The transformation of the European mind

The Protestant Reformation has become a symbolic landmark in the West. We see it as a defining moment, when the people of Europe shook off the superstitious practices and beliefs of the Middle Ages and declared their independence from the Roman Catholic Church. The reformers were among the first to embody the radical freedom and rebellious spirit of inquiry that characterize the modern West. We identify so closely with the Reformation that, in this age of terrorism, Muslim society is said to be chronically unable to adapt to modernity precisely because Islam hasn’t had a Reformation.

Diarmaid MacCulloch’s magisterial “The Reformation: A History” will dispel many of the facile myths about this turbulent period of history. It is difficult to imagine anybody writing a better book about the Reformation. It is evenhanded, learned and profound. A serious work of scholarship, it is admirably accessible. With great skill, MacCulloch enables his readers to enter an intellectual world that seems light-years from our own and helps us appreciate the complexity of theological controversies that might seem abstruse but were at that time a matter of life and death.

MacCulloch introduces us not only to Luther and Calvin but also to Paracelsus, Giordano Bruno, John Knox and Jan Hus, and to the Catholic reformers: Ignatius Loyola, Teresa of Avila, Robert Bellarmine and Charles Borromeo. He admires the industry, efficiency, selflessness and mystical insights of many of these reformers, but he is also aware that the movement was imbued with hatred and anxiety. In the grip of what seems an insane denial of the basic tenets of Christianity, Europeans were prepared to torture one another because they disagreed about the virginity of the Virgin Mary, the efficacy of the saints and the way in which the bread and wine of the Eucharist became the body and blood of Christ.

We identify so strongly with “our” Reformation that we tend to imagine it is unique, but as I read MacCulloch’s careful, detailed history, I was reminded of similar movements in other traditions. It is not true, for example, to say that Islam has never experienced a reformation. Muslim history has been punctuated by movements of renewal (tajdid) and reform (islah), which usually occurred at a period of cultural change or in the wake of political disaster. At such times, the old answers no longer sufficed, and to find a fresh solution Islamic reformers went back to the sources -- the Koran and the example of the Prophet Muhammad -- in much the same way that Luther and Calvin returned to the Bible and the fathers of the church.

Wahhabism, which is of such concern to us today, was a typical example of islah and closely resembled the Protestant Reformation. When the authority of the Ottoman Empire began to decline in the Arabian Peninsula during the 18th century, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-92) responded to the political instability by declaring independence from Istanbul, justifying his rebellion by a religious reform. He was going to return to the faith of the prophet Muhammad and his first Muslim community, and he vowed to get rid of all the later medieval accretions. Like some of the Protestant reformers, he was an intransigent iconoclast -- denouncing Sufi mysticism, devotion to Sufi saints, Shiite imams and even the cult of the prophet’s tomb in Medina -- and imposed the new faith on his people by force.

Islamic reform was not always aggressive. The Sufi poet Rumi responded to the crisis of the Mongol invasions in the 14th century by inaugurating a mystical renewal that has been just as influential as Wahhabism. But reformations often occur at a time of transition, when the old order is disappearing and nothing of equal value has appeared to take its place. They are, therefore, frequently imbued with a tension and fear that can easily segue into hostility and rage.

The 16th century Reformation in Europe occurred at just such a moment of transition. At this time, the West had begun to create an entirely different type of society, one based not on an agricultural surplus but on a technology that enabled it to reproduce its resources indefinitely. This economic revolution was without precedent in history and would require wrenching social and political change. The Reformation was an early symptom of this profound and traumatic transformation.

Major social change is rarely achieved peacefully but is usually accompanied by extreme anxiety and inchoate anger. We can see this in some of the European reformers. Luther, for example, was prey to black depressions and seemed consumed by vehement hatred of the pope, Turks, Jews, women and rebellious peasants -- not to mention every one of his theological opponents. On the Catholic side, MacCulloch points out that Pope Paul IV “was a good hater” who loathed Jews, Spaniards, Jesuits, the devoutly Catholic Holy Roman Emperor and contemporary art with a ferocity that seemed “lunatic.”

The reformers were troubled people who were living through a period of disturbing change. Zwingli and Calvin both experienced paralyzing helplessness, convinced that they were powerless against the trials of human existence, before they broke through to a new religious vision. His doctors warned Ignatius that he would damage his eyesight if he continued to weep so bitterly during the celebration of Mass. Teresa of Avila had a terrifying vision of the place reserved for her in hell. Later, many of the Puritans would be prey to suicidal depression.

Despite its many achievements, the Reformation was rooted in fear and distress. There were violent repudiations of the past, bitter condemnations and a terror of theological deviation. This last has left a difficult religious legacy. During the Reformation, doctrinal orthodoxy became more important than ever before. People were beginning to apply the rational and logical standards of the new scientific revolution to their religion and to lose the ability to think mythically. In the pre-modern world, for example, a religious symbol was experienced mystically as one with the divine reality to which it pointed. By the 16th century, however, some claimed that the Eucharist was only a symbol, and that the body of Christ was not actually present in the ceremony. Hitherto, in common with Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, Christians had relished highly allegorical interpretations of Scripture, but now they were beginning to read their Bible literally, for factual information, in a way that was alien to the text.

People were learning to think differently. Old ideas now seemed untenable, and fresh conceptions of religious truth were urgently required. This was exhilarating, but also frightening. The struggle to assimilate new habits of mind pushed theology to the fore. Increasingly, Western Christians would come to equate faith with belief in official doctrine. Even though Luther did not see faith in this way, an obsession with intellectual conformity would become one of the legacies of the Reformation and is peculiar to reformed Christianity. In traditions such as Judaism, Islam or Buddhism, religion is not about believing obligatory propositions but about behaving differently. The emphasis on doctrinal correctness has been experienced by many as intellectually damaging and as a reason for Christianity’s decline in Europe.

The history of the Reformation, as chronicled by MacCulloch, profiles a militant piety that has often emerged during a period of disturbing transformation. Many Muslim countries today are making the painful rite of passage from a traditional to a modern form of society. Some of the so-called fundamentalist movements in the Islamic world conform to the old tradition of islah and tajdid and express the helplessness, fear and rage that were evident in 16th century Europe. But they are not alone. Similar “fundamentalisms” emerged in every major faith during the 20th century. Only a tiny proportion take part in acts of terror and violence, but they express fears and anxieties that we may not be able to share, but which no society can safely ignore.

MacCulloch warns his readers not to dismiss as trivial or insane the theological controversies of the Reformation, which often had such “dire consequences”: “We have no right to adopt an attitude of intellectual or emotional superiority, especially in the light of the atrocities that 20th century Europe produced because of its faith in newer, secular ideologies. Anxiety and a sense of imperfection seem to be basic components of being human, for those of no religion as well as the religious. Some continue to call the answer to these miseries by the name of God.” *