chp 15

I. The Globalization of Christianity

A. In 1500, Christianity was mostly limited to Europe.


I.              small communities in Egypt, Ethiopia, southern India, and Central Asia


II.           serious divisions within Christianity (Roman Catholic vs. Eastern Orthodox)

III.         on the defensive against Islam

a.  loss of the Holy Land by 1300

b.  fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453

c.  Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1529

B. Western Christendom Fragmented: The Protestant Reformation

I.              Protestant Reformation began in 1517

a.     Martin Luther posted the Ninety-five Theses, asking for debate about ecclesiastical abuses

b.     Luther’s was one of many criticisms of the Roman Church

c.     Luther’s protest was more deeply grounded in theological difference

d.     questioned the special role of the clerical hierarchy (including the pope)

II.           Luther’s ideas provoked a massive schism in Catholic Christendom

a.     fed on political, economic, and social tension, not just religious differences

b.     some monarchs used Luther to justify independence from the papacy

c.     gave a new religious legitimacy to the middle class

d.     commoners were attracted to the new religious ideas as a tool for protest against the whole social order

III.         many women were attracted to Protestantism, but the Reformation didn’t give them a greater role in church or society

a.     Protestants ended veneration of Mary and other female saints

b.     Protestants closed convents, which had given some women an alternative to marriage

c.     only Quakers among the Protestants gave women an official role in their churches

d.     some increase in the education of women, because of emphasis on Bible reading

IV.          the recently invented printing press helped Reformation thought spread rapidly

V.            as the Reformation spread, it splintered into an array of competing Protestant churches

VI.          religious difference made Europe’s fractured political system even more volatile

a.     1562–1598: French Wars of Religion (Catholics vs. Huguenots)

b.     1618–1648: the Thirty Years’ War

VII.       Protestant Reformation provoked a Catholic Counter-Reformation

a.     Council of Trent (1545–1563) clarified Catholic doctrines and practices

                                               i.     corrected the abuses and corruption that the Protestants had protested

                                             ii.     new emphasis on education and supervision of priests

                                            iii.     crackdown on dissidents

                                            iv.     new attention given to individual spirituality and piety

                                             v.     new religious orders (e.g., the Society of Jesus [Jesuits]) were committed to renewal and expansion

VIII.     the Reformation encouraged skepticism toward authority and tradition
a. fostered religious individualism
b. in the following centuries, the Protestant habit of independent thinking led to skepticism about all revealed religion