The passing of the radical moment in the radical reformation
1997; Volume: 71; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0025-9373
Autores Tópico(s)Populism, Right-Wing Movements
ResumoRecently my friend Hans-Jurgen Goertz shared with me a new essay on Reformation radicalism--'The Tarrying Kingdom': Characteristic Qualities of Radical Religiosity in Reformation Era. (1) Once again, he has carried subject further and stimulated my thinking on this important topic. As in Pfaffenhass, his first book on anticlericalism, (2) Reformation radicalism is presented as a pluralistic phenomenon embedded in anticlericalism of historical moment. Drawing on his lifelong work on Thomas Muntzer, that archetypical radical, Goertz traces radicalization of logic of anticlericalism from common Reformation rejection of mediatory role of Roman priests to denunciation of similarly elitist claims of humanist biblical scholars, to thundering against Wittenberg theologians, and finally to rulers who extended them protection. (3) The logic of Reformation, when radically extended, led to rejection of world. Of course, as Goertz sees matter, no less radical than Thomas Muntzer is a Michael Sattler striking dualist tones in Schleitheim Articles or a Tyrolean Anabaptist sitting in one of King Ferdinand's prisons and preparing herself or himself spiritually for marriage feast of martyrdom. In this most recent writing Goertz stresses utopian theme and objective of Reformation radicalism. He singles out Strasbourg Anabaptists who demand, Things must be done differently, a new state of affairs must arise; Thomas Muntzer speaking of the transformation of world; and Sebastian Franck writing that wickedness had multiplied to point that everything must collapse or become different. (4) This utopian theme in Reformation radicalism is not to be denied, but neither is it a flame that bums steady throughout narrative of Radical Reformation in Germanic Europe. It is more an effervescent thing, like an Alka Seltzer tablet in water. Hans-Jurgen Goertz has helped change my thinking about Reformation radicalism by insisting that Reformation was radical from beginning and became moderate at a later stage. (5) In other words, conventional sociology of revolution, according to which moderates are succeeded by radicals, does not apply to Reformation. Assuming, however, that Reformation was indeed radical to start with, one clearly finds moments when radicalism of particular Reformers or major components of movement flickered out. Certainly Invocavit sermons of March 1522, in which Luther denounced iconoclasm and assured that Lutheran churches (in contrast to Reformed churches) would have altars, crucifixes, music and art, was one such moment of moderate consolidation. (6) So also was moment in 1525 at end of Peasants War, to which Peter Blickle has drawn our attention, in which evangelically inclined princes decided that Reformation was too potentially disruptive of public order to proceed without their supervision. (7) The assumption Goertz and I have essentially taken for granted was that when magisterially supervised churches dropped out, remnant of Reformation, a Reformation of ordinary people, remained radical for being. What follows is an effort to think more precisely about that time being, to give a sense of passing of radical moment in Radical Reformation. In my recent essay on Radical Reformation I defined it in terms of intense mutual rejection of radicals and of world of churches and governments which persecuted and killed them. (8) It seemed reasonable therefore to draw boundary between radical reformation and tolerated nonconformity at points when governments decided to stop persecuting and killing. Such things happened in 1570s when William of Orange extended his protection to Dutch Mennonites, or a decade earlier and less publicly when government of Maximillian II in Vienna decided to stop interfering with economic symbiosis of Hutterites and southeast Moravian aristocracy. …
Referência(s)