Reformation 500

[Anchorman]

 Just came across this article - a thought provoking look at what we might have lost in throwing the baby out with the bath water.
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2017/October-2017/And-now-for-the-bad-news-what-we-lost-because-of-the-Reformation

[Dicky Underpants]

Just came across this article - a thought provoking look at what we might have lost in throwing the baby out with the bath water.
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2017/October-2017/And-now-for-the-bad-news-what-we-lost-because-of-the-Reformation

Haven't been able to download your link yet. As a non-Christian, I can give you a few thoughts about the Reformation, for what they're worth, though.
Luther was right to oppose the degeneracy of the Catholic Church, the wealth of the priesthood and their crippling taxes on the poor, and the ludicrous and downright criminal sale of indulgences.
Then he goes and tries to tell us that Sola Scriptura is the answer, as if scripture itself didn't offer itself up for endless contradictory interpretations (especially in Luther's case when he introduced words into the text which weren't actually there at all in the original). The English hero of the Reformation, William Tyndale was equally guilty of controversial insertions into his own translation of the Bible, but I have to admire that particular chappy since (with hindsight) he really showed up the self-serving duplicity of Henry the 8th, who did Tyndale to death, and then made use of his and Luther's ideas simply to get a divorce.

The upshot of Luther and his ideas was ultimately a bloody and long-drawn-out war, which had bugger all to do with any of the ideas recorded about the Jew who started this Christian thing in the first place.

[Walter]

Just came across this article - a thought provoking look at what we might have lost in throwing the baby out with the bath water.
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2017/October-2017/And-now-for-the-bad-news-what-we-lost-because-of-the-Reformation

I've listened to Premier Christian radio for years and find it disgusting and self serving , especially when it begs for money to keep itself on air

I've just read the link and don't think we've lost anything of any value  but thanks for the post

[Anchorman]

I've listened to Premier Christian radio for years and find it disgusting and self serving , especially when it begs for money to keep itself on air

I've just read the link and don't think we've lost anything of any value  but thanks for the post

T'only time I listen to the station is on a Saturday - 'Unbelieveable' can sometimes be interesting
However, I do think this article is interesting - from a Presbyterian pov.
I realise you don't share my faith; however I think we went overboard in removing a lot of the joy and fun from the faith - and, yes, there is such a thing, as well as some of the atmosphere in worship.
We've realised, in the last fee decades, that "Thou shalt not laugh" is not one of the commandments - not even in Jacobean English versions of Scripture.
Equally, we can learn from other traditions in our approach to worship, making it more meaningful to participants and less like a visit to a mortgage adviser.

[Humph Warden Bennett]

T'only time I listen to the station is on a Saturday - 'Unbelieveable' can sometimes be interesting
However, I do think this article is interesting - from a Presbyterian pov.
I realise you don't share my faith; however I think we went overboard in removing a lot of the joy and fun from the faith - and, yes, there is such a thing, as well as some of the atmosphere in worship.
We've realised, in the last fee decades, that "Thou shalt not laugh" is not one of the commandments - not even in Jacobean English versions of Scripture.
Equally, we can learn from other traditions in our approach to worship, making it more meaningful to participants and less like a visit to a mortgage adviser.

Stained glass windows commemorating Thomas a Becket were destroyed in Canterbury Cathedral, because Good King Hal declared Becket to be a traitor.

[Anchorman]

Stained glass windows commemorating Thomas a Becket were destroyed in Canterbury Cathedral, because Good King Hal declared Becket to be a traitor.

Henry of England has never been flavour of the month here (google 'rough wooing').
We had our own iconoclasts - Knox has never been my favourate. He is always trumpeted as a firebrand of reform, but in reality he was a spy paide for by Elizabeth of England with very little intellect but a bully boy mentality.
Reform was more violent here than down south, though - due to the Stewats' corruption; putting their illegitimate sons in posts as scular abbots (at the age of four), etc. The 'belly-gods' and 'mess-priests' who learned Latin by rote, yet unable to actually read print, put in charge of rich livings by bishops who owed more to the sycophancy of the state than any doctrine, meant that, when it came, reform was embraced with a zeal which was uncontrollable.

[Dicky Underpants]

Henry of England has never been flavour of the month here (google 'rough wooing').

I hope there isn't some confusion over English monarchs here. I doubt that you, Anchorman, would mistake Henry II (the king who had a rather vicious clash with Thomas Becket) for Henry VIII. The former Henry predated the Reformation by a few centuries. Henry VIII of course was the monarch who cynically jumped on the Reformation bandwagon because it increased his likelihood of fathering a much-desired male heir to the throne (and no doubt providing him with a more congenial sexual partner).

I note with interest that you single out corruption of the clergy as the most important instigator of reform in Scotland. This is, as I claimed, the aspect of Luther's reforms that really ring true. The theological guff can be argued over till the cows some home.

I've now been able to read your link, and I note that the writer draws attention to some of the things I noted in my first post. I like his comments about the state of women in the Catholic Church prior to reform, and also the still undeniable fact that art and music didn't fare too well in some Protestant manifestations thereafter. Germany wasn't short changed in music of course: Luther and the whole family of Bachs made sure of that. But dour Scotland?

[Anchorman]

I was making the point, DU, that Henry o England - Henry VIII -was not popular in Scotland because of his use of force in trying to compel the Scots court to marry the child Mary Stewart to his son - the future Edward VI; therefore, when Reform reached Scotland, it wasnot going to take the same route as it did in England.
Of course, this led to instability in Scotland; the court was never going to control the Kirk; even the redoubtable Marie de Guise - who was probably the best regent Scotlan ever had - recognised this. The power of the Scots crown, never really as powerful as that of England, was further weakened.
Add that to a totally inept rule by a queen unsuited to the Scots court,whose religion was, by this time, technically illegal, and the reformation here went too far because there were no restraints on it.