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How encouraging in such a cynical and negative era that there
are still many people who feel that the Protestant Reformation
was the greatest single event in the history of Europe - and
generally a force for good.
Watching a recent episode of 'Two Thousand Years', an I.T.V.
series chronicling the history of Christianity, featuring
the writer and broadcaster Melvyn Bragg, the writer was exhilarated
to find not only a panel of speakers - distinguished Churchmen
all three of them - but an audience which was almost unanimously
of the opinion that Martin Luther and other great Reformers
like Calvin, Knox, and the English bishops had been a power
for good.
Of course, there were reservations expressed, notably by
the Roman Catholic member of the panel, but the general thrust
of the debate and the arguments presented, was that Protestantism
had been a force for good. It had been necessary due to the
corruption and the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church,
and the negative influence it was exerting over so much of
Europe at the time.
Luter's challenge and the subsequent revolution in thinking
led to an unleashing of idea, of freedom for men and women
to think, but above all to read the gospels, to find Christ
and God through their own initiative and efforts, and not
through any pope, bishop or cardinal.
The Reformation swept through much of Europe and, roughly
speaking, captured the Northern European countries for the
Protestant cause - Germany, Scandanavia, Holland, Switzerland,
England, Scotland and other lands, but not Ireland - a factor
which was to have great significance in subsequent history.
The counter-Reformation was, of course, crucial in preventing
the spread of Protestantism throughout the Continent and it
saved Italy, Spain, Portugal, Southern Germany and other lands
for the Papacy. It destroyed the virile Protestantism - the
Hugenots - of France, and it fuelled the fires of Smithfield,
filled the slave galleys and torture chambers of the Inquisition.
Protestantism, as the message of the programme proclaimed,
brought about an enlightenment in Europe - freedom for people
to think, to propagate ideas and to actually question long-held
views.
Protestantism also produced its bigots, and it had its own
intolerant elements - the Puritans who sought to impose their
ideas on others, including fellow Protestants - was one example.
The various denominations did not always see eye to eye and
there were internecine struggles before Presbyterian became
the national church of Scotland, and Anglicanism became the
established church of England.
But, overall - and this shone out in the programme - Protestantism
was a force for good and it unleashed forces and produced
evangelists, preachers and ministers who won countless souls
for Christ.
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