How do we refute the "Puritan ( Protestant) Thesis?"

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Anglicanorthodoxy

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I'm on the Far-Right politically, and I hang around reactionary
, NRX internet groups. I see very few Confessional Protestants in these groups. A good number of people in these groups are Traditional Catholics. Well I was chatting with one a few days ago, and we had a bit of a back and forth about the decline of the West. He's a promoter of a theory called the "Puritan Thesis" It might as well be called the "Protestant Thesis." In short, this theory states that the decline of the West started during the Protestant Reformation. This d cline continued during the Enlightenment, and has continued ever since. This Trad Catholic blamed the Protestant Reformers and the "Liberal Protestantism of the 19th century" for the decline of the West. They argued that the Reformation "broke the unity and fundamental identity of the Christian religion) I find these views odd for several reasons. If there was this "unity" that the Catholics speak of during the Middle Ages, the Reformers would've utterly failed in bringing change to Christianity. I also find it odd that Traditional Catholics love to criticize "Liberal Protestantism." In order to be a Protestant, one must at least accept the 5 Solas.These "Liberal Protestants" are not even Protestant because they reject everything the Reformation stood for. The other issue that I see with this view is that the Catholic Church is extremely Liberal at this point, and is becoming more Liberal every day. When I ask these Trad Catholics why places like Georgetown and Holy Cross,are so Liberal, they tell me that these places are not Catholic.(yet each one of these colleges is run by Catholic priests, and the Catholic Church does nothing about it) My NRX friends who are Trad Catholics always speak of how Protestantism is so divided, and how the Catholic Church is united. I find this amusing because these Trad Catholics would be rebuked by Jesuit Catholics. The Catholic Church may theoretically be united, but in reality it has just as many divisions as Protestantism does. I would even argue that Confessional Protestants are much more united than Catholics.(while I am a Reformed Anglican, I view Confessional Lutheran and Presbyterians as my brethren. I highly doubt that most Trad Catholics view Jesuits as their brethren)As a passionate Classicist, I despise Enlightwnment thought as much as any Trad Catholic does. However, I don't think the Reformation necessarily caused the Enlightwnment. I think Marx, Freud, and Boas ( all Jews) harmed the West much more than any Liberal Protestant did. What do you think? What do you think the main cause of the decline of Western civilization is?
 
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Usually these types do little but "assert" what is the case and ignore counter-evidence, like the Gregorian reforms, Pope Alexander VI, the Avignon Papacy, the French Revolution, etc.
 
These things, e.g. the Reformation, are all faits accomplis of history. People can argue about whether the Enlightenment would have happened if the Reformation hadn't happened or whether it would have happened in some form anyway. The Renaissance happened before the Reformation, anyway. The reason Christianity's in the place it is, is because the nations have apostasised in God's providence, just as they originally apostasised in the Romish apostasy. It's happened and a return to a Rome full of error is not the way forward. You don't return to a system full of error because you think it might unite and strengthen Christendom in its error. That is not being faithful to God or His Word. You promote the Truth so it becomes more widely accepted and "strong".

R.Scott Clark had a review of a book with a similar thesis on his Heidelblog a year or so ago.


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The main fault that went ob in the West was that the Church of Rome refused to heed and accept the the Reformation as being of/from God, so kept on their teaching and influencing of society from their bad religion.
 
These things, e.g. the Reformation, are all faits accomplis of history. People can argue about whether the Enlightenment would have happened if the Reformation hadn't happened or whether it would have happened in some form anyway. The Renaissance happened before the Reformation, anyway. The reason Christianity's in the place it is, is because the nations have apostasised in God's providence, just as they originally apostasised in the Romish apostasy. It's happened and a return to a Rome full of error is not the way forward. You don't return to a system full of error because you think it might unite and strengthen Christendom in its error. That is not being faithful to God or His Word. You promote the Truth so it becomes more widely accepted and "strong".

R.Scott Clark had a review of a book with a similar thesis on his Heidelblog a year or so ago.


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Here we go:
https://heidelblog.net/2014/02/did-the-reformation-spawn-a-million-churches/
 
There's another article/book review by Scott Clark on the subject of did the Reformation lead to the modern secularised world. I haven't looked for it yet.

After the Reformation the Evil One had to come up with another strategy to help dampen down the flame of the Gospel and that was the Enlightenment project. The Reformers can hardly be blamed for it since they stood upon the authority of God's Word alone against those that would question that authority, or those that would add to that authority and undermine it in that way like the Church of Rome. The Enlightenment project will one day run out of steam once it has run its course. The Word of God has always outlived and overcome its enemies at some point in history, whether that be the Jews of the first century, pagan Rome, Papal Rome, and various products of the Enlightenment e.g. Communism.

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Both the Reformation and the Enlightenment sprang forth from the same well, the wickedness of the Catholic church. Those who believed in God sought to reform the church and started the Reformation, and those who did not believe in God left the church and started the Enlightenment. In either case, it was only the intolerable wickedness of the church that allowed these events to occur, and so if Catholics are looking for someone to blame for modern secular culture, they need look no further than in the mirror.
 
I'm on the Far-Right politically

The term "Far-Right" refers to Fascism or Neo-Nazism. Liberals like to label anyone as "far right" if they disagree with liberals on anything. As a Christian, you ought to disassociate yourself from such a term.

Here in the states, it's often used to refer to the very religiously motivated right-wingers. Many take it as a badge of honor.
 
I'm on the Far-Right politically

The term "Far-Right" refers to Fascism or Neo-Nazism. Liberals like to label anyone as "far right" if they disagree with liberals on anything. As a Christian, you ought to disassociate yourself from such a term.
When I say Far-Right, I'm saying that my views are much further to the Right than the mainstream "conservative" movement.
Here are some ideologies that'd describe me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoconservatism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditionalist_conservatism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment
 
A fair amount of enlightenment thought came out of Catholic France. The fruit of this thinking showed itself in the violent French Revolution.
 
A fair amount of enlightenment thought came out of Catholic France. The fruit of this thinking showed itself in the violent French Revolution.
Maybe it was the first Enlightenment revolution? But the ripples of the 300-400 year "Enlightenment" continued in e.g. the Communist revolutions of the twentieth century and the Sixties Revolution in the West, the implications of which are continuing to be worked out.

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How do we refute the "Puritan ( Protestant) Thesis?"

These discussions really should only happen among groups that are willing to entertain challenges against their own theses and provide documentation of evidences against those of others.

They will rarely yield good fruit.

That said, one of the most overwhelming, simple fruits of the Protestant Reformation was the rise of literacy and the vernacular language in Europe. When Luther pulled the veil on the Roman Catholic agenda to keep the poor illiterate (and thus controlled), his Luther Bible set off a chain reaction in the West once people got word that it wasn't required that a priest be the only one to read the Word of God.

Without that, how would western civilization have unfolded the way it did if the only conversant languages of Europe were Latin and Greek? The poor would never had any manner of relationship with God, let alone be educated.
 
These discussions really should only happen among groups that are willing to entertain challenges against their own theses and provide documentation of evidences against those of others.

They will rarely yield good fruit.

That said, one of the most overwhelming, simple fruits of the Protestant Reformation was the rise of literacy and the vernacular language in Europe. When Luther pulled the veil on the Roman Catholic agenda to keep the poor illiterate (and thus controlled), his Luther Bible set off a chain reaction in the West once people got word that it wasn't required that a priest be the only one to read the Word of God.

Without that, how would western civilization have unfolded the way it did if the only conversant languages of Europe were Latin and Greek? The poor would never had any manner of relationship with God, let alone be educated.

I think the rise of the printing press had something to do with it too.
Any change in communications always has profound effects on the world.
 
Johnny:

Without a doubt, but let's remember that the printing press unveiled in 1448 in Mainz and that the Gutenberg Bible was already in print nearly 90 years before Luther's German Bible in 1534.

The printing press certainly revolutionized the world... of the educated and the rich that could afford books! When Luther's everyman Bible hit the scene, the world was taken over by vernacular literature.


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See logical fallacies... Many apply here. Slippery slope in particular. I would simply point out that the medieval period was a period in which, at the dawn of the sixteenth century, the one thing everyone agreed about was that the church needed reform. Pope Leo and Luther had different visions of reform. Humanism was a movement in the Renaissance independent of the Protestant reforms. It was Renaissance humanism that led to education reforms, the enlightenment, etc. In the end, though, sin does its worst with whatever every era has to offer. Sin abounded just as badly before the Reformation.
 
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