Why the Reformation will Succeed Today

As I read the history of the Reformation, little by little, it occurs to me that the ideas and ideals of the Reformation will be more relevant and more successful in our time than in the time when they were first espoused. Today's Protestant churches seem to be wandering in a lot of different directions. The Reformation will enable Protestants, by the mere discussion of its ideals, to be able to re-focus on what is really important in their heritage.

As well, today's Catholic Church is seeking desperately to keep its hold on "the Faithful," but the things which are distinctively Catholic (as opposed to what is genuinely Christian in that religion) will be seen to be more and more bankrupt as more people begin to understand what the Reformation was all about.

Why do I say that? Because in the 16th century, even though ideas could spread via printing and the printing press, there was a mighty and unjust response from the "Catholic Reformation," which I've written about elsewhere, which included such things as repression and persecution and even "wars of religion." Such things are not likely to happen today. The main "religious" responses to the Protestant Reformers came in the form of the Jesuits and their casuistry, (and a blind devotion to the papacy that mandated "the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it." In today's internet-connected world, people today are more bound to require to "be convinced by Scripture and reason," and thus, Catholicism will be forced to defend its ideas on their own strength, not with a sword.

And the Catholic response to the Reformation was the Council of Trent,

which declared its mind, after much heart-searching, on the matter of justification: a decree of sixteen chapters with thirty-three canons attached. Canon Nine reads: "If anyone saith that by faith alone the impious is justified ... let him be anathema." It was entirely due to Luther that Catholicism was now defined in relation to that Doctrine! (Patrick Collinson, "The Reformation: A History," pg 113)