A professor fired to have showed images of Mohammed to a warned public....

[Sheilbh]

I guess where we're going here all leads into the old debate as to what extent the events around the reformation truly were a result of Europe's movers and shakers having deeply helped theological views vs. it all just being an excuse as they jostled for power amidst the changes that were unfolding due to the printing press, gunpowder, the end of feudalism, age of discovery etc...

I'm not sure. I think it's clearly both.  There need to be the conditions for it to become a popular movement or a political tool; but you also need the intellectual ferment for it to become a popular movement. As grumbler there were multiple reformations - many of them also pre-date Luther and his theses, some of them were Catholic. I think that ferment is necessary for the "Reformation" which, as I say, is, I think, the process once it escapes its intellectual/theological zoo.

If you've got conditions for popular movement or elite intellectual projects without each other you've got a peasant revolt or something only relevant to intellectual history.

And I think the same is true of other similar, I think transformation and revolutionary moments. The enlightenment is a really good example of both deeply held philosophical views in universities and palaces combining with the conditions that create the French revolution to give it ideological sustenance that makes it more than a simple revolt - and ultimately leads to the terror or Napoleon's attempts to liberate Europe.

[The Brain]

One of the most important aspects of the Reformation is that it over the centuries has saved A LOT of kids from getting sexually abused.

Eh, there's a lot of sexual abuse in Protestant and Orthodox churches, just not as heavily litigated / advertised.

It's the difference that matters. And how are Orthodox churches relevant here?

[Tamas]

Well my point is that the more Catholic a country has been in Europe, the less developed they are. The Catholic Church was a barrier to the emerging middle class and so where they were strong enough they got rid of it.

[Barrister]

One of the most important aspects of the Reformation is that it over the centuries has saved A LOT of kids from getting sexually abused.

Eh, there's a lot of sexual abuse in Protestant and Orthodox churches, just not as heavily litigated / advertised.

Look, anyone who says there's not sexual abuse in Protestant churches is just flat-out lying.  Honestly while I'm familiar with orthodox churches (due to western Canada's high Ukrainian population they're not uncommon) I haven't heard of any abuse there, but I'd be shocked if there wasn't.

But there does seem to be something uniquely different about sexual abuse in catholic churches.  Maybe it just has to do with the fact that Catholics put such an emphasis on education that there are so many catholic schools (and thus young people under the care of catholics).  Maybe it has to do with the unique demands of celibacy the catholic church places on its priests/nuns.  But there's something there.

[Barrister]

Well my point is that the more Catholic a country has been in Europe, the less developed they are. The Catholic Church was a barrier to the emerging middle class and so where they were strong enough they got rid of it.

Germany?  France?  Belgium?  Austria?

And remember that such well-developed Protestant countries in Scandinavia were backwater shitholes 100+ years ago.

[Sheilbh]

Germany?  France?  Belgium?  Austria?

And remember that such well-developed Protestant countries in Scandinavia were backwater shitholes 100+ years ago.

Yeah as you say Belgium, France, Catholic regions of Germany, North Italy. That arc from the Alps down the Rhine to the sea is if not the most developed bit of Europe, then some of the most developed - and did well for neighbouring Protestant areas like England and the Netherlands.

Surprised to see Tamas has become a Whig

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Well my point is that the more Catholic a country has been in Europe, the less developed they are. The Catholic Church was a barrier to the emerging middle class and so where they were strong enough they got rid of it.

Nah. The most developed countries/regions are generally those on the traderoute that goes from England to North Italy, with Scandinavia as a very efficient latecomer.

Dammit, ninjaed by sheilbh

[crazy canuck]

One of the most important aspects of the Reformation is that it over the centuries has saved A LOT of kids from getting sexually abused.

Eh, there's a lot of sexual abuse in Protestant and Orthodox churches, just not as heavily litigated / advertised.

Look, anyone who says there's not sexual abuse in Protestant churches is just flat-out lying.  Honestly while I'm familiar with orthodox churches (due to western Canada's high Ukrainian population they're not uncommon) I haven't heard of any abuse there, but I'd be shocked if there wasn't.

But there does seem to be something uniquely different about sexual abuse in catholic churches.  Maybe it just has to do with the fact that Catholics put such an emphasis on education that there are so many catholic schools (and thus young people under the care of catholics).  Maybe it has to do with the unique demands of celibacy the catholic church places on its priests/nuns.  But there's something there.

One factor is the Protestant church groups have been more proactive in settling claims, while many times the Catholic groups litigate and so end up in the news more often.

[Jacob]

I kind of resent that.

No. I am hardly some expert on Christian iconoclasm 500 years ago. Just because somebody is Christian doesn't mean I understand them or sympathize with them or have some kind of close cultural connection. The past is a foreign country after all and hell dozens (if not hundreds) of varieties of Christianity that exist today in the United States I find very strange and distasteful and don't really understand how or why they have such a bizarre interpretation of it. I thought plenty of Dutch Masters painted religious images. I wasn't aware they were worried about them being burned by extremist Calvinists.  If I don't know every aspect of the history of literally thousands of varieties of Christianity I must be idiotically stupid? Come on.

So maybe this kind of thing is just something that goes along with Abrahamic Religions. Did the Jews ever have some kind of iconoclasm? They are ones who originally made idolatry such a central aspect of these religions after all

I don't expect you to be on top of all the idiosyncrasies of all the many branches of Christianity and I don't think you're "idiotically stupid" or anything remotely like that, but you stated the fact that Protestants "simply removed the images from their place of worship" with such apparent confidence that I thought you were being uncharateristically ironic

And to be fair, your statement is pretty correct in the limited sense - protestants did not (as far as I know) ransack Italy specifically, burning religious art. But more broadly speaking Christians have had their own iconoclastic moments in history for sure. And yeah, I believe Christian iconoclasts of refer back to "thou shalt not worship graven images" commandment.

Since we're all history nerds here (I think):

At the time of the Reformation and during the English Civil War, church paintings were destroyed in their thousands. Few survive across the UK and of those that remain, many have been defaced. It is believed that up to 97% of English religious art was destroyed during and after the Reformation.

- source link

Wikipedia has a pretty reasonable article on the topic... it wasn't iconoclasm all the time, but there were definitely some serious outbreaks here and there (and, of course, the brouhaha in Orthodox Christianity in the Byzantine empire).

As for Jewish iconoclasm:

Many art historians have long believed that there was a tradition in antiquity, with no surviving examples, of luxury illuminated manuscript scrolls of books from the Tanakh among Hellenized Jews. The evidence for this is Christian works of the Late Antique and Early Medieval periods whose iconography is thought to derive from works in this tradition. Examples of the later works include the Joshua Roll and, more controversially, the Utrecht Psalter.

...

Some of these, notably at Naaran in the West Bank, have had the living figures removed, leaving inanimate symbols such as the Temple menorah intact. It has been proposed that this was done by the Jewish community in the 6th or early 7th century, as part of a controversy within Judaism over images that paralleled that within Christianity leading to the Byzantine iconoclasm, leading to a stricter attitude towards images, at least in synagogues.

- source another wikipedia article.

[Jacob]

Yup.  Prosperity gospel, megachurches.  And that hands in the air trance shit.

If I were a religious Christian I would consider Prosperity gospel outright satanism.

[Barrister]

I'm surprised it took so long for someone to bring up Byzantine/Orthodox iconoclasm.

It was what was in my mind when I brought the whole topic of "Christian iconoclasm" up in the first place.

[Sheilbh]

If I were a religious Christian I would consider Prosperity gospel outright satanism.

Yes.

Although admittedly if I was a religious Christian, I'd be really into liberation theology so I suspect the feeling would be mutual

[Barrister]

If I were a religious Christian I would consider Prosperity gospel outright satanism.

Yes.

Although admittedly if I was a religious Christian, I'd be really into liberation theology so I suspect the feeling would be mutual

You'd both be right.

[Jacob]

One of the most important aspects of the Reformation is that it over the centuries has saved A LOT of kids from getting sexually abused.

I think you're kidding yourself if you don't think there's sexual abuse of kids in organized protestant (or secular) institutions where adults have unsupervised power over children with few safeguards.

[Jacob]

You'd both be right.

I cherish the moments when we agree on something