since it was impossible to know who was predestined, the notion developed that it might be possible to discern that a person was elect (predestined) by observing their way of life. Hard work and frugality, as well as social success and wealth, were thought to be two important consequences of being one of the elect; thus, Protestants were thus attracted to these qualities and supposed to strive for reaching them.
Now, one need not religio-psychoanalyze Protestantism/Calvinism to notice that the Roman Catholic countries followed a different economic model and ethos. Call ’em lazy, or trusting in charity, whathaveyou. You certainly notice that where the Industrial Revolution thrives in Protestant Europe [and America], it tends to pass the Catholic countries by.
As for Calvinist resistance theory, of course such a thing existed. But it could be explained by Calvinism often being the tertium quid between Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism [the English civil wars] or between the RCC and Lutheranism [the Thirty Years War], and always getting the brown end of the stick. Religious freedom as a general natural right becomes a theological necessity [although as we see, when it has the upper hand in Geneva or New England, it behaves pretty much like papists or any other collection of humans do]. But on the whole, Calvinism has to fight tooth and nail for every safe haven it gets.
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I appreciate the concern of all in this discussion to keep the church doing its job and the state doing its job, to not want to Christianize culture as the far right does. In large measure I agree. But I think that in trying to do that, we can make the opposite error of not seeing the Protestant influence as having any causal effect on such things as economics and culture.
Robert, I understand the problem of the church being distracted from her task. But what is the risk in not drawing straight lines from Protestantism to capitalism and literacy? There is a lot to lose in the former case, but what’s the loss in the latter?
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Katy,
I agree that it is complicated, and there are many variables involved in what makes culture, economic prosperity, etc… For ex…Mexico’s terrain made it much more difficult to unite than in the States, where trains could reach every state and territory. But if you study Mexican history, there is no way to come to the conclusion that Roman Catholicism was not a major factor in making modern Mexico what is is today. (Remember, RC in the States looks very little like RC in Mexico.) The RC clergy benefited and sought power on the backs of the poor for many years, and the clergy supporting ruthless politicians whose power grabs only increased poverty, and there is really no theology of vocation in the RC schema, with its almost unique focus on attending Mass and receiving the sacraments, vs. the Protestant view of glorifying God in your vocational calling. Like I said, many factors also having nothing to do with religion, but religion cannot be ignored. Who knows what Mexico would be like if the Protestant missionaries had gotten there first.
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todd
Posted August 2, 2013 at 7:09 pm | Permalink
Katy,
I agree that it is complicated, and there are many variables involved in what makes culture, economic prosperity, etc… For ex…Mexico’s terrain made it much more difficult to unite than in the States, where trains could reach every state and territory. But if you study Mexican history, there is no way to come to the conclusion that Roman Catholicism was not a major factor in making modern Mexico what is is today. (Remember, RC in the States looks very little like RC in Mexico.) The RC clergy benefited and sought power on the backs of the poor for many years, and the clergy supporting ruthless politicians whose power grabs only increased poverty, and there is really no theology of vocation in the RC schema, with its almost unique focus on attending Mass and receiving the sacraments, vs. the Protestant view of glorifying God in your vocational calling. Like I said, many factors also having nothing to do with religion, but religion cannot be ignored. Who knows what Mexico would be like if the Protestant missionaries had gotten there first.
Is there a country, a success story, where Protestant missionaries got there first? The proposition that Roman Catholicism screwed countries/peoples/nations/states is viable, but there’s no Protestant analogue to compare Catholic Latin America to. Perhaps the missioned/colonized countries would suck regardless of European influence.
[We might say that in Africa and Asia the British colonies have had the best results, say Kenya and India, but it’s a mixed bag between the French and Portuguese ones vs. the Dutch, Belgian or German.]
[The USA, Canada and Australia/NZ are of a different type–the colonists came to live, not merely to conquer/exploit as Spain did in Latin America, Britain did in India, and everybody did in Africa. Hard to compare America/Canada with Mexico because of that essential difference.]
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Tom, agreed, difficult to find analogies to Mexico, but I am only agreeing with Robert that the religious aspect cannot be ignored in shaping the work ethic of a certain people of a certain country, especially when that country adopts a national religion.
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Tom, Catholics got here first. But you know about this, maybe?
“Presbyterians are to Korea what Baptists are to Texas,” he says with a chuckle.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0307/p14s01-lire.html/(page)/2
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AB
Posted August 2, 2013 at 8:52 pm | Permalink
Tom, Catholics got here first. But you know about this, maybe?
“Presbyterians are to Korea what Baptists are to Texas,” he says with a chuckle.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0307/p14s01-lire.html/(page)/2
Thanks, Andrew, and apt. I’d heard of the Korean-Presbyterian connection, but never knew the details. Classic Calvinist resistance theory. Sure we R2Kers want to go here? =:-O
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Todd and Katy, Spanish colonialism does seem to be very different from the English variety.
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todd
Posted August 2, 2013 at 8:49 pm | Permalink
Tom, agreed, difficult to find analogies to Mexico, but I am only agreeing with Robert that the religious aspect cannot be ignored in shaping the work ethic of a certain people of a certain country, especially when that country adopts a national religion.
I haven’t studied or roadtested the Max Weber “Protestant work ethic” thesis. But I have looked at it from the other side, that the Roman Catholic countries have a pretty lax record of hard work and material progress. Something I read a long time ago about Ben Franklin and my favorite historical demographer Colin McEvedy
http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/02/benjamin-franklin-on-demography-and-whiteness/
Historically speaking, there’s something about Caucasoid/European/American/Protestantism that undeniably has dominated recent history and the Material World since the Reformation era, far surpassing even its “mother church.” Call it work ethic or resistance theory or the True Religion, but the rest of the sects, even Roman Catholicism, are runners-up.
This is not necessarily good or bad, but it is true.
[How many WASPs does it take to change a light bulb?
—Two. One to call the help and one to mix the drinks.]
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Bring back the Ottomans:
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