An article in Slate Magazine discusses the growing trend of pop-sci books on neurological research that degrade the notion of evil. Researchers studying such things examine brain scans to determine what occurs when people make particular decisions–in this case empathetic or evil decisions. The conclusion of a growing number of research is that evil decisions are made not because of some inherent tendency toward evil, but because of some kind of brain malfunction.

The article  points out that this is a troubling assertion for a number of societal reasons, but beyond the practical it seems like an asinine assumption. To assert that evil is not an inherent trait ignores life experience and plain reality. Although most of us would rather forget our awkward middle school years we can all remember incredibly evil acts perpetrated by fellow students against others. By and large those perpetrators did not grow up to be life-long criminals, proving some sort of brain dysfunction, but generally law-abiding “good” people. They simply perpetrated evil acts as part of the process of learning to control their own behavior.

Further testimony of inherent nature of evil comes from stories of children. Why do two year olds instinctively hit, bite, and kick other kids without reason? Why do they steal things from other kids and shout “mine” all the time? There is an inherent tendency within us all toward evil.

This is not to say that most of us are evil in the sense of Hitler or Stalin, but if we are honest with ourselves we recognize our own tendency to commit and think about committing awful deeds. If we are truly honest with ourselves we know that our own sense of goodness only extends so far as we all harbor dark memories and thoughts. If science can explain away these tendencies then we as a society will fail to grapple with the realities of decisions. In every moment of every day we make decisions to act in certain ways. Without a sense of our tendency toward evil we will be kept from moral behavior guided by a well-trained conscious. And that would lead to anarchy.

Beginning with the old explanation of world politics based on two cows:

Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one of them and gives it to your neighbor.

Communism: You have two cows. The government takes them both and provides you with milk.

Nazism: You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes the cows.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

the author then uses cows to explain Middle East politics.

Enjoy

Having discussed the roots of the Reformation and Martin Luther, I am now going to look at the development of Protestantism in the 16^th century. It is better to think of the movement as a group of many smaller movements or, perhaps, many protestantisms. In upcoming posts I’ll examine John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, the Anabaptists, the English Reformation, and the Catholic or counter-Reformation. But first, it is important to define what Protestantism means.

Inherent in the Reformation was a negative understanding of what it meant to be Protestant. Within the term itself is the word protest, and in many ways that is an accurate description of the reformers. They were protesting the right of the Roman Church and the Magisterium to interpret the Bible for the masses. They were protesting the right of Rome to control ecclesiastical affairs in Europe. They were protesting doctrines of the Medieval church they found contrary to the instructions and tenets of Scripture. Indeed, the legacy of Protestantism as a movement in opposition continues to this day. In the West we have traded Catholicism for Secularism as our primary enemy. In the global South many churches define themselves in opposition to Islam, while others continue to fight Catholicism, or in Pentecostal churches, traditional Protestant churches.

There are positive components to the definition of Protestantism as well. Alister McGrath points out that “In one sense, ‘Protestantism’ designates a way of doing theology rather than any given set of possible or specific outcomes.”[1] Central to this way of doing theology was the emphasis on the priesthood of all believers—the idea the Bible is the foundation of Christianity and should be accessible to all believers and authoritative in all manners of doctrine, faith, and practice. Protestantism then becomes the outworking of various groups of people studying the Bible and applying its teaching to their lives and realities. This is really the power of Protestantism. In its purest form, it is a movement unbound by structures of authority that limit its ability to adapt to social change and new challenges.

Luther represented the first generation of Protestantism, and after him came several key leaders and movements that shaped the history of Protestantism as we know it today. We’ll talk about these key leaders as this series continues.

H. Richard Niebuhr once said, “The great Christian revolutions come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen when somebody takes radically something that was always there.”[1] We have seen that Martin Luther was not the first person to rediscover justification by faith articulated by Augustine and the Scriptures, yet his legacy is that of the father of the Reformation. In many ways this is accurate and his place in history is well deserved, but the birth of the Protestant Reformation cannot be placed solely on his shoulders. It is better understood in context of great upheaval in Europe in the 15^th and 16^th centuries.

Martin Luther was born in 1483 and become a monk as a teenager. He constantly wrestled with sin and his monastic superior encouraged him to study the Scriptures at the newly founded University of Wittenberg. Teaching and writing would become his life, and his writing would help solidify his legacy. Noll says that Luther “published some kind of treatise, sermon, lecture, or biblical exposition on the average of once every three weeks during his adult life.”[2]

We must also recognize that contemporary to Luther were several historical luminaries and events. Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543), Henry VIII (1491-1547), Michelangelo (1475-1564), and Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) were all alive at the same time as Luther. He was alive at a time of great intellectual change and exploration. The printing press was invented around 1440, and without it the traction that the Reformation had is almost unthinkable.

Political and economic changes were also underway that had significant impacts on the ability of the Reformation to spread from and unimportant city in Germany across Europe in a matter of decades. The prototype of modern nationalism was on the rise as local monarchs started to harness power within their realm without regard for Rome or the Holy Roman Emperor. The economy began to recover in the 15^th century after downturn and difficulty in the wake of the Plague. Indeed, without a recovering economy it is hard to imagine the great explorations that were undertaken by Columbus, Magellan, and Balboa.

Even within this atmosphere of change, it is important to recognize Luther’s contribution to the Protestant Reformation and Noll[3] is right to affirm the Diet of Worms in 1521 as a turning point in Christian History. Luther wrestled for years with his sin, seeing himself as a wretched creature unworthy of a terrifying God of justice and righteousness. The more he studied the more he worried about the state of his soul. This drove him to extreme obedience where he could echo the words of Paul in Philippians 3:2-6.

Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day,of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

But as he studied Romans, verses 1:16-17 continued to bother him: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” But suddenly the meaning of this passage hit him and he could resonate with Paul in the rest of that passage in Philippians 3:7-11.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

In 1520 he published five books among many smaller works that brought the ire of Rome and local church officials in Germany. In June of that year a Papal bull was issued decrying Luther’s works and in April of the following year he was called to the Diet of Worms under the authority of a young Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, to recant his contrarian views. Luther’s heroic stand on the authority of the Bible over against the church and tradition is more remarkable when you consider the secular powers against whom he stood. Charles V controlled more European territory than any ruler since Charlemagne, and had the authority of Rome behind him. Without regard for his own safety, Luther stood his ground and declared, “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scripture I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.”[4]

The importance of this event is perhaps more symbolic than effective in its long-term impact on Protestantism. But its symbolism is important and far-reaching when you consider part of the official response by the Diet. “But if it were granted that whoever contradicts the councils and the common understanding the church must be overcome by Scripture passages, we will have nothing in Christianity that is certain or decided.”[5] In uttering these words, Johann Eck could not have known how prescient they were. As Alister McGrath argues, this was Christianity’s dangerous idea. The Bible could and should be interpreted by all people.

Thomas Aquinas is considered the epitome of Middle Age Scholasticism, a 12th and 13th century movement that sought to rediscover Greek philosophy as a means for learning. Aquinas used Aristotelian logic and forms to describe and defend the Christian faith. The Scholastics helped pave the way for the emergence of the Renaissance, which began in the 14th century and placed further emphasis on Ancient Greek scholarship, art, governmental forms, etc. As the Renaissance developed across Europe a form of thinking emerged called Humanism. Humanism sought to create exemplary citizens trained in oratory and reason. One of its luminaries was Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536), a Catholic priest who worked with others to challenge the Latin Vulgate by translating from original Greek sources of the Bible and seeking to make a useable Greek NT available to the learned public.

While the Renaissance was percolating on the continent and before Erasmus was born, a preview into the Reformation was on display in Britain. John Wycliffe was an Oxford trained scholar and Catholic priest who developed ideas radical at the time and spawned a movement known as the Lollards. Scholasticism and Augustine heavily influenced Wycliffe. Among his scandalous ideas were that the Pope was not infallible, that the true church consists of the elect and is not an earthly body, and that the Bible should be available in the vernacular for everyone to read. He was also critical of monks and friars, he condemned saints, relics and pilgrimages, and he attacked transubstantiation. He recruited and commissioned preachers to spread across Britain preaching the Gospel wherever they could and to teach people the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the Seven Deadly Sins in English. Wycliffe died in 1384, but the Lollards experienced continual persecution until the Reformation took hold in England some 150 years later.

Not long after Wycliffe’s death a similar movement arose in Bohemia, modern-day Czech Republic. The movement was centered in Prague and led by a scholar at its newly formed university named John Hus (c.1373-1415). Hus was influenced significantly by Wycliffe and taught several similar ideas, including the fallibility of the Pope. He was recognized for his strong ethics and sought to change the church that was full of unethical clergy. He often lectured in Czech and began to develop as a national hero opposed to German influence in the area. As time went on his public agreement with Wycliffe’s writings put him at odds with both secular and Papal authorities and he was imprisoned in 1415. Similar to Luther, as we will see, he declared at his trial that he would be happy to change his views if they could be proved from Scripture and did not offend God or his conscience. He was subsequently burned at the stake in that same year. His martyrdom made him a national hero and many of his supporters took courage from his dying words, “Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” They helped lay the groundwork in that area for the Reformation a century later.

What we see in these three figures, Erasmus, Wycliffe, and Hus is that the demand across Europe for change was brewing for many decades before Martin Luther was even born. By the Late Middle Ages the legitimacy of the Papacy and clergy was in serious doubt due to corruption, cronyism, war, and absentee clergy. In the 14th century division arose in the Papacy and it split between rival popes in Rome and Avignon. There are also accounts of Popes having illegitimate children before and during their papacies and appointing them to important secular and ecclesiastical positions. Thus, by the time Luther arrived there was disgust at the practices and corrupt behavior of the entire system and many were ready for change.

In order to understand the Crusades we must dig a little deeper into the practical theology present in Western Christianity during the Middle Ages. I have touched on this before and I hope to give you a clearer picture of the beliefs of the era. To set a foundation we must go back to Augustine of Hippo in the late 4^th and early 5^th centuries and his debates with Pelagius. Augustine argued for original sin and double predestination and his views won wide, but not total acceptance. Among the concerns was the idea that people would not seek to behave morally if they could not do so. Pelagius, a Briton living in Rome and then in North Africa, argued that Adam’s sin affected only him and that all men are born with rational free will and the knowledge of the law from which they can lead morally perfect lives.

In 529 a synod was held in the French city of Orange in which a decision was made to accept a semi-Augustinian view. At the synod it was declared, “all who have been baptized can and ought, by the aid and support of Christ, to perform those things which belong to the salvation of the soul if they labour faithfully” (Latourette, 182). As Kenneth Scott Latourette, the late church historian writes, “The implication is that all, and not merely, as Augustine held, those of the limited number of the elect, can, if they are baptized, through the grace which comes through baptism, if they work at it faithfully, by the aid and support of Christ, be assured of salvation” (ibid). In a period of turmoil, poverty and war, assurance of salvation was vital to all Europeans as a promise of escape and eternal bliss.

Upon this foundation, the Western Church built a system of penance as a means of church discipline and as a way for partially guilty sinners to become clean. Penance was the idea that there are a hierarchy of sins and that light sins must be paid for in purgatory. Pope Gregory the Great formalized the theology of purgatory in the late 6^th century. He held that “men must repent of sins committed after baptism…and that God’s forgiveness is conditioned solely on men’s contrition for their sins, but that works of penance lighten the load which would otherwise have to be borne in purgatory as disciplinary and cleansing” (ibid, 341). From Celtic tradition and influence the system of private confession to a priest became preeminent during the period. Parishioners would confess their sins once a year to a priest privately instead of to the body publically and would be prescribed any number of activities that once performed would allow the guilty sinner to rejoin the body in fellowship.

Penitential activities took on various forms and eventually came to include pilgrimages to holy sites of the saints and to Jerusalem itself. By the 10^th and 11^th centuries entire industries existed to get people to the Holy Land and back to perform these pilgrimages. In this climate the Islamic takeover of the Holy Land was problematic and prompted action.

Pope Urban II delivered a stirring sermon in the fall of 1095 in which he promised plenary indulgences for all participants and eternal life for those who died as a result of the crusade. Plenary indulgences became problematic in the following centuries and were among the doctrines abhorred by Luther. Plenary indulgences granted the sinner relief from all temporal penalties of sin that, if not completed in this life, were to be paid in purgatory. Thus, it was a ticket to bypass purgatory. With the cry to join the crusade moving rapidly through Europe, thousands of nobles and peasants alike departed for Constantinople in the spring of 1096 to join forces there and take back land lost to Islam. They succeeded in recapturing Jerusalem.

The Crusades continued for several centuries and in the end were among the darkest episodes in Christian history. Worst among them was the Fourth Crusade of 1202-1204 in which Venetian merchants directed troops bound for Egypt toward Constantinople in the interest of bolstering their economic influence in the region. The marauders destroyed the city and unleashed days of heinous behavior and destruction. Any attempts Rome had made to reconcile with the East or would make for centuries thereafter were impeded by this horrific event.

From the beginning, differences existed between Eastern and Western forms of Christianity. We have already discussed the fact that the most important early councils were held in the east and were dominated by theologians from the east, but that Rome played an important role, especially at Chalcedon. Differences developed for many reasons. Among them was the difference in language and the systems of thought they represented.

The East had its spiritual center in Constantinople and conducted its discussions in Greek, while the West had its center in Rome and conducted its discussions in Latin. To this day the East maintains Greek and the Catholic Church performs many tasks in Latin. But the divisions went deeper than language. The decline of the Pax Romana and the slow break up of the empire drove them apart politically. Furthermore, differences of theology evident at Nicaea and especially at Chalcedon became foundational in the growing rift between the two arms of the church. In a 5^th century revision of the Nicene Creed, Rome inserted the Latin word filioque, asserting that the Holy Spirit proceeded from both God the Father AND Jesus. The East could not accept this for various reasons and the divide deepened. Latin thought tended to focus on the role of man and practical implications of faith whereas Eastern thought was dominated by man’s relationship to the divine.

Further complications between the two were caused by the expansion of Islam, which affected the East more than the West. From the 7^th century onward Islam spread through much of the Roman Empire and encroached on Constantinople, eventually conquering it in 1453, officially ending the Roman Empire. Because the capitol of the Empire shifted from Rome to Constantinople in the 5^th century and because of the threat of invasion and the precedent of Constantine, the church and state were heavily intertwined in the East. This reality diminished in the West and changed forms to have the church over the state under the Holy Roman Empire. Internal political problems and cultural decline in the Early Middle Ages caused the Eastern Church to grow inward and its theology to stagnate. Emphasis grew on the proper execution of the liturgy instead of on theology. Ascetic behavior and mysticism came to characterize the Eastern faith as well.

Constantinople recognized several separate but equal patriarchs in Rome, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Constantinople until 1054, but Rome clung to its station as rightful heir to Peter, and thus of superior authority to the other patriarchies. These growing divisions came to a head in 1054. Characterized by corruption, uneducated clergy, and cronyism, the Papacy was arguably at its worst in the 11^th century. Beginning in 1009, the Patriarchs of Constantinople stopped listing the Roman Popes on the official list of patriarchies upholding orthodoxy. In negotiations that began in 1053, Pope Leo IX demanded that this practice be reversed as a condition of supporting Eastern efforts to control a war in Southern Italy. The Patriarch of Constantine, Michael Cerularius refused. In 1054, a delegation from Rome was sent to Constantinople headed by an advisor to the Pope named Cardinal Humbert. He was renowned for his mind, and not for his diplomatic skills. In a letter, Humbert asserted the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff. After receiving a rebuttal from Cerularius, he prepared to return to Rome. But on the day of his departure, he entered the Hagia Sophia, now a mosque, during mass and placed a letter of excommunication on the altar. He and his legation were then promptly excommunicated by Constantinople and the schism was complete.

Attempts were made over the centuries to repair the split but not until the 20^th century was any real progress made. Had it not been for expansion into Eastern Europe and especially into Russia during the Middle Ages it is difficult to say what the history of the Eastern faith would have been under Turkish Islamic control. Today, the Russian Orthodox Church is the largest component of the Eastern faith and in recent decades attempts have been made to unify Eastern Orthodoxy into one faith instead of regionalized ethnic churches.

The term Christendom refers to the roughly uniform religio-social structure of much of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Its center was the See of Rome, which essentially took over political control from the Empire near the end of the 5th century. With Christianity as the predominant religion in much of Europe, and with Rome as its spiritual center, Europe dove into the Middle Ages under a unified Christendom in the broadest sense. Many tensions continued between East and West that culminated in the Great Schism (1054), but developments within Western Christendom came to a head in 800 when Charlemagne, king of the Franks, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor.

Several factors went into the event on Christmas Day 800 that would set the stage for Christianity until the Reformation. The Popes filled a power vacuum left after the fall of the empire, and over the years their power and influence grew. There continued to be struggles with the east for supremacy but through the great Popes Leo and Gregory (a Benedictine) Rome was clearly the head of Western Christianity. The threat to its legitimacy became uniquely tied with the fate of Europe beginning in the 7th century as Islam spread across North Africa and into Spain. It was Charlemagne’s grandfather, Charles Martel, who secured European victory against Islam at Poitiers in 732 that brought the Franks to the forefront of European royalty. That power grew and with Charlemagne the fates of Rome and Europe were intertwined.

Through all of these political events the power and centrality of the Roman faith grew across Europe. It was during this era that the sacramental system so heinous to the Reformers came into being. It was a gradual process but one that reflected a desire for unity and sense to life that was difficult and marked by war. The sacraments guided people from life to death: baptism, confirmation, penance, Eucharist, marriage, extreme unction, and ordination. It was also a consolidation of legitimacy of authority in Rome.

In many ways Monasticism was a response to the institutionalization of Christianity and the decline of the Roman Empire in the centuries following the decline of Rome. Post-Constantine, Christian faith became the norm and some started to retreat in order to preserve the pure faith. The first monk was St. Antony, who withdrew to the Egyptian desert in the late 3^rd century after inheriting a large sum of money and taking to heart Matthew 19:21. “Jesus said to him, ‘If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’” Athanasius, the theologian we met in our discussion of the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon, was his biographer and popularized his story. From the early 4^th century forward monasticism grew as the church and state grew closer together. Church leaders became a separate, educated class that soon fell prey to the negative side effects of power. Early monasticism was a faithful response to unfaithfulness in the church at large.

Celtic Monasticism took on unique aspects which included cross-cultural missionary work. They spread the Gospel throughout Europe and their persistence in study also helped preserve important documents of Western Civilization. More than one thousand monasteries arose in Europe and began to experience decline. In the sixth century a monk at Monte Cassino (near Rome) introduced a new order that revolutionized monasticism for centuries.  St. Benedict’s formula became the foundation for most monasteries founded for centuries afterwards and continues to influence modern monastic life. He stressed a balance between work, prayer, and worship. Franciscans and Dominicans were traveling preachers who combined preaching and evangelism with innovation and social justice work among the people they served. Their influence grew in the latter part of the Middle Ages.

The legacy of monasticism is mixed. Much of Christian thought is indebted to outstanding monks like St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Martin Luther. The preservation of original manuscripts in Greek and Hebrew was a central task for many monks, and the Hebrew verbal system used by seminarians to study the Old Testament was developed by monks. Perhaps the most damaging legacy of monasticism, however, is the creation of a separate, higher class of Christians. Monks and nuns were viewed as superior because of their willingness to abandon all the comforts of life to pursue God. While noble, God does not rank Christians in this way and we should not either. Monasticism is the first example of sectarian Christianity–the belief that withdrawal is necessary to pursue holiness–which was mimicked by both the Anabaptists during the Reformation and the Fundamentalists in the 20th century.

“Our religion is a system of love and good will. It manifests not only the unspeakable love of God to a fallen world, but also tends to fill the hearts of men with holy affections towards their Creator and one another. The man whose heart is a stranger to compassion, or cannot adopt the language of ‘being affectionately desirous of you,’ is a most unsuitable person to dispense that Gospel every sentiment of which emanates from love…The celestial flame of love must mingle with all our preparations, and burn on every acceptable sacrifice.”

This quote if found in Iain H. Murray, Revival and Revivalism, Banner of Truth, 1994, 307 and is a quote from 19th century Baptist pastor Charles Screven.

Update

In concluding his study of revival and revivalism in 18th and 19th century America, Murray looks ahead to a new generation of pastors who will embody the spirit of early revival preachers like Jonathan Edwards.

“It may be that a generation of freshly-anointed preachers is already being prepared. Whether that is so or not, when such men are sent forth by Christ we can be sure of certain things. They will not be identical in all points with the men of the past, but there will be a fundamental resemblance. They will be hard students of Scripture. They will prize a great spiritual heritage. They will see the danger of ‘unsanctified learning.’ While they will not be afraid of controversy, nor of being called hyper-ortodox, they will fear to spend their days in controversy. They will believe with John Rice that ‘the church is not purified by controversy, but by holy love.’ They will not forget that the wise, who will shine ‘as the stars of ever and ever,’ are those who ‘turn many to righteousness” (Dan. 12:3). They will covet the wisdom which Scripture attributes to the one ‘that winneth souls’ (Prov. 11:30). But their cheerfulness will have a higher source than their work. To know God himself will be their supreme concern and joy. They will therefore not be strangers to humility. And their experience will not be without trials and discouragements, not least because they fall so far short of their aspirations. If they are spared to live as long as John Leland they will be ready to say with him at last: ‘I have been unwearedly trying to preach Jesus, but have not yet risen to that state of holy zeal and evangelical knowledge, that I have been longing after.’ Whether their days be bright or dark they will learn to say with Nettleton that ‘the milk and honey lie beyond this wilderness world.’” (387)