Response Paper #1 The struggle between Religious power and political power has always been a great issue throughout history. In the early 1500’s and onward political power and religious power were indirectly tied together, meaning that Monarchies had a say in religious rules and views/laws, and religious officials had a say in political views/laws. This caused great issues because if you were condemned a heretic by a religious order, you were also considered a heretic by the state. Its issue’s like this that slowly lead to the dissolve or separation of religious and political powers.
A Prime example of the complication between the tie of these two powers was the excommunication of Martin Luther, this occurs during the Dict of Worms around 1521. Martin Luther had different views on the catholic religion and he tried to express them to the people in his 95 theses. The catholic leaders did not appreciate that so they went ahead and made Luther a heretic which in turn made Charles V (Leader of HRE at the time) to write the Edict of Worms which also made Luther an enemy of the state. The powers were so closely tied here, you could not just be an enemy of the catholic religion, you would also be an enemy of the state. This started the questioning that religion should not be tied with political power. Luther only questioned religious views on Catholicism had nothing to do with anything political related.
We call the start of religious power declining for greater state control secularization. Secularization is when a society slowly separation from a close identification with religious values to an institution that is not religious and relies on laws and politics.
One great example of the decline of religious power for greater state control was the movement called the Enlightenment. The enlightenment called people to question everything their government, religious orders and even how things come to be, which is called skepticism. A man by the name of Voltaire (1694-1778) used these ideals to argue against institutionalized religion. Voltaire who practiced deism which was the belief that there was a creator of some sorts, made the public aware of a religious affair known as the Calas Affair. Which was when a protestant father was accused of killing his son who was a catholic. The father was only accused because he was of the protestant religion, and the son actually committed suicide so the father was innocent. This Affair sparked Voltaire to write an essay to exonerate the father, but after being tortured for so long the father died only a few days after his release. Voltaire made the public aware of this affair and it started the argument for no state level religion. This was only one minor thing that occurred during the enlightenment but it made an impact on the secularization of religious power.
Another excellent example is the scientific revolution which actually occurred before the enlightenment, it actually helped sparked the enlightenment. One of the major things that occurred here was the idea that the earth was not the center of the universe like religious orders and Ptolemy believed. A man by the name of Copernicus said that the Ptolemy’s theory of geocentricism failed to explain the movement of heavenly bodies in the sky. So Copernicus came up with the heliocentric theory, which stated that the earth was not the center and that the sun was the center. This little did not have immediate impact it wasn’t until Kepler, Galio, and Newton added on and tested his theory for it to become widely accepted. Newton was the big one who helped verify the Heliocentric theory. Newton’s work on gravity and his World-Machine idea, helped explain that all the celestial bodies were indeed revolving around the sun. All of these idea’s crushed the geocentric belief that the church had always follow and pushed people to follow. The scientific revolution made people think out of the box, and people gradually started losing their faith in religion because it was starting to be clear that the catholic church did not have everything correct, distrust with the church started to form. This distrust got people to start questioning everything which in turn lead to the Enlightenment.
The secularization of the church for greater state control did not happen instantaneously, it took many years. But the Scientific revolution and the Enlightenment were the major pushing powers for secularization. The people started to question everything after these movements such as monarchies and the power of the people. This lead to people wanting to have greater state control, the people wanted to make their own rules and government, and not have it be interfered with religion. This secularization is what started/sparked the government we have today.