Calling for a Return to the Doctrinal Ideals and Kingdom Ethics of the First Reformation
All things considered, I don't disagree with Wyman's general narrative regarding the rise of the modern West and how it surpassed previous super-power states and cultures like that of the Ottoman Empire.
But rather than celebrate Capitalism and the way it has reshaped the world, I would offer some different narratives to consider.
Patrick Wyman's The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance and Forty Years that Shook the World (published in 2021 by Twelve) focuses primarily on the years1490-1530. He argues this period was critical for understanding the modern world as the West moved through these four decades of transition.
In the process of surveying some of the main historical events of this period, he teases out key cultural markers that (he argues) set the stage for the coming period and the world we know today.
Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XXII/Final)
We ought to understand that technology and art are not easily
separated and both are to some extent inseparable from questions of
epistemology and morality. Additionally, if we grasp that socially conservative
attitudes toward the arts and culture (while inconsistent) cannot be divorced from
their larger cultural narratives surrounding epistemology and previous
generational progress and values, it behooves us (lest we be swept away by
these powerful cultural forces and heavily promoted arguments) to apply the otherworldly
and non-conformist ethos of the First Reformation to the present day. Our
culture is in crisis and thus to many, the arguments made by conservatives seem
very persuasive and grounding but from a New Testament perspective they are flawed
at almost every level.
An otherworldly and non-conformist ethos leads us to a
cultural posture and interaction that embraces neither the Classic nor the
Enlightened. In fact in many ways we are better able to resonate with the postmodern
critique and even the cynical. We benefit from critiques that expose the world
system's inherent flaws and contradictions, that reveal it to be an idolatrous
fraud and resting on transient and degenerating foundations – as Paul teaches
in 1 Corinthians 7.29-31 and Romans 8.19-23. This should not upset us but
rather drives us all the more toward the inescapable choice between dependence
upon revelation and the hope it grants or a collapse into nihilism.
Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XIV)
Once again we are reminded of the strange relationship
between separatist Christianity and the forces of secularisation and how the
pluralism generated by the latter leads to a more congenial environment for the
Church than the monistic sacralism of the Constantinian paradigm. Indeed in
addition to the folk of the First Reformation, even the early beleaguered Magisterial
Protestants understood that an environment of pagan or even secular opposition
is preferable than persecution at the hands of a hostile Christendom. Better a Turk than a Habsburg is a lost
sentiment but in light of today's Dominionism and its aspirations it's one we
would do well to reconsider. While I don't think the Dominionists are going to
'win' today's struggle they are nevertheless scoring 'victories' and if they
should win and attain the cultural supremacy they so badly want – the old
phrase will once more have relevance even though the context is very different.
They won't hesitate to use the power of the state to silence Christians who
oppose them and use the Bible to expose their error.
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.