What I am worried about is that the Christian Reformation was an extremely traumatic event for Europe. I still feel the effects today—the fact that I can’t find a garbage can in London’s Waterloo station can be directly traced to the Reformation.
Lots of folks remarked that Islam has not gone through its own Reformation event, and probably should/will at some point. This will be far more traumatic for Islam than for Christianity, and there are nukes now, and mass communication which are multipliers for how bad this kind of conflict can get.
What I am worried about is that the Christian Reformation was an extremely traumatic event for Europe. I still feel the effects today—the fact that I can’t find a garbage can in London’s Waterloo station can be directly traced to the Reformation.
Garbage cans in British railway stations went away when the IRA were bombing us. But the Irish matter is not a religious dispute. It is a territorial one that goes back as long as it has been possible to wage war across the Irish sea, and the only question at issue is, who shall rule the Irish mainland? That the territorial dispute happens to correlate with a religious difference is due to the Reformation, but without the Reformation, the English and the Irish would still have fought over Ireland. I doubt there would have been any more final resolution than there is at present.
Christianity was important in the 17th century, and remained so probably until WWI at least. You can always say that e.g. the 30 year war was really about France vs the HRE, or the HRE infighting, and the whole deal with Bloody Mary was really about dynastic politics in the Kingdom of England, or the IRA was really about reprisal for English territorial ambitions (all based on a counterfactual argument).
I just don’t find that very convincing. Obviously things other than religion were going on. This does not change the fact that (a) religion was very important in Europe, (b) a lot of blood was spilled before Europe worked through the Reformation, certainly in England, but also in the HRE, and (c) there are echoes of those events today. You can argue that in the counterfactual world where catholics reformed earlier and there was never a Luther we would still get the same trauma, but I don’t know how to evaluate that counterfactual (nor is it that interesting of a question to me—I care about the world we are in).
My original worry is that the world is in for some pain when Islam’s Luther finally nails the Theses to some door. Islam is important to people.
Also, I’m not sure what an Islamic Reformation would mean.
I would mean the separation of religion and profane life into separate magisteria.
The problem with Islam is that it claims to be a total religion which guides all aspects of human life including politics, art, etc. Islam never had a “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” moment and routinely calls the Christian separation of sacred and profane life “schizophrenic”.
A footnote, really. I agree that the 30 Years War was about religion, with territorial ambitions piggybacking on that. But the Irish matter was the other way round.
Also agreed that an Islamic Reformation would be a dangerous thing for everyone. Islam has a schism already, since early in its history, and it’s already dangerous for everyone.
IRA bombs in public places were a problem for a long time in England, and there was a worry (based on some incidents) that they would be placed in garbage cans. So to this day they are either in a transparent plastic bag form, or absent entirely.
The IRA of course was the successor of the original IRA, which is in a long line of Irish resistance to British rule, in large part fueled by things like the “Protestant Ascendancy” in Ireland. Which, of course, is due to the Reformation.
AFAIK terms like Protestant/Catholic are not to be understood literally wrt to the conflict in Ireland. They are more tribal flags than faiths in this sense. It can be seen as an ethnic conflict—Protesants being of Scottish origin. Some people I know have a theory that conflicts that are hard to resolve tend to be ethnic. Or the political conflict of unionists / republicans. Or to a certain extent even a rich/poor class struggle.
While it is arguing from fictional evidence, Leon Uris laid out the history in Trinity. While it is true that the Reformation and Cromwell’s religious zeal motivated his conquests of Ireland, everything afterwards, according to Uris, is largely about Irish people (“Catholics”) had their land taken away and given to Cromwell’s Scots (“Protestants”). This generated a social, economic, class conflict.
This, IMHO, cannot really be blamed on the Reformation.
Another weird aspect is that for some reason unknown to me in the UK & Ireland people don’t like to see conflicts as ethnic. Cromwell’s people did not want to keep a Scottish identity, and adopted an Irish one, which can be understandble as a tactical move, but for some astonishing reason Irish people did not call them out on it, did not tell them “you are not really Irish just Scottish in disguise” but readily adopted the “you Protestant, me Catholic” tribal identities. So basically for some reason they did not want to approach their confict the same way as say Serbs and Croats approached theirs. For them, ethnicity was much important than their religious difference (Catholic/Orthodox).
By similar reasoning you can blame it on Jesus. And the Norman invasion. Etc. etc.
When you have a particular situation arising out of long and complicated history, pointing to one small piece and saying “Ah, that’s the cause” is disingenuous.
Because if a split results in a socio-economic setup that is conflict-generating in itself, it is a more immediate cause. I mean in a long chain of causes which one one should take the blame? Cosmic constants? :-)
What I am worried about is that the Christian Reformation was an extremely traumatic event for Europe. I still feel the effects today—the fact that I can’t find a garbage can in London’s Waterloo station can be directly traced to the Reformation.
Lots of folks remarked that Islam has not gone through its own Reformation event, and probably should/will at some point. This will be far more traumatic for Islam than for Christianity, and there are nukes now, and mass communication which are multipliers for how bad this kind of conflict can get.
Garbage cans in British railway stations went away when the IRA were bombing us. But the Irish matter is not a religious dispute. It is a territorial one that goes back as long as it has been possible to wage war across the Irish sea, and the only question at issue is, who shall rule the Irish mainland? That the territorial dispute happens to correlate with a religious difference is due to the Reformation, but without the Reformation, the English and the Irish would still have fought over Ireland. I doubt there would have been any more final resolution than there is at present.
I am not really sure what you are trying to say.
Christianity was important in the 17th century, and remained so probably until WWI at least. You can always say that e.g. the 30 year war was really about France vs the HRE, or the HRE infighting, and the whole deal with Bloody Mary was really about dynastic politics in the Kingdom of England, or the IRA was really about reprisal for English territorial ambitions (all based on a counterfactual argument).
I just don’t find that very convincing. Obviously things other than religion were going on. This does not change the fact that (a) religion was very important in Europe, (b) a lot of blood was spilled before Europe worked through the Reformation, certainly in England, but also in the HRE, and (c) there are echoes of those events today. You can argue that in the counterfactual world where catholics reformed earlier and there was never a Luther we would still get the same trauma, but I don’t know how to evaluate that counterfactual (nor is it that interesting of a question to me—I care about the world we are in).
My original worry is that the world is in for some pain when Islam’s Luther finally nails the Theses to some door. Islam is important to people.
Also, I’m not sure what an Islamic Reformation would mean. Islam is already pretty decentralized.
I would mean the separation of religion and profane life into separate magisteria.
The problem with Islam is that it claims to be a total religion which guides all aspects of human life including politics, art, etc. Islam never had a “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” moment and routinely calls the Christian separation of sacred and profane life “schizophrenic”.
The idea that religion shouldn’t be all of life is a good idea, but I don’t think that’s what most people mean by a Reformation.
A footnote, really. I agree that the 30 Years War was about religion, with territorial ambitions piggybacking on that. But the Irish matter was the other way round.
Also agreed that an Islamic Reformation would be a dangerous thing for everyone. Islam has a schism already, since early in its history, and it’s already dangerous for everyone.
That’s interesting, thanks. I will query the locals!
What’s your line of thought?
IRA bombs in public places were a problem for a long time in England, and there was a worry (based on some incidents) that they would be placed in garbage cans. So to this day they are either in a transparent plastic bag form, or absent entirely.
The IRA of course was the successor of the original IRA, which is in a long line of Irish resistance to British rule, in large part fueled by things like the “Protestant Ascendancy” in Ireland. Which, of course, is due to the Reformation.
AFAIK terms like Protestant/Catholic are not to be understood literally wrt to the conflict in Ireland. They are more tribal flags than faiths in this sense. It can be seen as an ethnic conflict—Protesants being of Scottish origin. Some people I know have a theory that conflicts that are hard to resolve tend to be ethnic. Or the political conflict of unionists / republicans. Or to a certain extent even a rich/poor class struggle.
While it is arguing from fictional evidence, Leon Uris laid out the history in Trinity. While it is true that the Reformation and Cromwell’s religious zeal motivated his conquests of Ireland, everything afterwards, according to Uris, is largely about Irish people (“Catholics”) had their land taken away and given to Cromwell’s Scots (“Protestants”). This generated a social, economic, class conflict.
This, IMHO, cannot really be blamed on the Reformation.
Another weird aspect is that for some reason unknown to me in the UK & Ireland people don’t like to see conflicts as ethnic. Cromwell’s people did not want to keep a Scottish identity, and adopted an Irish one, which can be understandble as a tactical move, but for some astonishing reason Irish people did not call them out on it, did not tell them “you are not really Irish just Scottish in disguise” but readily adopted the “you Protestant, me Catholic” tribal identities. So basically for some reason they did not want to approach their confict the same way as say Serbs and Croats approached theirs. For them, ethnicity was much important than their religious difference (Catholic/Orthodox).
And this is misleading today.
Why not? That’s when the split between Protestants and Catholics happened.
By similar reasoning you can blame it on Jesus. And the Norman invasion. Etc. etc.
When you have a particular situation arising out of long and complicated history, pointing to one small piece and saying “Ah, that’s the cause” is disingenuous.
Because if a split results in a socio-economic setup that is conflict-generating in itself, it is a more immediate cause. I mean in a long chain of causes which one one should take the blame? Cosmic constants? :-)