October 31, the eve of All Saints Day, has a grand importance, not only in the opportunity of Americans to pass out candies to young Trick-or-Treaters at their door.  More importantly, and almost forgotten, this day marks the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, something that would reshape deeply Western civilization ... and the founding of America.

On that day in 1517, the Augustinian friar and Biblical scholar Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Chapel, challenging the Church to defend itself on each of these 95 matters.  He was especially irate over the Church’s policy of having Christians purchase indulgences from the Church in order for their sins to be forgiven ... and thus earn their way to heaven.  That was a religious practice far, far away from Biblical standards.

Challenging the Church and its doctrines was a dangerous thing to do.  Earlier efforts to bring Christianity back to its original, and rather simple Biblical roots, brought would-be reformers condemnation (Jan Wyclif for daring in the late 1300s to translate the Bible into an English version more understandable for the English commoner) and even death at the fiery stake (Jan Hus in 1415 for doing the same in Czech for his congregation). 

So dangerous was the idea of reform that nothing of that order was then undertaken for the next century.  But quite clearly to any serious observer, the Church was becoming increasingly corrupt ... lavish amounts of money sent to Rome to build the pope the most exquisite cathedral in Europe, for instance.

This event of Luther’s posting soon spread like wildfire when the document was translated into German ... and then other languages.  

However, not only Church authorities but also political authorities were outraged at such impertinence.  And thus Luther was finally called by the Emperor Charles V to give account of his doings in before the Diet or council of Worms in April of 1521.  Luther refused to recant on any of his points ... and then was quick to get away while "safe conduct" was still offered (Hus was killed despite the similar offer of safe conduct).  He was "kidnapped" and brought into hiding in the Wartburg Castle of a German prince, Frederick III of Saxony.  Whether or not Frederick was truly supportive of Luther's religious mission, he certainly was supportive of the way that what Luther was doing challenged the feudal system of Church and Empire, which controlled all European life.

So in Wartburg Castle, Luther quickly translated the entire Bible into German.  He then the next year returned to Wittenburg ... where he preached quite openly, protected by the general mood of the town's citizens.  The Protestant Reformation was now up and running.

But Luther was only interested in Biblical reform, not social or political reform ... something also burning in the hearts of the German commoners.  Apart from setting up his own governing system of bishops and priests (who were now allowed to marry), he would go no further in social or organizational reform.  He had no interest in reforming the feudal political system that governed Germany. 

And thus he came out angrily when in 1525-1525, thousands of German peasants rose up in rebellion against the feudal political system, these peasants demanding the rights of self-government.  The fact that these peasants also attacked monasteries and churches only worsened their cause in Luther’s eyes.  Luther demanded that the feudal lords crush, even brutally, such evil ... which is exactly what they did. So that's where Lutheranism stood on the matter of Reformation.

Calvin’s Protestant Reformation

It would be some ten years later, when the Frenchman John Calvin published his Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) that the Reformation would take another turn ... and go deeper, much, much deeper, into Protestant Reform.   And this would take place in Geneva, Switzerland where Calvin, on his flight from France after his work displeased intensely French king Francis I, was convinced to stay (also in 1536) ... to continue church reforms started in Switzerland by Ulrich Zwingli (Zwingli having been killed in a battle in 1531).

It is important to note at this point that urban Europe was developing everywhere, especially along the sea coasts and rivers but also in strategic places here and there ... for strong commercial reasons.  And urban Europe just did not fit into the feudal system.  That's because it was given a high degree of political independence by local lords, princes and even kings ... because what these authorities could expect from the cities was much-needed taxes, not something that the rural feudal system with their lords and ladies offered in any significant way. 

But such political independence required a high degree of self-discipline in the form of town charters and social rules ... and officials carefully defending those rules.  In an important way, these cities were organized along lines similar to ancient Republican Rome governed by elected officials, not by hereditary lords.  Indeed, in many cases they actually identified their cities and their domains as "republics." 

Thus urban Europe's joining the Protestant Reformation, as Geneva and other cities were most eager to do, was to break from the traditionalist Church-Empire domain in a truly revolutionary fashion.  Such Protestant Reform was going to create a very strong model of a new European society.  And Calvin was understood to be the perfect designer not just of a religious revolution, but also a social-political revolution.

At first his social-political as well as religious reforms pushed the Genevans a bit too much ... and he was asked to leave in 1638 (he went on briefly to Basel and then Strasbourg).  But in 1641 was called on to return to Geneva, where reform was breaking down.  Calvin did ... and truly took control of matters at this point.  Calvin intended that Geneva was to look as much as possible like what the Bible described as true community:  a mutual and quite equal fellowship of Christian believers.  Pastors were to keep them on track as such through their weekly sermons.  And their political officials were there to represent them (through a regular voting process) rather than dominate them.

The word got out as to what was going on in Geneva.  And those interested in similar reform in their own societies flocked to Geneva to become part of this new dynamic, to learn precisely how just such a Christian society actually worked, and then take the lessons back home to their countries of origin. 

Thus they came from England.  And there in Geneva translated and printed their own "Geneva" Bible (based heavily on Wycliff’s version).  And then they eventually returned to England to seek similar reforms, to purify the English church by bringing it back to Biblical standards ... receiving the mocking term "Puritans” in jest from English traditionalists.  Most interestingly, these Puritans seemed quite content to accept this label "Puritan" for themselves and their reforms!

They also came to Geneva from Scotland (under the leadership of John Knox) ... and eventually returned to Scotland as "Presbyterians."  They came from the Netherlands and returned as Dutch Reformed.  They came from Germany and returned as German Reformed.  They came from France and returned as Huguenots.  In fact they came to Geneva from many points in Europe.  Needless to say, the Genevan printing presses were hard at work publishing Bibles translated into Europe's different languages.

Most sadly, Luther refused to work with the Calvinists ... over the single matter of what exactly was the precise character of the holy communion's celebration of the body and the blood!   In any case, Lutheranism, unlike Calvinism, did not seem to have much of a broader appeal than Luther’s native Germany (mostly rural Germany, at that).

The impact of the Protestant Reformation in America

Which now brings us to America ... and the critical impact the Protestant Reformation, especially the Calvinist or Puritan variety, was to have on the way the English colonies – at least in New England – were founded in the early 1600s.

Indeed, just as there was a Lutheran-Calvinist divide within the Protestant Reformation, there was a similar divide in colonial America ... between Puritan New England and the more traditionalist Anglican-Christian Virginia.

Virginia.  The Virginians arrived first to America, in 1607, a large group of men who came to the new colony to find wealth in gold that the New World (thanks to the Spanish) was famous for.  But other than set up a fortification at Jamestown, they showed little interest in working with each other, instead being focused solely on making themselves rich.  Such social ignorance ultimately led to the death of the vast majority of this group ... deaths continuing until the decision in 1610 to abandon the effort.  Thankfully the effort was saved by a new shipment of settlers and a new governor who arrived just as they were leaving.  So Virginia lived on.

But the idea never changed that Virginia was a feudal-based settlement that would open the door for the truly ambitious to acquire personal wealth ... and thus an increase in social position (the more property and the more workers toiling in service to the local lord the better).  Thus very quickly a dual-status status system of lord and worker, operating along rather feudal lines, was quick to develop in Virginia.  At first indentured workers were brought in for a contracted period of time to work the lands of this rising colonial nobility.  Then slavery replaced that indenture system ... as slaves constituted a permanent underpinning of workers to farm the tobacco fields that provided the wealth of this new nobility.  Slavery in fact became something of an emotional, even spiritual underpinning of the Virginia social ideal ... a questionable process to be defended at all costs. 

An urban Virginia did not develop to challenge the feudal foundations of Virginia ... because a commercial center (a town or city) was not needed.  The deep Virginia rivers allowed tobacco to be loaded on a ship right at the docks of these huge plantations ... and thus shipped directed to England or elsewhere overseas.  The South's first true city, Charleston, was not founded until 1670 to finally serve the South as a seaport for the export and import of a wider range of goods.  But even then, Virginia and the Carolinas remained mostly rural, feudal societies in their mentality.

And as far as religion, Virginia and the South was based on Anglican traditionalism, the one that opposed the Puritans and their Reformation program.  The King was the head of the church, and the English archbishops, bishops, and priests worked in accordance with a top-down instruction set.  Sadly, priesthood was not a high-status occupation, America never got a bishop of its own under the Anglican system, and priests had to be confirmed in their roles in England, not America.  It was in fact not until 1693 that the Virginians got around to establishing their first college (William and Mary) to educate and prepare young men for the priesthood ... and other social roles.

New England.  In contrast to Virginia, the English came to the more northern colonies principally for religious reasons:  to set up a model Protestant society, one that would serve as a “City on a Hill” or “Light to the Nations” ... to show the world (Geneva-style) what a truly Christian society was supposed to look like.

The first such English group to come came less out of such high idealism but merely to escape the persecution they were suffering as "Separatists."  The Separatists constituted a small group of Puritans who simply had given up on the effort to "purify" the Anglican church and wanted simply to be left alone to worship privately as they wished.  Sadly, other Puritans scorned them as "quitters."  But worse, while King James disliked the Puritans, he at least tolerated them somewhat.  But for the Separatists he had no mercy, and intended to destroy them and their proceedings. 

Consequently, a group of them were finally successful in escaping England in 1608 ... to arrive in the Netherlands where the Dutch Reformed movement was strong.  But fitting in to Dutch society proved to be difficult for most of them.  They were mostly of a farming background and brought no skills useful to a very highly commercial Netherlands.  And over time they realized that they were losing their children to Dutch ways.  And the Spanish army was doing everything it could to force the Netherlands back under Catholicism. 

Thus in 1620 came the decision of this small religious group to head to the New World and try to set themselves up there.  They received from KIng James a grant to settle in the northern portion of Virgina, James believing that this was just another taxable commercial enterprise.  But they got delayed in their departure and with a season shift in the winds were blown well north of Virginia ... to what was simultaneously (also in 1620) branded as "New England" by the Plymouth Council.   In trying to set up their Plymouth Colony there, these Separatist "pilgrims" to America lost half their members that first dreadful winter.  But the remainder most miraculously survived ... and unlike Jamestown, then left the dying season behind them completely.  Indeed, working together closely as a Christian community, they prospered greatly ... but quietly.

Meanwhile back in England, a strongly anti-Puritan Charles I took the throne in 1625 ... and soon the deeply hated Puritans understood that they too would have to become "Separatists" if they were going to survive.  Thus in 1630, John Winthrop succeeded in putting together a group of Puritans to settle the lands adjoining Plymouth, constituting themselves as the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Some 1,000 in seven ships joined Winthrop in the move that year to New England ... to then be joined by thousands more (some 20,000 in total) over the next dozen years.  And there in New England they prospered quickly and most amazingly.

Their prosperity, however, was not intended to be done quietly, out of sight of the authorities, but was very specifically designed to be another Calvinist showpiece of Christian living ... a society living strictly according to Biblical standards.  Thus New England (joined soon by the Middle Colonies ... reaching down to William Penn’s Pennsylvania) understood quite clearly its divinely-appointed role as that Biblical "City on a Hill" ... that "Light to the Nations." 

Thus America (at least the Northern portion of the colonies), because of the impact of the Protestant Reformation, became something of a wonder to the world ... as a very special society, Biblically self-disciplined and self-governing.  This was an awesome startup for America.

The Protestant legacy in America.  Sadly, like the division in the Protestant Reformation between Luther and Calvin, a distinctly divided culture separating the New England and Middle Colonies "North" and the Virginia and Carolina "South" would over the generations grow deeper in hostility, supposedly solely over the matter of slavery, but in fact over two very different ideas about what American society was supposed to look like.  Most tragically it would cause the North and South to fall into America's bloodiest war, 1861-1865 ... in part over the matter of preserving the Union (which the South was no longer interested in) and in part to end slavery.  The North won, though it would take some doing to get America back as a single society.

But just like in Biblical times, the passing of time across a number of generations would bring a lessening of America’s original Biblical ideals.  It was just so much easier, with everything nicely in place, to lose sight of the self-discipline and self-governance that was the basis of America’s social power. and rely simply on human "Reason" ... as if human reason automatically led to a more perfect existence.  Consequently, social confusion and social weakening would soon follow.
 
Thus it did not take long for the industrial revolution that followed that horrible Civil War to want to put absolute power into the hands of a few industrial multimillionaires.  Thankfully, anti-trust rules broke up such monopolies ... and kept Middle America still in charge of things.
 
Thankfully, God would intervene with a number of "Great Awakenings" to get America ready to take on some spiritually draining challenges (our War of Independence, our Civil War, our Great Depression, our World War Two) ... spiritual awakenings which most miraculously prepared us to not lose faith in the face of the kinds of confusion and fear that such events can easily produce for those who live in a rational bubble.
 
Now again it has been several generations since America was called on to take on such monumental challenges.  And most naturally, we have found ourselves in deep cultural drift again.  America's awesome Protestant legacy is once again being challenged by any society's natural instincts to want to come under monopoly standards (monopoly being more than just a board game!), with corporate America working closely with top-down legislative, judicial and bureaucratic governance to buy up Middle America's options in life (out of control medical costs, turning private homes into corporate rentals, etc.).
 
But I am praying that God is not finished with America ... and will come once again to our spiritual assistance and get us back on the path of self-discipline and self-government.  We have let political and industrial greed take far too much control of American life.  We need to get American society back in the hands of its ordinary citizens.
 
In short, we need another Protestant Reformation!   And I am praying precisely for just that!  Please join me in such a prayer!

Miles Hodges is a writer, historian and political analyst who explores the question of why societies behave as they do ... especially in this matter of their rise and fall.