Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (X)
There is value in a further elaboration of this contrast
between the First and Magisterial Reformations and thus as an exercise it's
worth briefly surveying the latter's historical and ethical legacy as it
transitioned from the Renaissance era into modernity.
The Magisterial Reformation embraced the sword and the coin
and arose at a time in which a new class was forming – the bourgeoisie or
middle class. The Magisterial Reformation was largely an urban movement and comprised
of this nascent stratum of society. Generally speaking the aristocratic class
and the peasantry remained loyal to Rome and yet the rising middle class (and
considerable numbers of lower aristocracy) would not only join the Magisterial
Reformation in large numbers it would generate great wealth setting the stage
for the economic shifts of modernity. In subsequent generations as the
aristocracy declined, the abundant wealth of the middle class, coupled with
changing political tides would give them increasing power in society. This is
celebrated by many within the Magisterial Protestant movement and yet it's at
complete odds with the First Reformation testimony.*
The First Reformation at times grew sidetracked and there are
certainly records of well-to-do members of the Waldensians and Lollards.
Certain trades could generate a degree of prosperity but the original aims of
the movement were devoted to poverty and the pilgrim life. And the historical
record reveals that the vast majority of First Reformation adherents were
certainly less than wealthy and often impoverished members of an underclass.
While the First Reformation was generally anti-materialist
and committed to poverty, the Magisterial Reformation would embrace the tokens
of sacralism and with the new age it would eventually come to embrace usury as
a valid and ethical form of income.**
Wedded to the middle class and its values, the Magisterial
Reformation would embrace a narrative of progress, evidenced in the development
of postmillennial eschatology and later in the Whiggish approach to history and
societal improvement.
While there were certainly Catholic empires like Spain and
Portugal, the more formidable and lasting models were realised in the
Protestant nations. Although modern banking was born in Renaissance Italy, it
was in the north of Europe, in the Protestant realms that it would flourish and
reach its zenith. Capitalism would come to be largely associated with
Protestant nations – even though this assessment (famously made by Weber) is in
some respects erroneous. There are other cultural factors at work and while
Prussia and Scotland were certainly Protestant they (for political and social
reasons) did not have the kind of cultural and economic vibrancy found in other
locales, even in some Catholic lands. In other words I wouldn't want to
over-simplify the question. But painting in broad strokes there's definitely a
Protestant narrative with regard to banking and capitalism and then this must
be coupled with colonialism and later industrialisation. These progressions and
relationships are interdependent and the European dominated world of the 19th
century was very much the child of Protestant sacralist culture.
This is a point celebrated by many today as indeed the
pre-1914 period is looked upon wistfully as a golden age lost, an almost
paradise won. To many thinkers this was the most Christian of ages, when
Christian worldview was brought to bear on virtually all facets of society and
across the globe. Its fall was tragic and in many respects the result of
surreptitious activity – or at least that's how it is viewed.
This is contrasted with the First Reformation and its
Biblicism. Such a view rejects hope in cultural advance, retains a degree of
cynicism regarding new ideas and so-called progress. While the First
Reformation ethos is compatible with the pilgrim, peasant and (indeed after the
Industrial Revolution) with the urban poor – it is antithetical to the bourgeois
values of the Magisterial Reformation – values often expressed in the 20th
century by the suburban lifestyle.
Even as the Magisterial Reformation tradition glories in its
bourgeois status and juxtaposes its newly created world with the obsolete
feudalistic order, the primitivism and Biblicist ethics of the First
Reformation cannot embrace this positivity or the social and economic values it
advocates. The First Reformation ethos is one of the exiled pilgrim and as such
it is not invested in the society nor does it find its security therein. The
sword and coin values of the Magisterial Reformation are the ethics of Babel
and its cultural harvest has been one of theft, exploitation, deceit and
murder. While there have been 'gains' in terms of lifestyle, further reflection
reveals the celebrated changes have produced as many 'losses' and social
catastrophes as successes or improvements.
The 'town' or burgher ethos which was on the rise in the Late
Middle Ages was excoriated by the likes of the First Reformation's Petr Chelčický in the 15th century. This new affluent class
was one deeply invested in the social order and from his standpoint was reliant
upon both the sword and the exploitation of the poor for its standing. The
argument rings true today as well. Chelčický could not have imagined the levels
this disparity society would attain during the industrial age.
Primitivism
and exile status does not preclude urban living or demand some kind of
rural-agrarian milieu (as some have erroneously thought) and yet it is
incompatible with the Middle Class life and the stock it places in security and
respectability. The pilgrim is called to embrace disenfranchisement and
second-class status and so whether this is best endured in an urban setting or
in a rural one is for each individual to decide in his own context.
As
should be evident, this view also rejects the increasingly popular
'survivalist' mindset which is sometimes associated with rural agrarianism.
This is a form of guerilla strategy or strategic withdrawal – a temporary
tactic to weather the storm. In every case these groups embrace and promote
some form of nationalism or sacralism and yet out of a sense of despair or fear
have decided to pull back from the corruptions of mainstream society. But make
no mistake they aspire to control society and to define and dominate the
mainstream. That's their overall goal. They are not true primitivists (or
separatists) and as such don't really belong to the original ethos of the First
Reformation. They're reactionaries not radicals.
As
the First Reformation was not monolithic, it could be argued by some that this survivalist-militant
mindset is compatible with some of the Schism and Post-Schism period advocates
of violence such as the Lollards of the Peasants' and Oldcastle Revolts and
elements of the Taborite epoch. And yet I would continue to argue these were
aberrations and these groups would either ultimately abandon these views or the
survivors would in subsequent generations join with the Magisterial Reformation
as they would not object to its general social ethic. In other words they
either returned to the non-resistant separatist principles of the First
Reformation or would abandon it altogether and eventually throw-in with the
Neo-Constantinianism of the Magisterial Reformation.
While
the language of progress has in today's milieu been appropriated by the forces
of secularism that seek to build a better and scientifically (by which they erroneously
mean 'fact based') oriented world, the Magisterial Reformation's position also
embraced a progress narrative that played out in terms of theology, sociology
and (perhaps ironically) in the birth of science.
This
was fueled by a largely monistic cosmology that viewed the Kingdom in socio-political
redemptive-restorative categories. This was nascent in the 16th
century but became more overt during the Scholastic period and the crises over
the wars of religion and the social and epistemological chaos they spawned.
Confessionalists attempted to arrest the 'progression' but it continued and
developed into a theological framework which would be affected by and more or
less merge with the Enlightenment.
Hence
19th century Postmillennialism became a confused hybrid of both
eschatological ideal and social progressivism. They would separate over the issue
of theological liberalism but both camps are heirs of the original ethos that
drove the movement. But then the 20th century arrived and most
profoundly in 1914 – and that world and (for a season) the vision all but
collapsed.
----
*There
were qualified exceptions to this. Again much of English nonconformity was
blocked from social progress and yet that didn't stop their pursuit of economic
success. Groups like the Quakers had little interest in pursuing empire and the
Moravians even after joining with the mainstream of the Reformation (as an
offshoot or branch of Lutheranism) still maintained something of their
anti-sacralist character.
**Usury here is used in its original sense in reference to charging
interest. It was later redefined to reference only excess or extreme forms of
interest. The redefinition has all but validated what was once reckoned a gross
sin. Indeed our entire modern system is built on its foundation.