*the month in snapshots*

I built the girls a playset!

Zoey waiting for her bus

a trip to the Newport Aquarium

even squirrels like to take little naps, apparently all at the same time

#halloween

Halloween is a major holiday in our household: the girls decorate with jack-o-lanterns and cobwebs and giant-ass spiders, and they put hours of planning into their costumes. This year Chloe went as a cat and Zoey went as a vampire, and they looked pretty damned cute (as the picture heading this post shows). This was our first year trick-or-treating in the new neighborhood, and it quickly became apparent that we're surrounded by rich folk. Sure, we knew it to be true; the only reason we were able to afford our house was because the previous owners were desperate to sell it (we could put it on the market now and make 30k in profit easy!), but it became even more apparent when half our neighbors let the girls scoop king-sized candy bars into their bags. It started to downpour towards the end of the night, and we were all soaked head-to-toe by the time we made it home. The girls weighed their candy, and each got around seven pounds! I don't think I've ever seen a haul like that. Ashley rounded out the evening making Halloween-themed 'Mummy Dogs', but it turns out Pinterest is full of shit--the 'mummy dogs' came out looking like gauze-wrapped penises. Zoey found it hilarious. We wrapped up the evening watching a classic Halloween movie that Ash and I loved as kids: Hocus Pocus! 

Ash and I spend Octobers watching scary movies; last year we watched most of the classics (such as Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween, etc.), but this year we stuck to more recent films. We watched the 2017 remake of IT (creepy rather than scary, and waaaay better than the old version), along with some Netflix and Amazon Prime selections. We binge-watched The Haunting of Hill House, perhaps the best 'scary show' to come out in a decade, and I was delighted to learn it's based off a book that is hailed as being far more darker than the TV show. I've added it (along with Stephen King's novel of the aforementioned IT) to my 2019 Reading Queue. Here are some of the movies/shows in our 2019 Halloween Bonanza: 

The Frankenstein Chronicles is a remastered look at Dr. Frankenstein and his machinations involving piecing orphan kids together into hideous caricatures of their old selves. Interestingly (to me, at least; when I explained this to Ash, I'm pretty sure her eyes yawned), the British show has a veiled connection with Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe Series. Cornwell's series takes place during the Napoleonic Wars and follows the career of a rifleman in Wellington's army. The BBC adaptation of the series casts Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe, and in The Frankenstein Chronicles, Bean plays a veteran soldier who now works as a detective in London. In the first episode Bean says that he served with the 95th Rifles, in the Second Battalion--just like Sharpe. Thus when I watched the show, it was like watching Richard Sharpe in his retirement. 

family devotions: James 1.1-12

Once a week, usually on Wednesdays, we do Family Devotions. Now that it's gotten colder (and darker), we've tweaked it into 'Colonial Family Devotions.' We do dinner by candle- and oil-lamplight, and after dinner we retreat into the family room to read God's Word and learn from the scriptures. Zoey, being six, has a hard time following a lot of it, and she usually falls asleep cuddled up with Ash. To counteract this, while Chloe's helping to clean the kitchen, I read her bible stories for her children's bible and ask her questions about them. Her favorite stories are Adam and Eve in the Garden, Noah's Ark, and David and Goliath. She likes to read those over and over. Once Chloe's settled down with us, we read from the Bible and discuss the text. It's super simple, and though I plan for the lessons to take about ten minutes, usually they go much longer. It isn't that I'm long-winded (I hope!); it's that Chloe's a smart girl, and she always has a lot of questions. After discussing the chosen text, I then leapfrog into talking about other issues regarding the Christian faith. Lately she's had a lot of questions about the justifiability of believing in God, as her science teacher has implied science doesn't leave any room for God. We've been talking about different arguments for God's existence, and she's been encouraged by them. I'll probably work those into a post next month. Below are the studies we've done this month (we missed a week due to a plethora of doctor's appointments); while the bible studies as I present them to the girls are much simpler, these are 'fleshed out' so that those of older persuasions can benefit more from them.

*  *  *

~ Welcome to Hard Times ~

James 1.1-4, 12

James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion. Greetings! Consider it all joy, my brothers, whenever you encounter various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing... Blessed is the person who endures testing, because when he is approved he will receive the crown of life that [God] has promised to those who love him.

In these verses James tells us that we should 'consider it all joy' when trials come our way, because trials are God's way of working in our lives and heart to transform us into the people He desires us to be. When he writes of 'trials,' he isn't writing about supra-spiritual realities; trials don't need to be 'spiritual' in nature; indeed, they are most often the simplest difficulties that all flesh-and-blood humans face. Difficulties with work, strains in interpersonal relationships, and car troubles are all 'trials' that God uses to bring about changes in our hearts. God is sovereign, and in His wisdom He uses various trials to bring about specific changes in our lives. Just as diseases need different medicines to be treated, so it is with different sins. If we are prideful, God will humble us; if we love money, He may take it away; if we put our own desires before Him, He may thwart our plans. When trials come, we ought to ask ourselves, "What kind of work is God trying to do in my life?"

When trials come, we mustn't fear them as a shot in the dark that has escaped God's oversight. God is in control, and any trial we face He has either orchestrated or permitted. While such trials are judgments and 'shots across the bow' for those who don't love Him, they are discipline for those who do. God's ultimate goal for us isn't that we are happy, or content, or satisfied; His goal isn't that we acquire all our dreams and goals. His aim isn't to make our lives a rose garden experience. Many Christians falsely believe that because God is their Father, His greatest ambition is the happiness of His children; but as any parent knows, a mother or father whose chief aim is to make their children 'happy' is no good parent at all. Parents are tasked with raising their children to be wholesome, functioning members of society. Parents are tasked with 'training up' their children so that they are able to do the work assigned to them, to enable them not only to 'handle' the real world but to flourish in it. In the same way, God's goal for His children isn't their happiness but their flourishing as human beings in this world and the next. Just as a parent uses discipline to correct bad behavior and to keep children moving in the right direction, so God uses trials to sharpen us and hone us into the people He created us to be. 

In Romans 8.29 Paul tells us that God's goal for His people is that they be conformed to the image of His Son; in other words, that we become Christ-like. Throughout the New Testament Jesus is portrayed as the 'true Man', the man who fully embodies, and thus reveals, how mankind is designed to function. Paul isn't saying that God's goal for us is that we become mini-saviors; no, he's saying that God's goal is that we emulate Christ insofar as he shows us what genuine human living looks like in a fallen world. In Galatians 5.22-23 Paul writes about the 'fruit of the Spirit'; these nine attributes--love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control--are hallmarks of what it looks like to live as God intended us to live from the very start. These are not, as we all know from personal experience, our default characteristics; indeed, they are antithetical to the sinful nature which we carry around like an old hag on our shoulders. It is through spending time with God, soaking up His Word, bathing in His Spirit, that He works changes in our hearts so that, in ever increasing measure, we reflect more and more His Son and holy, genuine human living. Trials, James says, are a preferred tool in God's hands to bring us ever nearer that goal of genuine human living.

James says that when trials come our way, we are to respond with endurance. This means that we don't despair or give up; we do the hard work that endurance requires; we don't lose hope in God; we believe that God is at work for our good; and we endure the trials in prayer and patience. As we endure, God works in our heart, and when we come out the other side of the trials--whether in this life or the next--we will be better for it. Remember that God's ultimate goal is that we're changed from the inside out, and that God uses trials as a tool to bring this about. This is, in a sense, how it works: imagine you got a new job, and it's tough learning the ropes, a real struggle. You endure the first couple weeks, but then it gets easier. It isn't long before it's second nature, and you've become a solid, skilled worker. God wants to build us into solid Christians skilled at living holy, God-honoring lives.

Let's be honest: we dread trials, in whatever form they come.

We don't like being sick, or needy, or alone.

It's easy to grumble and complain when things are hard.

It's easy to lose sight of God who is constantly watching over us.

But when we come to grips with the fact that hard times and difficulties are actually God's kindness towards us, we can respond not with complaining but with rejoicing. It is a kind and loving parent who disciplines his children; in the same way, God is kind when He disciplines us. Isn't it peculiar how we say parents who let their kids run amuck are not good parents at all, but when God uses discipline in our lives, we're so ready to question His love and fatherhood over us? James says that the one who endures trials is 'blessed'; he's saying that those who endure are favored by God, and the blessed life is, ironically, the happy life. There's a myth that says the Christian life is boring, but Psalm 1 tells us that the Christian life is actually the blessed life. It is only in Christ--in being reconciled to God, to finding our footing as human beings, and living as human beings were designed by God to live--that we can experience true human flourishing. Christ offers us a life of joy and peace that transcends the nitty-gritty hardships we face on a day-to-day basis; and not only this, but Christ promises us an inheritance in a newly-created universe. The psalmist tells us that there's no rest for the wicked; the life of the wicked is marked by turmoil, strife, and restlessness. When the wicked experience deep-seeded joy and peace, it is fleeting; their lives are marked by exhaustion and emptiness, or at least they will be in time. 

~ A Word to the Wise ~

James 1.5-8

Now if any of you lacks wisdom, let him as for it from God, who gives to all without reservation and not reproaching, and it will be given to him. But let him ask for it in faith, without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed about. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. 

James' basic idea is that we need wisdom to endure the trials that come our way. 'Wisdom,' in a bare-bones generic sense, is knowing how to live well. The wisdom James speaks of is more specific: this wisdom is the knowledge that God uses trials to shape us into the people He wants us to be, and it is knowing that God is in control and trusting that He's working for our good. 'Our good,' of course, isn't 'our happiness,' in the sense that He's always working behind the scenes to make our dreams come true; 'our good' is our development into flourishing human beings who live as we are created to live. God is eager to give wisdom, James says, but we must not only be sincere to receive it; we also must ask! 

James says we need to ask 'in faith'. This means that when we ask God for wisdom, we must believe His promise that He will give us wisdom; it means we must trust that He will give us wisdom. To ask 'in faith' is to believe in God's promise and to trust Him to be faithful to that promise. James warns that the 'double-minded' man won't receive anything from God, and that such a person is unstable in all his ways. To be 'double-minded' means to have one eye towards God and the other on the world. Many Christians will take God only insofar as they're able to retain those 'precious sins' that they feel they just cannot do without. When we harbor sin in our hearts, we're not cutting ourselves off from the salvation found in Christ, but we are certainly sabotaging our own development as human beings, and we are effectively isolating ourselves from God. Imagine that our spiritual life, which comes from God, is like water shooting through a hose; God is the spout, and we are at the end of the hose, drinking up His water. When we cling to those sins that so easily beset us, we are essentially putting a cinch in the hose's line, so that the water we receive from God is basically a trickle. No, our salvation is not in jeopardy (we're saved not by what we do (or don't do) but by our faith in Jesus), but the quality of our life as Christians (and the quality of our lives in general) suffers. James warns that when we have one foot in God's camp and one foot in our own, we can't assume that God will answer our prayers for wisdom. 

~ The Futility of Wealth ~

James 1.9-11

Now let the brother of humble circumstances boast in his high position, but the rich person in his humiliation, because he will pass away like a flower of the grass. For the sun rises with its burning heat and dries up the grass, and its flower falls off, and the beauty of its appearance is lost. So also the rich person in his pursuits will wither away.

Christians come in all shapes and sizes, and some are poor while others are rich. There are lots of false ideas when it comes to Christians and wealth. Some people believe that there is no such thing as a 'rich Christian'; Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God, but seeing as he was likely speaking of a narrow gate in the city of Jerusalem rather than a sewing needle, his point isn't that it is impossible but that it is difficult. Other Christians believe that God rewards faith with money; how much money you have is a reflection of how much God favors you. In reality, faithful Christians can be either poor or rich. The money one has in the bank isn't reflective of one's status before God. In the Corinthian church we see some members who have lavish estates and others who are practically homeless! God blesses some people with a lot of money and entrusts them to use that money wisely for God's glory and the benefit of His people. 

Why, then, would Jesus say that it is difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven? Simply put, it is quite easy to fall in love with money. It's been erroneously said that money is the root of all evil; no, it's the love of money--the devotion to it--that is the root of much evil. James is writing to Christians from all walks of life, and he tells the poor Christians to boast in their spiritually high position--they are children of God with an inheritance preserved for them in the coming new world!--and he tells the rich Christians to boast in their 'humiliation', for in the gospel they've come to see that money isn't all it's cracked up to be. Wealth is a temporary thing; it may make life easier in a lot of ways, but it's ephemeral, a passing phantom, here one minute and gone the next. It's a very unreliable god.

James says that the rich person 'in his pursuits' will whither away. He isn't speaking here of rich Christians who use their monetary gifts to bless God's kingdom and His people; rather, he's speaking of those who make money their god, their ultimate aim and pursuit of life. A lot of people make money their god, and other people make other things their god. Our worldly culture is drenched with the pursuit of the gods of Freud, Nietzche, and Marx: sex, money, and power. We pursue these things (and others) with the wrong idea that they will bring us happiness. The reality is that none of these things bring happiness. Those most successful in these pursuits--from Egyptian pharaohs to 21st-century CEOs--report that their lives, though looking outwardly successful and lavish, are filled with emptiness, exhaustion, and restlessness. When we pursue things other than God--whether our pursuits are focused on sex, money, or power; or on love, or fame, or even the acquiring of the American Dream--we are pursuing our own kingdoms rather than God's kingdom. This is a huge part of what it means to be a fallen human being. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve pursued knowledge of Good and Evil in the hope of becoming like God; at the Tower of Babel, we tried to usurp God's throne and take it for ourselves; and in our day-to-day lives, even to this day, our natural bent is to make God a puppet and play His strings to our benefit. 

We hope that by pursuing these worldly and fleshly passions that we will find ourselves, but the reality is that when we pursue these things, we become enslaved to them. We actually lose ourselves in the process. The only way to truly find ourselves is to find ourselves in God. This makes sense: after all, we were created by God, and as His image-bearers we flourish when we're plugged into Him and living as He created us to live. Our flourishing comes from living as we are designed to live. Real human flourishing--along with meaning and purpose--comes from being a part of God's family and living for Him rather than for ourselves. But what does this look like in practice? 

It means obeying God even when we don't want to.

It means putting other people before ourselves.

It means living a life of selflessness and sacrifice (a life of biblical love). 

It means putting aside our own ambitions for God's ambitions.

It means conforming to the image of Christ.

It means embracing the trials that sharpen us into the people God wants us to be.

True human flourishing--what the Greeks called eudaimonia, that which they made the ultimate goal of philosophy and of living--is found only in submitting to God and His will for our lives. True human flourishing isn't found in acquiring wealth, sexual exploits, or powerful conquests. True human flourishing isn't found in the American Dream. It's found only in submitting ourselves to God and living the way He has intended us to live from the start.

on repentance

An Essay on Repentance by Anthony Barnhart on Scribd

on reading

It's become a tradition (three years running) to indulge Star Wars books come wintertime. Though I jumped two months ahead, this year's Star Wars reading wasn't disappointing. Both were Han Solo trilogies that I wanted to read before watching the "new" Han Solo movie. The first trilogy, by A.C. Crispin, covers Han Solo's early life up to A New Hope; the second, by Roger M. Allen, revolves around Han Solo about a decade after the Thrawn Trilogy. Both trilogies are 'legends' because they're not Disney's take on things, but I prefer the Legends over the new stuff anyways. 

I'm hoping Naomi will get into Star Wars, or at least find it enjoyable. Chloe thinks Star Wars is ridiculous, but I think deep down she may not be as negative towards it as she acts. Ashley for sure doesn't like it; she can't get into anything too "spacey". Zoey, on the other hand, is enthralled with it. A few nights ago at dinner Ashley made the mistake of asking what the difference was between a clone trooper and a storm trooper, so everyone had to listen to a narrative about the Clone Wars, the rise of the Empire, and the Rebellion. Ash and Chloe could've cared less, but Zoey was enthralled. 

A couple years ago I gifted Chloe with my hardback original-issue Harry Potter series. She says she doesn't like it, it's too confusing, but she tried starting it at Book Six. I've encouraged her to try again from the first, but she's just not having it. Well, just 'cause she doesn't want to read them doesn't mean I can't, so for most of the month I rediscovered the Harry Potter series. I hate the movies compared to the books. 

An Age of Empire and Rebellion

The conquest of the New World, coupled with advancements in shipbuilding and navigation, assisted the rise of a mercantilist economic theory that would come to dominate Early Modern Europe. Mercantilism fit hand-in-glove with European overseas empires, and England capitalized on this theory and fleshed it out to its maximum potential. England shaped her economic policies around mercantilist thought, and the British East India Company forever transformed India’s landscape with its form of trade and conquest. The Early Modern World is, in a sense, a story of rising and toppling European empires: the Portuguese Empire gave way to the Spanish Empire, and the Spanish Empire was usurped by the Dutch Empire; and the Dutch Empire would make room for the British Empire. For the most part all these empires operated on mercantilist principles.

mercantilist theory was dependent upon trade within an empire's territories

Mercantilism has been called the heartbeat of Britain’s empire, but this economic theory wasn’t given a name until Adam Smith coined one in his Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. Mercantilist theory had been on the up-and-up since the late 1500s, and it’s been called a sort of ‘naïve bullionism.’ Bullionism defined a nation’s wealth by the amount of precious metals a nation owned. Such thinking drove Spain’s colonization of South and Central America, and she succeeded; England sought gold in Virginia and failed (but once tobacco exportation began, that failure became a success). France went a different route; her bullion was copper and beaver furs in New France.

But Mercantilism took a different route than bullionism, putting the emphasis on the circulation of money through trade rather than on the packrat hoarding of gold and silver. Mercantilist thinkers advocated increasing national power and wealth by tightened governmental control over the entirety of the national economy; emphasis shifted from the accumulation of precious metals to the development of agriculture and manufacturing, the establishment of foreign trading monopolies, and building a favorable balance of trade. At the heart of mercantilist thought lies a favorable ‘balance of trade.’ When a nation’s exports exceed its imports, that nation enjoys a favorable balance of trade, or a trade surplus. If, however, imports exceed exports, that nation is rutted in an unfavorable balance of trade, or a trade deficit. Mercantilism declared that when merchants of one country had to purchase product from merchants of another, the purchasing country was weakened in relation to the selling country.

In A New Economic History America, historian Gerald Gunderson calls mercantilism ‘a philosophy of nation building, a series of economic controls intended to strengthen a country and its colonies against other antagonistic empires. A major tenet of this view was self-sufficiency: sources of supply—raw materials, agriculture, and industry—should be developed domestically, or in the colonies, to prevent interruptions by hostile foreigners. A large merchant marine was also deemed important. Cargo vessels of that era were designed to repel pirates and thus could be easily adapted to military roles during wars. Finally, the mercantilists were preoccupied with specie (gold and silver), then a universal foundation of money. Short on possessing gold mines, as Spain did, specie could be acquired with a ‘favorable’ balance of trade, that is, through earning foreign exchange by selling exports that brought in more money than as paid out by imports.’ Thus, though differing significantly from bullionism, mercantilism arose in an attempt to gratify bullionism through unconventional means.

Mercantilism put its power in the central government; such a localization of power came about largely due to the fear that if a society lacked a strong central government, the nation risked plunging into the chaos of feudal parochialism; or, in other words, another Dark Age, the memories of which remained present in social consciousness. Thus, in a sense, mercantilist thought served as a bulwark supporting the absolutism of various European empires. The interests of businesses and workers were secondary to the interests of the nation (and thus to the interests of the central government). Such thinking paved the way for how Great Britain saw the colonies not in terms of English outposts but as cash-cows to enrich the trade surplus. Great Britain, however, didn’t embrace mercantilism alone: France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic did so, too, although each in their own ways suited to their specific situations in global trade.

Mercantilism in England fleshed itself out in laws enacted by the English crown and Parliament: high tariffs (trade taxes) on manufactured goods, constructing networks of overseas colonies, and refusing to allow her colonies to trade with other nations. Such policies strengthened national wealth at the expense of the colonies, and so these policies fostered colonial resentment and, in time, helped fuel a passion for independence. Mercantilism declared that the interests of any colony were to be wholly subordinate to those of the mother country. The crown and Parliament saw the colonies as weapons in the continual ‘trade warfare’ between the other world powers. As such, the colonies were to serve as export markets and as suppliers of raw materials to England. Tariffs were placed on imports; bounties (monetary gifts) were put on exports. What this meant in practice is that the colonists had to pay taxes for imports, and English merchants were given money from the government for exporting goods. The export of some raw materials were banned, and the Navigation Acts restricted England’s domestic trade to her and her colonies, cutting out foreign nations. The colonies were denied the right to manufacture; raw goods were sent across the Atlantic for manufacture in England, and then England shipped the goods back across the Atlantic to the colonies where the colonists had to pay taxes on the imports.

It’s important to note that most of the exchanged wealth didn’t go to the crown but to the merchants involved in the trade. Mercantilism fostered a partnership between the central government and the nation’s merchants; in doing so, private power and private wealth blossomed, and the government received a pretty penny through duties and taxes. The government protected its merchants’ interests through trade barriers, subsidies to domestic industries to maximize exports and to minimize imports, and through policies of regulation. This setup built up trade surpluses so that bullion would flow into England, and much of the wealth claimed by the central government went straight to the undying build-up of its Royal Navy, which in turn protected the colonies (because of their trade value) as well as protecting the merchants ferrying goods back and forth across the Atlantic. Such protection was required as the Atlantic became a battleground between warring empires; the early- to mid-1700s witnessed a series of imperial wrestling matches that disrupted trade and brought warfare to the British colonies long before any English-Americans starting whispering about independence.

"The First British Empire," mid-18th century

England acquired its first overseas possession in Newfoundland in 1583, and from the early 1600s on, France and England competed in seizing territories in North America and the Caribbean. These two empires, classic foes from the Middle Ages, would become entangled in a series of wars that were fought both in Europe and in the New World; these Intercolonial Wars would scar the peoples of North America—not just the European settlers, mind you, but to an even greater degree the native populations—from 1688 to 1763. Before these conflicts erupted, however, France’s North American acquisitions in modern-day Canada experienced one of the bloodiest conflicts in North American history. The ‘Beaver Wars’, which lasted from the mid-1600s until early in the 18th century, were fought between France, her native American allies, and other native Americans to determine who would control the profitable fur trade. It wasn’t long after the dust settled that France and England wrangled in North America. These intercolonial wars were theaters of European-centered wars, and they have their own names that are subsumed within the larger European conflicts. King William’s War, fought in the colonies, was part of the European Nine Years War that lasted from 1688 to 1697. The second intercolonial war, Queen Anne’s War, was an extension of the War of the Spanish Succession, which lasted from 1702 to 1713. France and Spain went to war in 1739 in the War of Jenkins Ear, but this war would become enfolded within the 1744-1748 War of the Austrian Succession (known as King George’s War in North America). The last of these conflicts, The French and Indian War, part of the Seven Years War in Europe, lasted from 1754 to 1763 and saw France ousted from the North American continent. England had come out on top, but New France, due north of the English colonies, had served as a threat that could keep colonial mischief in check; its loss would be a catalyst for the burgeoning American Revolution.

the French and Indian wars were damned brutal

The American Revolution, which lasted from 1775 to 1783, can be viewed as a fifth intercolonial war between France and Britain. France, hoping to get back at her rival in the wake of the Seven Years War, aimed to undermine England and reclaim New France, now in British hands. While French support was vital in the Americans winning the revolution, that support didn’t bring about a reclaimed New France and only served to drain France’s coffers. France came out of this fifth intercolonial war victorious, but in doing so she had put her head on the chopping block (a metaphor that would morph into something quite ghastly). France was on the verge of bankruptcy, unrest was rife, and the French commoners were starting to voice their opinions, and loudly. The revolution France supported would aid revolution in France, and it would come at the cost of just under one and a half million lives. This makes the American Revolution, which cost about forty thousand lives (including lives lost to disease), seem almost bloodless.

Britain’s loss of the Thirteen Colonies marks the end of the First British Empire, but Britain would rebuild. Lord Cornwallis, famous in American history for surrendering his army to George Washington at Yorktown in 1781, was named Governor-General of British Indian possessions, and his reforms would shape British India for over a century to come.

An Age of Discovery and Conquest

The Early Modern World was an age of discovery not only in the sciences but also in geography. The discovery, exploration, and exploitation of the ‘New World’ (the western hemisphere) led to a western European hegemony that would guide global politics for centuries. The Portuguese blazed the way, and this isn’t surprising: its people lived in an inhospitable land, and they relied upon waterborne trade to survive. The harsh environments of their homeland drove them to colonize Atlantic islands, such as the Canaries, that were better suited for farming. Their reliance upon naval trade put an impetus in naval advances, and they became renown navigators. In the early 15th century, Henry the Navigator, a royal prince, heard rumors of gold mines in the heart of Africa, so he cobbled together an assortment of mapmakers, shipbuilders, instrument-makers, astronomers, and sailors to promote the discovery of these gold mines. Henry’s ambitions, however, went beyond African gold mines; the Ottomans were beginning to dominate the Mediterranean ship-lanes, and he hoped to find an alternative route to India. Though Henry’s gurus didn’t succeed in finding a route to India, they did open up a thriving African trade in gold, ivory, and slaves. In the mid-1400s, the Portuguese received word that a sailor named Christopher Columbus, employed by the Spaniards, had found a route to India by sailing west; it wasn’t long before Portugal and Spain signed the Treaty of Tordesillas that divided the ‘New World’ in two between the competing powers (France and England, who believed that the Americas should be open to all and sundry, disregarded the Treaty). Just before the beginning of the 16th century, Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama ventured into the Indian Ocean; as the ocean was dominated by the Arabs, he found it difficult to commence trade. The Portuguese were un-swayed, however, and within a decade and a half they’d established trade routes through the Indian Ocean.

Portuguese naval vessels

Their ability to counter the Arab influence came on several accounts: first, they improved their sails to increase speed and maneuverability; second, they were the first to note that cannon rather than soldiers won battles at sea, and stocked their naval vessels with firepower; and third, they put an end to individual ships plowing the waves in favor of squadrons packed with firepower. These innovations paved the way to Portuguese dominance over the Arabs; by 1513, after a string of naval victories over Arab ships (and numerous Arab towns being bombarded into submission), Portugal’s trade routes went beyond India to the Spice Islands. In this manner Portugal established the first true western European overseas empire, though this empire was based on trade rather than colonies across the Atlantic. Portugal’s bounty came primarily from trade with India, the Spice Islands, and a chain of small trading bases that stretched from West Africa to China. The Portuguese Though Portugal claimed modern-day Brazil, it was sparsely populated, except by vast estates worked by slave labor. Portugal dominated trade with the east, but this dominance lasted less than a century: other European powers, jealous of Portugal’s newfound wealth, thrust themselves into the Game of Empire. The European nations, competing one another to be on top in the balance of power, would use the New World—and its peoples—as pawns for empire.

A painting of Christopher Columbus. The eyes tell you he's not
the sort of man you'd like to know.

The first European nation to take Portugal’s laurels to the next level was Spain, and her send-off happened with none other than the infamous Christopher Columbus. The Genoese Columbus was an expert sailor in the Atlantic, and he was convinced Asia lay only 3500 miles west of the Canary Islands. He believed that one could sail west across the Atlantic to reach the spice-rich lands of the Far East, and he took his theory to the Portuguese, hoping for their financial support. When they refused, he turned to Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain. They took the bait, dubbed him a Spanish admiral, funded his expedition, and granted him three ships: the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. He set sail in 1492; thirty-three days later he reached the Bahamas, but was unsettled to find no Chinese or Japanese peoples. His men explored Cuba and the west coast of modern Haiti. Columbus made four transatlantic trips, during all of which he was convinced he’d found a route to the Far East; but by the time of his death in 1506, it was becoming apparent that he hadn’t found a new trade route to lands rich in spice but a new continent all its own! All hope of a new trade route to India was dashed in 1522 when the ragtag remnants of Ferdinand Magellan’s fleet returned to Spain after circling the globe; recognizing that Portugal owned the route to the Spice Islands, Spain instead focused on the lands Columbus had discovered. Though many Spaniards feared the newfound continent would be a barrier to trade with India, it turned out that it was filled with precious minerals, not least of all gold.

But the New World wasn’t just home to gold—it was also home to people. The Spaniards would focus on Mesoamerica, and in doing so they would come across a number of native people groups. Centered in the Yucatan Peninsula and in northern Central America were the Mayans; they had numerous towns, splendid palaces, and were expert architects. They had a written language and had developed a modern calendar and mathematics. The Aztecs had their capital city at Tenochtitlan (modern-day Mexico City), and the Incas were on bad footing to face the Spaniards, and they had just come out of a bloody dynastic civil war. Against these peoples Spain sent her conquistadores, ex-soldiers who had been put out of work when the last Muslim kingdom in southern Spain was conquered in 1492. The promise of land and adventure across the Atlantic appealed to these men who had no other expertise, and they crossed the ocean in droves to pursue their fortunes. Hernando Cortes landed on the Mexican coast in 1519 with six hundred troops; within two years he’d conquered the fierce Aztecs (not least because of the introduction of European germs, to which the Aztecs had no immunity). Cortes next turned his attention on the Mayans, and the Incas suffered a similar fate under the boot of Francisco Pizzaro. By the mid-16th century, the conquistadores had conquered Mesoamerica. But that wasn’t enough: Spain also began conquering (and settling) the Caribbean islands and portions of North America. The Catholic Church sponsored Spain’s colonization efforts, and missions were built in Florida, Texas, and California. Spaniards intent on ranching and farming emigrated to these areas in droves, but their migrations would look like a trickle compared to the colonization efforts of England.

Conquistadors versus Aztec warriors

L2R: Aztec jaguar warrior and eagle warrior

The Aztecs were pretty great at building ziggurats. 

It's unfortunate that they used the ziggurats as platforms for
tearing the hearts out of victims sacrificed to their gods.

The Portuguese and Spanish were the first off the mark with exploring (and exploiting) the New World, but the English and French weren’t far behind. It’s interesting that each European power took a different approach to the New World: the Portuguese focused on transatlantic trade, the Spanish on precious metals (which would lead to them supplanting the Portuguese as the premier European empire), the French on trade with natives (particularly with the so-called ‘fur trade’), and the English with creating colonies crammed with people. Frenchman Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1609, and in the early 17th century English settlements began popping up along the North American coast. The Dutch settled New Amsterdam, but it would be seized by the English and changed to New York. The French and English, embroiled as always in a tug-of-war for dominance, fought for dominance in North America, and they tried to use the natives as pawns in their centuries-long drama. These two powers would fight a number of wars in North America, in which the natives would play large parts, until the French were eventually ousted in the mid-18th century after the end of the French & Indian War. France’s loss of Canada meant that Great Britain owned North America (except for Spanish claims in Florida and on the west coast). The threat of a French invasion from Canada had helped keep the British colonists reliant upon the crown, and the loss of such a threat helped spur the British colonists toward an independence that would be claimed, and won, in the mid-late 18th century.

An Age of Enlightenment

Copernicus and the Heliocentric Theory

If the Renaissance was the medieval worldview’s death-knell, the Enlightenment was what put it in the ground and ushered in the modern world. The ‘Age of Enlightenment’ stretches from the mid-1600s through the 1700s. It begins with the Scientific Revolution and the resultant ‘New Science’ that undermined precious, time-honored beliefs that had constrained and guided European philosophy. The Enlightenment reaches sounds its grand finale with the French Revolution, during which France’s traditional political hierarchy and social orders were literally hunted down and destroyed to be replaced with a wholly new way of doing things that was informed by Enlightenment ideals of freedom and equality for all.

Architects, navigators, and engineers of the Renaissance needed precise measurements and observations that gave a boom to physics, and the science of experimentation blossomed first with the anatomists, who became renowned for dissecting cadavers. The Renaissance spurred a race for discovery, and new ways of studying the world were invented: the telescopes and microscopes, barometers and thermometers, even vacuum pumps. Natural philosophers (i.e. scientists) began studying nature by manipulating conditions, thus freeing them from the painstaking patience needed for natural observation alone. The invention of these staple instruments of modern science enabled the world to be seen in greater detail, and the resultant observations spurred revolutions in all the major scientific fields. The most dramatic revolutions came in astronomy. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) overturned medieval cosmology by showing that the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around. His ‘heliocentric theory’, though initially resisted, caught on, and forty years after his death, Pope Gregory XIII reformed the calendar to reflect the new cosmology. The Julian Calendar, which had been used since Roman times, was supplanted by the (current) Gregorian Calendar. Copernicus’ teachings became commonplace, but his theory was simplistic in that it didn’t account for all the data. It wasn’t until the late 1500s that instruments became available that could help astronomers probe deeper. One of these astronomers, Dane Brahe (1546-1601) spent decades plotting the paths of the moon and planets, but their movements didn’t line up with Copernicus’ calculations. The measurements implied a cosmology somewhere between Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, but Brahe didn’t know what to make of it. A mathematician named Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) would pick up where Brahe left off and discover a synthesis in the language of mathematics. His “Laws of Planetary Motion” made sense of what was seen, but his theories wouldn’t be adopted until they were used by Isaac Newton in the late 17th century. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) proved Copernican theory by factoring in the movements of the earth. The Church, caught in the throes of the Protestant Reformation and frantically trying to put the lid on anything outside orthodox beliefs, opposed Galilei at every turn. The Church’s hostility towards him discouraged other Italian scientists from voicing unorthodox views, and the impetus in scientific advancement shifted west to England and France. The English mathematician Isaac Newton (1642-1727) marks the climax of the Scientific Revolution: his discoveries forever altered the landscape of mathematics, physics, and astronomy; he united physics and astronomy into a single system to explain motion; and he took mathematics to the next level, discovering a number of the basic laws of modern physics. Oh, and he developed calculus; yeah, he was good. His advances were so momentous that new discoveries in the fields of astronomy and physics slowed to a crawl for nearly three generations. Newton had carried Copernicus’ observations to its final level, and people assumed he’d pretty much figured it out.

Isaac Newton

The Scientific Revolution resulted in an entirely new way of studying reality and knowledge. Experience, reason, and doubt were the bulwark of this epistemological revolution; by rejecting all questionable authorities, everything became testable; and a new way of studying the world, the Scientific Method, came into being. The philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) took this new scientific method and applied it to philosophy; and Francis Bacon (1561-1626) prophesied that science would be the savior of the human race, answering all of our questions and ushering in a Golden Age for humanity. Science’s discoveries made her a jewel in the public eye, and scientific societies sprouted across Europe. These gentleman scientists aspired to reach beyond national and political boundaries and unite with their colleagues across the continent. Science started to be treated as ‘above’ the clamor of Europe’s conflicts. The first scientific society started in Rome in 1603, and it was copied in France. English revolutionaries in the English Civil War captured Oxford in the 1640s and ousted the university’s traditionalist scientists and replaced them with enlightened ones. An official society developed in London in 1660, and two years later it was given the blessing of King Charles II. In 1666 King Louis XIV of France gave his blessing to the French Royal Academy of Sciences. Similar societies would emerge in Naples and Berlin by the end of the 17th century. The popularity of science during this time is evident in that country estates started building small observatories, parties liked to advertise stargazing, and in Holland surgeons butchered criminals and dissected them for the gathered crowds, pointing out what organ was what and giving little talks on each.

Science made gargantuan leaps of progress, and philosophers worked hard to catch up. These philosophers sought to apply the lessons learned from science to society; the scientific method became the backbone to a new and improved, and admittedly rational, view of the world. The philosopher Voltaire argued the preeminence and necessity of rationalism; Adam Smith coined the term ‘mercantilism’ and revolutionized economic theory; John Locke opposed the Stuart kings and argued that governments were responsible to their citizens. Locke went so far as to declare that if a government was failing, the citizens didn’t have just the right but the responsibility to replace it (his ideas would be taken up by many others and serve as a spring-board to the rebellions and revolutions at the tail-end of the Enlightenment Period). Jean Rousseau, philosopher and novelist, argued for the importance of emotion and sentiment in political thought. Enlightenment ideals wormed their way into the music of Bach, Handel, and Mozart. The Baroque period in music and the neo-classical period in art were heavily influenced by Enlightenment ideals. The Enlightenment revolutionized the way Europeans looked at the world and at themselves, and the modern world continues to rely (and build) upon Enlightenment tenets. It is tragic, then, that the Enlightenment movement culminated in one of the worst bloodletting in Europeans history.

The Renaissance Age

The term “Renaissance” is French for rebirth, though none who lived through the Renaissance called it that, as the term wasn’t coined until 1855 in French historian Jules Michelet’s History of France. The Renaissance encompasses a “Golden Age” of creativity, not dissimilar from past periods such as the Tang Dynasty in China or the Muslim world under the Abassids. The Renaissance comes on the heels of what’s been called “the medieval synthesis,” a pattern of late medieval European thinking regarding the place of religion in the world, the purposes of scholarship, and the dominance of particular forms of art and literature. By the beginning of the 14th century, however, these thought patterns were beginning to corrode: religious doubts, skepticism towards the Church, and a reworking of scholarship paved the way to a gradual, European-wide challenge of the medieval synthesis. The Renaissance would lead to changes in the way people saw themselves and their place in the world, and it helped give rise to individualism and secularism, both of which are alive and kicking today. Our simplistic ‘sketch’ of the Renaissance begins with the 14th century rise of humanism and its heyday in the 15th century, and the emergence of neoplatonism and the era of the ‘High Renaissance’ in 16th century Italy. Though we associate the Renaissance with Italy because it flourished there, Renaissance ideals spread throughout Europe. Though northern Europe proved somewhat resilient against Renaissance ideals, these same ideals spread like kudzu through England and France.

Humanism’s affect on European history cannot be understated. Humanism swept through Europe in the late mid-late 15th and early 16th centuries, and humanist curriculums would dominate western European higher learning until the end of the 19th century. Inadvertently, humanism and its ‘New Learning’—the educational reform that put medieval scholasticism in its grave—would give Europe a sense of wider unity that would preserve European culture and identity for four hundred years of relentless conflict and bloodshed. Humanism would also lay the bedrock for the Scientific Revolution and the rise of secularism. The Renaissance saw archaeology, epigraphy (the study of inscriptions on architectural artifacts), and numismatics (the study of coins) come into their own. Greek writers laid the bedrock for a number of physical sciences: Aristotle was beloved by physicists, Ptolemy by astronomers, and Galen by physicians. The failure of these Greek heavyweights to explain new data would eventually lead a number Renaissance scientists (known in the 16th and 17th centuries as ‘natural philosophers’) to rethink classical assumptions. Though at first scorned in their fields by those in bed with Aristotle and his ilk, their ideas were boosted by the rediscovery of writings belonging to the Greek scientist Archimedes, who disagreed with Aristotle on many points (one could thus be within the humanist fold while legitimately criticizing classical ideas). These brave scientific pioneers would storm a trail known as the Scientific Revolution (but we’re getting ahead of ourselves). And regarding secularism, though Renaissance thinkers still thought within the box of traditional Christian religious beliefs, their elevation of classical literature opened doorways into different, non-religious ways of thinking. Though the ‘new’ followers of Plato taught Platonic teachings as truth on par with the Bible, they still advocated the Bible as solid truth, and looked for ways to reconcile Plato and Scripture. It wouldn’t be long before humanists began to question the accuracy of the Bible in favor of more novel ways of thinking; this ushered in a ‘secular’ age where religion (which had dominated European politics and identity for a thousand years) was supplanted by ‘secular’ (or non-religious) ways of thinking, believing, and identifying. 

Now let us examine the rise of humanism. In the late 13th century, scholars began advocating education reform with more attention to classics and to help people lead more moral lives. They formed a movement known as humanism (though it didn’t have this name until the 19th century). Humanism evolved to mean ‘classic scholarship’, defined as ‘the ability to read, understand, and appreciate the writings of the ancient world.’ Humanists focused on history, literature, and philosophy, and their overarching goal was to go back to the ancients and relearn the right way to live—and convert people to it. The humanism of today—a secular philosophy undergirded by atheistic evolution and denying religion a fair saying—was not the humanism of the Renaissance; Renaissance humanists read the Church fathers as much as pagan Greek authors and believed the greatest virtues were in piety. Humanism didn’t seek to undermine religious faith but to enrich it.

The lawyer-poet Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) accused Church leaders of being worldly and materialistic, and so he had to turn to the Church fathers and the ancient Romans to find worthy examples of the noble life. A surefire path to holiness was in emulating ancient heroes such as Cicero and St. Augustine. Petrarch viewed the time period between the ancient world and his day as ‘contemptible,’ and it is in the wake of the Renaissance that “the Middle Ages,” as a particular title to a period of European history, began to take shape. He advocated forgetting the ‘darkness’ of the so-called Middle Ages and returning in spirit to the days of the Romans and building from there. Petrarch’s contemporary Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 – 1375) published a collection of short stories called The Decameron, wherein his frank treatment of sex and the creation of run-of-the-mill characters marked a break with the literature of the so-called Middle Ages. Boccaccio would become a staunch supporter of Petrarch and help his ideas flourish in Florence. Such was Boccaccio’s influence that within a generation, humanism was the rallying cry for Florence’s intellectual leaders. If Florentines adopted the revival of antiquity, they said, Florence would become the preeminent Italian state—and they were right.

Humanism swept through the Italian states, transforming art, literature, and even political and social values. A group of humanists spearheaded by Coloccui Salutati gained the favor of Pope Nicholas V, who ordered the construction of a vast library of classical texts. Eastern scholars from the decaying Byzantine Empire filled the University of Florence to promote humanism and translate classical Greek texts into Latin and Italian. It wasn’t long before all sorts of classical work became available to the less-learned masses: mathematical treatises, the works of the Greek fathers, the dialogues of Plato, lyrical poetry, tragedies, histories—all of this at the humanist’s fingertips! Salutati and his followers stressed that participation in the public life was integral to true human flourishing; those who actively sought higher ends beyond themselves could achieve virtue. Salutati and his fellow ‘civic humanists’ proposed Republicanism as the best form of government; society could only benefit when educated citizens played a part.

When you hear the term ‘Renaissance,’ is it humanism that pops into mind or the world-renowned art and architecture that spread throughout Italy? It’s likely the latter, and there are at least three reasons for this. First, art is more appealing than philosophy to the masses. The truth of this can be seen in the tourists who flock to Italy to see the paintings and sculptures but give no mind to the humanist philosophy that undergirded it all. Second, humanist philosophy couldn’t exist in a vacuum; it had to be fleshed out, and this philosophical return to antiquity was echoed in Renaissance media: “The Three Friends”, who spearheaded the Italian revolution in painting, sculpture, and architecture, were simply applying humanism to art. Third, respectable aristocratic courts came with poets and painters, and as humanism swept through Europe, artists bent towards that philosophy received patronage and social elevation. The Italian states took this to the extreme: the five big states—Milan, Naples, Florence, Venice, and the Papal States—were at war with one another from the end of the 15th century through the mid-late 16th century; loyalty to one’s state was hammered into the population, and the states tried to outdo each other in a contest for preeminence in art and architecture. Thus Italian artists—especially those in artistic Florence and Venice—were able to climb the ladder of interstate conflict to achieve their ambitions.

‘Renaissance Art’ kicked off with the “Three Friends” in the early-mid 15th century. Masaccio, Donatello, and Brunelleschi studied ancient art in the 1420s, angling to recreate them. They went all around Rome, taking notes on paintings, making measurements of classical architecture, and studying the ancient sculptures; the locals thought they were all nuts. Nuts they may have been, but geniuses they certainly were. Masaccio, a painter, painted the first nudes since ancient times; Donatello, a sculptor, also favored the nudes, and he recreated them with such accuracy that they seemed lifelike; and Brunelleschi, the architect, broke tradition with cross-shaped churches by topping one with a dome (the domed style was copied throughout Florence, and became a badge of Florentine pride). The successors to the Three Friends built upon what they had achieved and carried it further, with particular emphasis on returning to classical styles and themes. All this culminated in the ‘High Renaissance’ of 16th century Italy, where heavyweight artists brought the aspirations of the Three Friends to its climax. Leonardo da Vinci was a mastermind with both military fortifications and art, and his Mona Lisa has become known throughout the world; Michelangelo, a poet and sculptor, has become famous for his The Creation of Man; and Titian—whose paintings depicted vibrant nudes, stormy skies, and dogs—became Europe’s premier portraitist.

The Protestant Reformation

Martin Luther, heretic and firebrand

At the turn of the 16th century, the Holy Roman Empire was a convoluted mess, a mismatch of hundreds of princes struggling to keep control of their subjects and to make good on their claims to independence. This hodgepodge of little kingdoms and territories were nominally ruled over by the emperor, but the emperor had become more of a figurehead and lacked any real power over the Empire’s princes. Religious devotion ran strong, as the Empire was the ‘crown jewel’ of the Church in the west: religious leaders and the nobility mixed, bishops could control large swathes of territory, and opposition to the Church could be quelled due to the Empire’s lack of central government and the princes themselves wanting independence from the Church. The Empire was thus the Church’s surefire revenue, but the Protestant Reformation changed that—and it all began with a renegade monk named Martin Luther. While reading the Book of Romans, Luther’s eyes were opened to the reality that people didn’t need the Church to be saved. All they needed was to believe in Jesus, trusting him for their salvation and following him rather than the dictates of the Church. These teachings were liberating, and they set off a religious insurrection that lasts up until the present day.

Luther’s revolutionary ideas spread, disseminated by word-of-mouth, broadsides, and pamphlets. Thousands of people were eager to renew their faith in lieu of Luther’s soul-freeing teachings, and in their zeal, many turned to outright destruction of Church property. It wasn’t long before priests were marrying and spearheading efforts to reform the sacraments, and Lutheran congregations sprouted across the Empire. Princes over territories given over to Luther’s teachings used this newfound faith as a weapon: as early as 1522 imperial knights launched a politically-motivated attack on the archbishop of Trier, a Church high-roller, and justified the attack by claiming it to be an attack against the papacy. Though the knights were crushed within a year, they had set a dangerous precedent, and the Church could now claim that Luther’s teachings undermined God-ordained law and order.

The Peasant's Revolt of 1524

It wasn’t long before Lutheranism became a banner over homegrown revolts, and the largest of these became known as The Peasant’s Revolt of 1524. An uprising in Swabia spread like wildfire through the southern and central territories of the Empire, and in 1525 they published twelve demands (only two—the right to pick their pastors and freedom from the yoke of the papacy—were religious in nature; the other ten covered the social injustices that had fueled the fire of the ‘religious’ revolt). All eyes were on Luther—what did he think of the revolt? Though sympathizing with their religious plight, he stood against the violent uprising against the local authorities. His Against the Rapacious and Murdering Peasants exhorted the beleaguered nobility to mercilessly snuff out the revolt and reclaim peace. When the revolutionaries were crushed in battle just a few months later, Luther threw his weight behind the Empire’s political and social order while remaining staunch against the papacy and virulent against Jews. Had Luther not sided with the secular leaders against the peasant’s revolt, his cause may have been extinguished along with him. His siding with the princes wasn’t a move of self-preservation; if anything, it was a boom to his cause and enabled it to survive the revolt and the stain on Lutheranism’s name. Besides, having princes on his side helped: the Church was coming against him with everything they had, treating him as a low-born heretic worthy of trial and death, and only the princes could offer protection.

Many princes who sided with Luther did so from a heart of religious courage and a belief in his teachings, but more often than not their loyalties were political in nature. If a kingdom became predominantly Lutheran (or at least open to new ideas), princes ran the risk of losing control of their kingdoms if they remained true to the papacy. That this risk wasn’t minor is seen in The Peasant’s Revolt; though the revolution failed, no one failed to notice what could have been. Thus some princes aligned with Lutheranism to court peace and curry favor from their subjects. Other princes threw in with Lutheranism for the initial payout: princes could make little fortunes off confiscated ecclesiastical holdings in their domains (though, on the converse, princes loyal to the Church could extort the papacy into paying for their allegiance). Though the Holy Roman emperor Charles V was loyal to the papacy and could strip heretical princes of their titles, the princes aligning with Lutheranism grew. Soon they became a political bloc dangerous to the unity of the Empire, and the Empire ruled that no more religious innovations were to be introduced into her territories. This attempt to stem the spread of Lutheranism irked the Lutherans, and in 1529 they signed a declaration ‘protesting’ the law. It was then that all who embraced religious reforms—whether it be reforms of Luther, or Calvin, or Zwingli, or the butcher next door—became known as “Protestants”; those loyal to the Church, which was led from Rome, became known as “Roman Catholics” (despite the widening fissure’s in western Europe’s spiritual landscape, the Church stuck vehemently to its claim that it was the one true, universal church—i.e. catholic). A year later the Lutheran princes put their weight behind the Augsburg Confession, the primary confession of faith of the Lutheran Church.  

The Augsburg Confession was just a step too far for Charles V, and he threatened the use of imperial armies to crush the Protestant heresies. The Lutherans responded to this threat by forming a defense league, and throughout the 1530s this alliance whittled away at Charles V’s Empire. Protestant beliefs spread, and more sects popped up. In Switzerland a drama played out between two reformers: John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli. Condemned as a heretic by the Church in 1533, Calvin sought exile in Switzerland, and three years later he published a small treatise entitled Institutes of the Christian Religion, in which he put forth his teachings (the Institutes as we have them today is a much-expanded version of this original treatise). The treatise helped Calvin’s teachings spread, and Calvinism became the most hotheaded branch of Protestantism in the 16th century. Calvin’s contemporary, Ulrich Zwingli, caught Calvin’s ire when he insisted that the sacraments—such as baptism and the Lord’s Supper—were, at heart, merely symbolic practices. They lacked any real power. He declared that baptism was an outward sign of an inward grace, and thus he ran against all of church history, straight back to the early church fathers, who saw tangible effects in baptism. Though Calvinism to this day has its fierce and vocal supporters, Zwingli’s view on baptism has become standard stock in western evangelical churches (and a lot of Calvinists even lean Zwingli’s way on a number of issues). Another group of reformers also talked a lot about baptism, teaching that baptism should only be administered to adults (up to this time, infant baptism was an everyday occurrence). Adults, they said, could understand baptism whereas infants could not. Their detractors called them ‘Anabaptists,’ or ‘re-baptizers,’ because adult converts would be ‘re-baptized’ in the light of their childhood baptisms being meaningless. Their beliefs have become commonplace in western Protestantism. In England, King Henry VIII broke from the Roman Church and started the Church of England (or ‘Anglican Church’), which looked like a quasi-compromise between Protestant and Catholic teachings.

a religious map of Europe in the late 16th and 17th centuries

Though the varying Protestant sects had their points of disagreement (disagreements which could lead to fistfights in glowering taverns), almost all Protestants found common cause against the Roman Catholics. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, the tug-of-war between Protestants and Catholics colors European events. Both camps viewed the other as an enemy to God’s truth and believed they were fighting to promote God’s will. One’s religious slant—Catholic or Protestant—became the ‘identity marker’ of the period, in that people were more devoted to their religious inclinations than to the secular state in which they lived. We mustn’t assume, however, that this ‘devotion’ meant that people were generally more pious than before. Many used religion to justify political feuds, and secular princes continued to live according to ‘the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life.’ Nevertheless many people, especially those lower on the totem pole, rediscovered themselves in Protestant faith and turned their lives in a better direction. It is sad, then, that western Europe became a battleground infused with religious ideology. Before the end of the 17th century, when religious fervors died down and were supplanted by loyalty to one’s state, two major wars became so intertwined with religion that they became known as the ‘Religious Wars’ (though neither, to be honest, was caused by religion). The French Wars of Religion were in reality a civil war between two rival French houses, the Guises and Bourbons; and the Thirty Years War was mostly about determining how far Habsburg dominance would spread.