The Reformation

VisionTV's The Protestant Revolution reveals how Martin Luther and the
Reformation made the modern world

Acclaimed historian Tristram Hunt hosts ambitious Canada/UK
co-production

It began as an argument over theology. It turned into a revolution that
would touch every aspect our lives, from the bedroom to the boardroom.

The birth of Protestantism in the 16th century marked the beginning of a
whole new form of Christianity. And it unleashed a wave of social,
cultural, political and economic change that transformed the Western
world.

The Protestant Revolution, a documentary series on VisionTV, reveals the
far-reaching consequences of this religious upheaval.

The four-part program premieres on Wednesdays, starting Oct. 10, at 10
p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT, and repeats on Saturdays, starting Oct. 13, at 10
p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT.

The Protestant Revolution was produced by Glasgow-based IWC Media
Limited and Toronto-based Cream Productions Inc. for BBC4 and VisionTV.
The series is written and presented by historian, journalist and
broadcaster Tristram Hunt.

By the early 1500s, the Catholic Church was at the height of its power.
But many in Europe had grown hostile to the authority of the Papacy and
sought to reform Catholicism. Among them: Martin Luther, an obscure
German monk.

Passionate and stubborn, Luther publicly challenged many of the
doctrines and practices of the Church, not least the sale of "afterlife
insurance" in the form of letters of indulgence. When he nailed his
famous Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church in
1517, Luther sparked a movement whose impact would exceed his wildest
expectations.

The Protestant Reformation was founded on a revolutionary egalitarian
belief that every individual has a direct relationship with God, and the
right to choose whether to obey God's will or resist authority.
Protestantism liberated God from the grip of the Church and brought the
holy into the everyday world: to the home and workplace, the market and
the city street.

In the decades after Martin Luther made his stand, religious dissent
triggered political revolution. Protestantism unleashed a continuing
cycle of rebellion and reaction that gripped Europe and would eventually
cross the Atlantic Ocean, giving rise to the American Revolution.

The Protestant challenge to authority would make itself felt in many
other spheres as well. Protestantism exalted marriage and family life,
and changed attitudes toward sexuality. It fostered a revolution in art,
led to the birth of the modern novel, and ushered in a new scientific
age. It helped to launch the industrial revolution, and shaped modern
ideas about work and business. We live today in the world that
Protestantism made.

The Protestant Revolution was filmed on location in the UK, Europe, the
U.S. and Canada.

Alan Clements of IWC Media and David W. Brady of Cream Productions are
the Executive Producers. Joseph Maxwell and Ashley Gething from IWC and
Christopher Rowley from Cream are the directors. Alberta Nokes is the
Executive Producer for VisionTV.

See below for episode synopses.

For more on VisionTV's documentary offerings, please visit
http://www.visiontv.ca.

-30-

[Batman]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aydeloof</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The Protestant Reformation was founded on a revolutionary egalitarian
belief that every individual has a direct relationship with God, and the
right to choose whether to obey God's will or resist authority. </div></div>

Is this a correct use of the word 'egalitarian' or was it used just to be politically correct? I'm just wondering.

I think so.. we have equal access. There is no priestly class; no 'inside' line to God's ear.

[Tutones]

Thanks for the heads up! I will be sure to tape every episode...

[GenX]

Can't wait.

[dancingqueen]

/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/snore.gif

sorry, but if you want people to read that, post key points and then link your source...
frankly, I can't be bothered to read all that....

Yeah, I realize, some of us are reading challenged /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif

Please don't wake up from your slumber. Sleep on, my friend, sleep on.

[Soundbear]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Speedy the Arrogant Parrot</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Can't wait. </div></div>

Must be annoying to realize that the "great" United States would not exist except for thr Protestant Reformation.

But I think Columbus was RC.
But it would indeed be a very different world had the Reformation not happened.

It would be an interesting exercise to determine how things would have been different.. and what good things came out of the reformation. If we could discuss that peacefully, that is.

[Soundbear]

Columbus was indeed RC. It was interesting to read in later years (i.e. after high school) that Columbus credited the Holy Spirit for guidance. You can bet THAT was never in a textbook!!!

Without the Reformation, no Puritans or Quakers..

Were there any Roman Catholics among the signatures on the Constitution?

[Soundbear]

this site:

http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html

.. shows how many, a few.

Interestingly enough, the majority of them were Episcopalian/Anglican. Be very careful about calling an Anglican a Protestant. Some of the older ones don't like it!! /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

[KDawg]

I was thinking along those lines too. Without the Reformation, when would Europeans have settled North America? The first settlers were fleeing religious persecution.

[GenX]

The fact America had religious bigots in the 1700's is a good thing?

The Founders were brilliant in many ways. But in one way they wewre like many of their fellow countrymen: the were anti-Catholic bigots; a bigotry grown out of ignorance (not unlike many on here).

Do you have any idea on the breakdown of religions in the US at its inception?

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: KDawg</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I was thinking along those lines too. Without the Reformation, when would Europeans have settled North America? The first settlers were fleeing religious persecution. </div></div>

Not all, by any stretch. It was a mix between people who were fleeing religious persecution, and those who were coming to NA for economic reasons. The Virginia Company, arguably the most successful group of settlers with the longest history of success, were secular in nature. The Chesapeake Bay Company was founded for tobacco refinement and sales only. Religion meant little.

Research "Joint Stock Companies", another hugely successful venture in early America. Religion? They could take it or leave it.

The most open and tolerant society in early America? Maryland, the only Catholic colony of the New England colonies.

Puritans and Pilgrims? Look up "Salem Witch Trials". The most intolerant and radical early Americans were Protestant.

Now, you'll attack me, and that's fine. But look it up, do the research.

Catholicism's first stamp on America was the tolerant Maryland. Protestantism's was the radical Puritans.

Read the "Scarlett Letter", and then come back to me and trumpet Protestantism's great accomplishments in America. Yes, they had some; but Protestantism has much to answer for in Colonial America.

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aydeloof</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Do you have any idea on the breakdown of religions in the US at its inception?
</div></div> LINK (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/)

[GenX]

" Evidence of this anti-Catholic attitude can be found in laws passed by colonial legislatures, sermons preached by colonial ministers, and various books and pamphlets published in the colonies or imported from England. For example, even though no Catholic was known to have lived in Massachusetts Bay in the first 20 years or more of the colony's life, this did not deter the Puritan government from enacting an anti-priest law in May of 1647, which threatened with death "all and every Jesuit, seminary priest, missionary or other spiritual or ecclesiastical person made or ordained by any authority, power or jurisdiction, derived, challenged or pretended, from the Pope or See of Rome."



When Georgia, the thirteenth colony, was brought into being in 1732 by a charter granted by King George II, its guarantee of religious freedom followed the fixed pattern: full religious freedom was promised to all future settlers of the colony “except papists,” that is Catholics.

By his dress, manner and spirit, the Puritan was an antithesis of the Catholic gentleman of the age


Even Rhode Island, famous for its supposed policy of religious toleration, inserted an anti-Catholic statute imposing civil restrictions on Catholics in the colony's first published code of laws in 1719. Not until 1783 was the act revoked.

To have an idea of how this prejudice against Roman Catholics was impressed even among the young, consider these “John Rogers Verses” from the New England Primer: “Abhor that arrant [censored] of Rome and all her blasphemies; Drink not of her cursed cup; Obey not her decrees." This age of penal restriction against Catholics in the colonies lasted until after the American Revolution."

Meanwhile...

" The Religious Toleration Law of 1649 establishing toleration for all religions in early Maryland has generally been interpreted as resulting from the fact that Cecil Calvert was a Roman Catholic."

LINK (http://www.traditioninaction.org/History/B_001_Colonies.html)

I guess it all depends on who was in power.. both sides were bigots now, weren't they?

Both sides were persecuted by the other, depending on where you lived.

[GenX]

How does the "Religious Tolerance Act" personify "persecution?

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Barry Morris</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Columbus was indeed RC. It was interesting to read in later years (i.e. after high school) that Columbus credited the Holy Spirit for guidance. You can bet THAT was never in a textbook!!! </div></div>

College professors like to talk about it. They try to link it to the supposed 'abuses' Columbus perpetrated on Native Americans.

To be sure, some of the things he did were despicable. However, what he did actually looked extremely tolerant and benevolent in his day and age, because most people would not have blinked an eye should Columbus have attempted to subjugate "the heathens" into slavery. In reality, Columbus was interested in exposing the Natives to Christianity. In a relative sense, Columbus was ahead of his time.

But college profs use Columbus' attachment to the Holy Spirit and his mistreatment of the Natives as something that goes hand-in-hand. It's like the one is a precursor to the other.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Speedy the Arrogant Parrot</div><div class="ubbcode-body">How does the "Religious Tolerance Act" personify "persecution? </div></div>

Similar bills were passed in England. It didn't stop persecution or bigotry.

You won't admit, will you, that human beings, having inherited Adam's sin nature equally, persecuted one another regardless of creed?

[GenX]

Of course that is true.

But will you admit you not only moved the goal poats, but you reconfigured the entire playing field, by going from the Puritans and their positive effect on America to original sin in two posts? /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

[Crusty]

/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/rofl.gif

Crusty is high on Smilies this morning.

[GenX]

/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/lol.gif /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/rofl.gif

[Crusty]

/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/rofl.gif

[GenX]

/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/lol.gif

[Crusty]

/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/lol.gif /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/lol.gif /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/rofl.gif /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/lol.gif http://www.statichost.co.uk/forums/images/smilies/amerflag.gif /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/lol.gif

[GenX]

/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/lol.gif /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/rofl.gif /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/rofl.gif /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/lol.gif

[The Berean]

The USA would not exist without the reformation. If God EVER blessed America, it wasnt because it was catholic.

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ConKat</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The USA would not exist without the reformation. If God EVER blessed America, it wasnt because it was catholic. </div></div>

Proof?

This has you in quite a quandary, doesn't it? /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif

You want to hate America, and focus on her negatives; yet at the same time you can't really do that, or you must face the fact it was a Protestant America that has so many deep and ugly faults.

Ooooh, what a corner you have painted yourself in to! /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/lol.gif

[The Berean]

Quaundary?? hardly.

You don't know what a real Christian is.

If a protestant America has deep and ugly faults, her ugliness under rome would be, from a historical perspective much much worse.

Hate america?? theres a big differecne between hating a country and disrespecting a jerk.

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ConKat</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> theres a big differecne between hating a country and disrespecting a jerk. </div></div>


He's referring to someone here, I just know it...

...I'm not a sleuth by any means, but sometimes I just get that 'gut feeling', and this is one of those times...


..he's trying to connect the word "jerk" to someone here...


...jerk...jerk...hmmm...

...I dunno', but to me he's getting at something here...

[Crusty]

/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/confused.gif

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Crusty</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/confused.gif </div></div> /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/confused.gif /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/confused.gif

[Crusty]

http://bestsmileys.com/thinking/5.gif

[GenX]

Can you help me oooooot, my Canadian brutha'???

[Crusty]

he's talking about .... RWGR.


sorry