Did The Protestant Reformation Matter

Did the Protestant Reformation matter, and if so, how? The Reformation has severely affected the modern view of politics and law. Before the Reformation, the Church governed politics; she controlled emperors and kings and governed the law of lands. Before stating whether, the Protestant Reformation matters one needs to understand what it was. During the 16th-century religious, political, intellectual and cultural disruption that fragmented Catholic Europe, setting in place the structures and beliefs that would define the continent in the modern era was known as the Protestant Reformation. In northern and central Europe, activists like Martin Luther, John Calvin and Henry VIII challenged the papal authority and questioned the Catholic Church’s ability to define Christian practice. This rebellion led to wars that argued the redistribution of religious and political power. The Reformation mattered, as it was not only necessary to return churches throughout the world to correct doctrine and biblical teaching bur also the initiator of political change in Europe. Lachmann states, “ the Protestant Reformation set in train a series of events that transformed elite relations” …show more content…
This technology advanced states in a way that it did not matter anymore how big your army was, as long as you afford firearms you were instantly ahead of the enemy. In the past firearms played a huge role in the maintenance and expansion of states (Lachmann, 199). In Lachmann’s book, he focuses on Charles Tilly’s sociological model of state formation. Tilly suggests that new military technologies made conquest easier. Therefore confirming the statement, I provide above which is that firearms matter because they put a state in a higher power to its