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ffe2ed7
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Nevertheless, this too is a myth. The Catholic Church actually thrives on Protestant competition and is far more successful and effective when forced to confront it.
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Rodney Stark |
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edb661a
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Although for several centuries the Roman Catholic Church was the only legal religion in Latin America, its popular support was neither wide nor deep.5 Many huge rural areas were without churches or priests, a vacuum in which indigenous faiths persisted.6 Even in the large cities with their splendid cathedrals, mass attendance was very low - as recently as the 1950s perhaps only 10 to, at most, 20 per cent of Latin Americans were active part..
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Rodney Stark |
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2492fa4
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In fact, when the Egyptians would not export papyrus, parchment (made from treated animal skins) was invented in Pergamum. The word parchment derives from the Latin "Pergamena charta," or "paper of Pergamum."
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Rodney Stark |
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deeeb81
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Until well into the twentieth century there even were legal bans on the sale of Bibles in most nations of Latin America, which led to the widespread belief that only Protestants accepted the Bible.
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Rodney Stark |
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8b2d9eb
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In 2004 there were only 5,116.19 Why? Because they have been replaced by Latin Americans! In many Latin American nations today, native-born evangelical Protestant clergy far outnumber both foreign missionaries as well as local Catholic priests.
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Rodney Stark |
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4218b63
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By the same token, Martin Luther's efforts to provide religious education for the German peasants and urban lower classes failed completely because the lessons were conceived by a university professor far more concerned with intricate nuances than with the ABCs of Christian belief - not with simply making people familiar with the Lord's Prayer, for example, but with revealing its subtle implications.
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Rodney Stark |
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7e1bdfc
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Belief in the virtues of work and of simple living did accompany the rise of capitalism, but this was centuries before Martin Luther was born.
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Rodney Stark |
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9882c75
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Although there are no reliable statistics on CCR membership broken down by nations, other statistics indirectly reveal the energizing effect of the CCR. In 1960, in the whole of Latin America there were only 4,093 men enrolled in Catholic seminaries; by 2015 this had risen to 21,520.40 Mass attendance has enjoyed a similarly huge increase, as can be seen in Table 8.2 overleaf, which shows the percentage of Catholics in each Latin American n..
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Rodney Stark |
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01ad796
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That the Catholic Church finally thrives in Latin America could be considered as partly a gift from Martin Luther.
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Rodney Stark |
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cdb31e9
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repressive bigotry was a hallmark of the various Reformations, and the relative silence on these matters by generations of historians is shameful. Of course, there has been full coverage of the many religious wars stemming from the Reformations, and of the savagery these involved - but these were wars, not matters of domestic policy.
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Rodney Stark |
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fb9becb
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Nevertheless, it didn't happen! The masses in Germany remained as unchurched as ever. We can be sure of this because teams of inspectors visited the Lutheran churches in many local communities, beginning in 1525 and extending over the next century. These inspectors submitted a huge number of written reports of what they observed - reports that still exist. These documents have been organized and an extensive number of them published by the ..
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Rodney Stark |
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b1037c6
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Thus, by no later than the thirteenth century, the leading Christian theologians had fully debated the primary aspects of emerging capitalism - profits, property rights, credit, lending and the like. As Lester K. Little summed up: 'In each case they came up with generally favorable, approving views, in sharp contrast to the attitudes that had prevailed for six or seven centuries right up to the previous generation.'60 Capitalism was fully a..
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Rodney Stark |
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d68a769
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Bishops and cardinals were among the very best clients of 'usurers'. That is not surprising since nearly everyone holding an elite Church position had purchased his office as an investment, anticipating a substantial return from Church revenues.
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Rodney Stark |
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dd7b0a7
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The proximate cause of the rise of Italian capitalism was freedom from the rapacious rulers who repressed and consumed economic progress in most of the world, including most of Europe. Although their political life often was turbulent, these city states were true republics able to sustain the freedom required by capitalism. Second, centuries of technological progress had laid the necessary foundations for the rise of capitalism, especially ..
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Rodney Stark |
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5ac9a1b
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Indeed, it was illegal to publish papal bulls and decrees in Spain or its possessions without prior royal consent - which is why, decades later, the pope's decrees against slavery could not be read in Spain's slave-holding colonies in the New World.38 These same conditions prevailed in Portugal.
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Rodney Stark |
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1420ec9
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As Reinhard Bendix (1916-91) summed up Weber's view: 'the Puritan divines brought about a profound depersonalization of the family and neighborhood life' which was linked to a 'decline in kinship loyalties and a separation of business affairs from family affairs' which led to the 'isolation of the individual'.
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Rodney Stark |
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fbd8dfc
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This partly reflects the Balkanization of history - that scholars attend only to their special time and place. But, for the most part, it reflects that far too many scholars rely on the received wisdom, even on matters central to their subject.
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Rodney Stark |
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a713814
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Given the American example, it should always have been obvious that the sacred canopy claims are silly. In the United States, in the most fully pluralistic nation that probably has ever existed, religion is thriving. And it is absolutely clear that it is competition among religious groups, each needing to effectively recruit members or fade away, that has produced these results.
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Rodney Stark |
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21be7cc
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half of Americans belonged, and today about 70 per cent are affiliated with a local church.
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Rodney Stark |
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3017cff
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The implications of these fertility differences have been fully explored by Eric Kaufmann of the University of London in his book, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? (2010). Kaufmann noted that because only the irreligious sector of Europe's population is declining, while the religious sector is growing, only the irreligious European population is headed towards extinction, with the result that differential fertility may produce a huge ..
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Rodney Stark |
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3c2b0c1
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Liberation Theology led nowhere because it was neither a revolutionary nor a religious movement, but involved a weak, self-cancelling mixture of each.
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Rodney Stark |
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e38b191
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It is not the poor who are joining - persons of all income levels are equally likely to join. Men are almost as likely as women to become Protestants and the unmarried are not different from the married. Young people are slightly more likely than those over 50 to convert.
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Rodney Stark |
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e3d8633
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This chapter does not mourn the collapse of Christendom, although it is hard not to be nostalgic for its many virtues, especially for the international character of the elite who ruled both its political and religious institutions. What this chapter mourns is the replacement of Christendom by powerful nation states, each with a distinctive and nationalistic culture. The Reformation played a potent role in this transformation. First, by subj..
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Rodney Stark |
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a81f7c5
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For one thing, relatively small forces were involved - at the Battle of Hastings (in 1066), which resulted in the Norman conquest of England, about 10,000 Normans overcame about 7,000 English (the population of England was about 2.5 million at that time). The 'big' wars were seldom among Europeans, but involved fighting off external threats from invaders such as the Muslims, the Magyars and the Mongols. Moreover, these wars of resistance re..
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Rodney Stark |
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8ca9c7b
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Charging interest on loans was thus defined as the 'sin of usury', and widely condemned in principle while pretty much ignored in actual practice. In fact, as already noted, by late in the ninth century some of the great religious houses ventured into banking and bishops were second only to the nobility in their reliance on borrowed money. In addition to borrowing from monastic orders, many bishops secured loans from private Italian banks t..
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Rodney Stark |
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65d7c1b
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Europe's elites, 'the Reformation replaced loyalty to Christendom with loyalty to "nation", and it also replaced Christian identity with national identity'."
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Rodney Stark |
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b598ed7
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the absolute rulers of the states that arose from 'Protestantism' often did the equivalent of 'ethnic cleansing'. Foreigners were simply excluded and driven out of the Scandinavian nation states.
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Rodney Stark |
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9cf28c2
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It is a commonplace to identify Martin Luther as the 'father of individualism'.
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Rodney Stark |
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7478a48
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Laws requiring a certain frequency of church attendance, the taking of Communion, and baptism of infants soon appeared all across the Lutheran areas of Germany. So did laws excluding all religious nonconformists, especially Jews.
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Rodney Stark |
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753749a
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Nevertheless, the more odious restrictions - such as being confined at night to ghettos, or even being expelled from a nation - were placed upon them by the state, not the Roman Catholic Church.
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Rodney Stark |
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22dca7b
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Immodesty' in dress was outlawed. A woman was jailed for arranging her hair at an 'immoral height'.
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Rodney Stark |
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5fba570
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What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews?' Luther offered seven actions. First, to set fire to their synagogues and schools . . . Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach hence..
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Rodney Stark |
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a6cc32e
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Christianity was oriented to the future, while the other major religions asserted the superiority of the past. At least in principle, if not always in fact, Christian doctrines could always be modified in the name of progress as demonstrated by reason.
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Rodney Stark |
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507c17c
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The only common feature of the three successful Reformations was their rejection of papal authority; otherwise they were quite at odds.
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Rodney Stark |
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22a4cca
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The only plausible common basis for all these events is to celebrate the rise of Protestantism. This raises an even more important matter: that so many of the achievements attributed to Protestantism are entirely mythical and some of the actual results of the rise of Protestantism were quite unfortunate.
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Rodney Stark |
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3a6570d
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There is an additional and compelling question that probably also will go unaddressed: what is a Protestant? In this brief Introduction I will demonstrate that the category 'Protestant' includes so much variation on such important matters as to be essentially meaningless, except when used very narrowly.
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Rodney Stark |
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27d840a
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About all that Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans and Anabaptists agreed upon was the divinity of Jesus and the wickedness of the pope.
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Rodney Stark |
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2c83442
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there is at least as much, and probably much more, variation on these matters among the Protestants of various types included in these merged 'Protestant' groups, than between the 'average' Protestants and the Catholics
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Rodney Stark |
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87fae4c
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Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59) was among the first to express deep regrets over the rise of individualism, which he traced back to the Protestant Reformation. Tocqueville is, of course, famous for his two-volume work Democracy in America, based on his perceptive nine-month tour of the nation in 1831. He had much praise for the young republic, but he feared it suffered from excessive individualism. Among his concerns was that individualism ..
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Rodney Stark |
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bc04e7a
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The image of medieval piety, of churches filled with devout peasants, has no historical basis.
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Rodney Stark |
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ffb804d
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Even if they hated going to church and knew very little of Christianity, Europeans in the era of the Reformations were not irreligious. But, as Gerald Strauss put it, they 'practiced their own brand of religion, which was a rich compound of ancient rituals, time-bound customs, a sort of unreconstructable folk Catholicism, and a large portion of magic to help them in their daily lives for survival'.
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Rodney Stark |
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6eafe6b
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Today, little has changed in European religious life. State churches still dominate all of Europe's 'Protestant' nations, with the negative consequences that will be seen in the next chapter. Church attendance remains low everywhere. And magic is still widely embraced!
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Rodney Stark |
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b4ee62c
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Thus it was that, beginning in about the ninth century, the growing monastic estates came to resemble well-organized and stable firms that pursued complex commercial activities within a relatively free market, investing in productive activities involving a hired workforce, guided by anticipated and actual returns.
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Rodney Stark |
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80c30db
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The need for loans often was so great and so widespread that Italian banks opened branches all across the Continent. Although many bishops, monastic orders and even the Roman hierarchy ignored the ban on usury, opposition to interest lingered. As late as the Second Lateran Council in 1139, the Church 'declared the unrepentant usurer condemned by the Old and New Testaments alike and, therefore, unworthy of ecclesiastical consolations and Chr..
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Rodney Stark |