Chapter 2: The Reformation as Practical Politics
The European Sources of American Religious Forms
...they were inflamed, as is usual among innovators, with extreme zeal for their opinions. Their unsurmountable passion, disguised to themselves as well as to others under the appearance of holy fervors, was well qualified to make proselytes, and to s eize the minds of the ignorant multitude.
-- David Hume, A History of England, V, liv
It is often held that there is a great advantage in studying human beings, since we can learn the meaning of actions to the actor. But the opportunity is also a hazard, since unlike anything else between quarks and quasars, the human object of study m ay by deception or mere self-deception produce accounts of itself which throw us off the mark. Thus the conservative philosopher David Hume speaks above of the self-deception of the Puritans of England, claiming that they confused their own opinions with the voice of God. But as the following chapters also make clear, Hume's targets were just as likely to see mere politics in the theological discourses of the defenders of the hierarchical, state-supported religions such as Roman Catholicism or Episcopal ianism.
However the agents may have understood themselves, the theological discourse in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries was at least in part an oblique way of talking practical politics. Although that was pointed out by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels a s well as later by Karl Kautsky, the American ideology has blocked many minds from consideration that this could be quite correct. Perhaps readers may concur after considering the evidence adduced in this chapter and the two which follow. I will argue t hat in a confused way, the Reformation reformers, especially in Zwinglian and Calvinist currents, constituted an early language of rising middle-class liberalism, even if in inchoate form. Many non-Marxists of the past would agree, as when de Tocqueville saw Puritanism as really a politics.
As I have noted elsewhere, other liberal rhetorics in rough succession of predominance included ancient civic humanism, the ancient Anglo-Saxon constitution, natural rights, utility, universality, and in our time, primarily science and efficiency (cf. Cook, 1991, esp. Ch. 6). Attention to such changing fashions in how something is argued should not obscure continuity in the substance of what was wanted in the way of ultimate policy goals as well as the political forms sought to better attain them. Bu t our task in hand is to first outline how various religious denominations in their origins reflected distinctive politics, even if many adherents to the teaching of a specific faith could argue that it also amounted to something more than politics.
I: The Existence of a Continuum of Religious Faiths
Although changing conditions of life surely shape the rise of changing religious outlooks, religious beliefs, mediated by practical action, have had in turn great consequences in human affairs. The religious varieties important in the 17th century to what was eventually (in the year 1707) called Great Britain make up most of those also important in colonial America, and hence should be closely studied by Americans seeking to understand ourselves.
While many religious adherents may be offended at the thought that theologies were developed around practical problems of the world rather than disinterested reflections or readings of Scripture detached from the world, there are very good reasons for viewing the 17th century religious expressions as at least in origin reflecting very much "political" contests of the time.
First, many of the participants of the politics in the day understood their rivals as self-deceived, confusing their own group purposes with those of God Almighty.
Second, roughly similar class political divisions in other contexts gave rise to quite parallel theological expressions. Thus one can see certain parallels of 17th century sectarians with the sects of Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes and Zealots among t he ancient Hebrews (Cook, 1991, 14-15).
Third, a practical account such as offered below of some main contents of the theologies is both intelligible and most plausible, and no alternative account seems to be so. This is not to say that everything in religious teachings can be given a practical interpretation. It is difficult, e.g., to understand why the Trinitarian/anti-Trinitarian controversy was so important, even in the early history of Christianity within the Roman empire. But this book is an extended argument that most matter s of theological controversy did have meaningful linkages to practical life concerns, including church or state organizational arrangements as well as policy.
The Religious Continuum. The principal 17th century forms of West European and New World religiosity can be arrayed along a rough continuum as I do in Figure 1. My ordering moves from a more hierarchical and centralized church structure (then called "ecclesiastical polity") to a more egalitarian and decentralized one, but as discussion will show, many other dimensions of variation follow the same ordering:
Figure 1.1: From Right to Left --
the Seventeenth Century Religious Spectrum
Arrayed by Structure of Ecclesiastical Polity
(1) Roman Catholics: The Pope, even if himself elected by Cardinals appointed by prior Popes, heads a church structure called "episcopal," a hierarchy of appointive individuals including archbishops, bishops, priests.
(2) Anglicans or Church of England: The British monarch by hereditary right heads an episcopal model, much as above. The monarch controlled doctrine, which compromised Roman Catholic and Reformation ideas. The American derivation, for obviou s reasons changing its name in the 1780's, was the Protestant Episcopal or now Episcopalian Church. Note: The Methodists, who remain episcopal, separate in the 18th century from the Anglicans under leadership of John Wesley.
(3) Lutherans: Local German or Scandinavian princes were also formal or at least de facto heads of their national church, becoming also involved in appointment of higher clergy. Although they themselves did not decide doctrine, they kept thus indirect control of doctrine.
(4) Presbyterians: Influenced by Calvin's "Reformed" model in Geneva and elsewhere in Europe, the church remains centrally coordinated and aspired to become the established faith in England as well as Scotland. But episcopacy is displaced by a structure called "synodical," which is a hierarchy of councils combining clergy with laity elected from below, ascending through Presbyteries to national Synods.
(5) Independent Congregationalists: Sometimes known as non-separatist congregationalists, there were our earlier "Puritans" of Boston. Many remained open to the idea of a national church, but they tended to favor ad hoc synods, that is, speci al councils to be called to resolve any disputes as to orthodoxy, leaving much more autonomy to local congregations on matters other than doctrine. It was a more confederal model of ecclesiastical polity. Except for their openness to more toleration, th ey seem similar to some Reformed churches of the Rhine valley.
(6) Separatist Congregationalists: Illustrated by those Puritans called "Pilgrims" at Plymouth, they opposed any established church. They rather favored maximal parish autonomy, with no central control over doctrine as well as election o f clergy. Parishes are thus local democracies.
(7) Baptists: As above, but with further separation of church and state and hence more tolerance for rival Christian faiths in Roger Williams' Rhode Island.
(8) Quakers or Society of Friends: Not only local autonomy of congregations, but in origins without any regular clergy, emphasizing equality of participants in meetings, seeking consensus rather than divisive votes as in William Penn's highly tolerant Pennsylvania.
(9) Continental Anabaptists and Religious Communitarians: While not prominent in Britain, various continental (often Rhineland region) groups often similar to Baptists or Quakers in their original egalitarianism would eventually attempt to found American communities of co-believers (e.g., the Mennonites or the Amish).
(10) Ranters, Fifth Monarchists, etc.: Only Christ should rule. Non-intellectual currents of 17th century Britain, they not only dispense with clergy but even a formal meeting house, with the Ranters even meeting in common alehouses.
(11) Seekers, Antinomians: In the logical extreme of decentralized, non-hierarchical religious authority, some, usually more intellectual than the foregoing groups, become so antipolitical that they tend toward apoliticism, turning against gro up worship if a Seeker or even against restraints of rules if Antinomian.
Before elaborating upon what underlies this suggested continuum, one can authenticate its existence in several ways: For one thing, social scientists interviewing members of the American public have found that Americans tend to draw up the same contin uum when they are asked to order faiths by degrees of similarity and difference. Most often they like least religions most different from their own, although there may be an anomalous bump of animosity toward a similar faith which has historically split from their own faith, as when Catholics report themselves as not fond of Lutherans. Besides, those who change their religion from one faith to another tend to choose another faith which if not adjacent is not distant from their original location on the c ontinuum. Similarly, those who choose a partner in marriage will most often choose a partner from the same faith or from one which is nearby along the depicted continuum (Rokeach, 1960, 293-311, 312-331). One can add that often theological or even polit ical coalitions tend to arise among adjacent sects along the continuum, with only a rare "strange bedfellow" coalition of partners distant on the continuum, usually for some limited purpose (e.g., Anglicans joined Baptists in resisting the post-colonial p olitical domination of Congregationalists in Connecticut).
Another defense of the continuum is that it reflects degrees of difference in the practical significance of positions on both religious and secular policy concerns. Distinctive but convergent streams of evidence suggest the descriptive validity of the continuum, and yet other evidence explains the continuum in terms of practical politics of the time. Truth, we hold in the spirit of Karl Deutsch -- who acknowledged indebtedness to Charles Sanders Peirce -- is the confluence of independen t streams of good evidence (cf. Deutsch, 1969).
The Seventeenth Century Religious Continuum as Left and Right. Although changes in the official church positions or policies, often paralleling changes in their laities, have since obscured it, the continuum in the 17th century was one of left and right, even if this conceptualization only arose near the end of the 18th century. As I have suggested, the theological distinctions constituted the then normal way of debating politics. Sometimes it makes sense to follow Marx's suggestion in his es say On the Jewish Question: "We do not turn secular questions into theological questions; we turn theological questions into secular ones" (in Tucker, ed., 1978, 31; cf. also Kautsky, 1959). That is, one must retrieve the practical, this-worldly significance of the theological disputes of the time. After all, one must recall that in the battle against Roman Catholicism, the word "reform" is the root in Reformation, and the term "protest" was the root of Protestant. If we ask what was reformed, what was protested, we can better understand the meaning of many religious differences.
II: What Changes Across the Continuum:
Class Identifications and Policy Preferences
A really persuasive case must eventually address in detail the specific faiths (as well as kindred ones) listed along the suggested continuum. One does this even if mindful that historians would especially wield against us their implicit motto, na mely, "Every generalization is over-generalized" (perhaps we political scientists respond with our own tacit motto, "Every particularistic account is over-particularized"). At least rough generalizations can be made which aid understanding of more partic ular cases.
Class or Strata Identification. Against any crude Marxist analyst, class is by no means always the most salient identity in politics. Among others, Max Weber correctly noted that it is often eclipsed by other kinds of self-identification such as status groups or ethnicity. As our daily newspapers attest, ethnic identifications have proven far more resilient in our century than many leading social theorists would have expected in the 18th or 19th century. Yet class (or more crudely, social st rata or layer) loyalties make most intelligible the range of European-derived religious commitments in the 17th century. I say this even in conceding that rising national loyalties were also often involved, beginning with the readiness of many Germans to accept the Reformation out of animosity toward the Italian-dominated Vatican.
Whatever their personal class of origin, in their time (I do not argue that it remains so), those identified with the more affluent strata tended to identify with the religions higher on the list in Figure 1.1. That is, those of high class woul d tend to predominantly favor the more hierarchical, more centralized, or episcopal faiths such as Roman Catholic, Anglican or Lutheran. Very few of them are found among the more "left" religions of that time, such as Baptists or Quakers. Indeed, most o ften theological disputants came from the strata whose interests were being defended. Thus the distinguished religious historian Kenneth Scott Latourette writes that with a few exceptional cases, "in the main the pioneers of Protestantism were of humble origin, while most of the leaders in the Catholic Reformation were from the aristocracy" (Latourette, 1975, 701). Usually landowning strata in a nation with an established church preferred either the Catholic or Anglican positions, which had some kinship with the Sadducees, the aristocratic providers of the Jerusalem Temple high priests, a sect which vanished when the Jews were driven into the diaspora by the Romans. As David Hume, himself an 18th century Tory, says of England, the 17th century royalist s who for the most opposed Puritanism consisted "of the nobles and more considerable gentry..." (A History of England, V, lx) This is by no means to deny that sometimes elements of the nobility could become Protestant, often as part of their resis tance to the reigning national monarch, as illustrated by French Huguenot nobles or the Calvinist nobility in Scotland.
Spinoza once commented that Calvinists in the Netherlands were reminiscent of the ancient Hebrew Pharisee sect, which appealed to merchants and allied professionals such as their scribes. Just as the ancient Pharisees emphasized the local synagogue, i nvolvement of the laity in worship, and personal discipline in godliness, many Calvinists acted in parallel ways. Most contemporary accounts, including those of Hobbes in his Behemoth, depict urban merchants and allied professionals such as their lawyers in London and elsewhere as more drawn toward moderate Calvinist Reformation positions, such as the English version of Presbyterianism. Independency, a form of Congregationalism which did not preclude a church establishment but insisted on tolerat ion of a band of faiths which member John Milton called "neighboring differences," seemed to attract other urbanites as well as progressive parts of the gentry (e.g., Oliver Cromwell) and the yeomanry. Elsewhere in Europe, the groups whom James Mill woul d later call "the middling classes" were also likely to turn to the Calvinist or Reformed churches, which tended to be strongest in or near commercial cities.
Yet especially where they were able to hear no dissenting views, broad elements of the lower classes remained committed to the locally established traditional religion, even if it was hierarchical and closely associated with the landowning strata. Thu s Scottish highlanders of all classes seemed to resist not only the shift from Roman Catholicism to Anglicanism but also the lowland Scotland Calvinism led by such figures as John Knox of Edinburgh. Similarly, the vast majority of Irish remained Roman Ca tholic despite Cromwellian persecutions, perhaps in part because it was part of their animosity toward the Calvinism of Scotland or England, which when led by Cromwell's forces, brought severe repression, including violence and truly massive confiscations of Irish-owned land.
Otherwise, shading off toward the lower middle classes there seems to have been in England at least an increasing attraction to fullest parish autonomy, favoring currents such as separatist Congregationalism, Baptists, and Quakers. Where freedoms of c ommunication ran strong, often historically involving itinerant weavers, the lower classes often came to espouse relatively egalitarian religious ideas which quite obviously fitted their immediate interests. Many of the Levellers leaned toward such relig ious views, as attested by the fact that key leaders such as Richard Overton and John Lilburne had humble origins and Baptist backgrounds. The Quaker founder, George Fox, was the son of a weaver.
Baptist or Quaker views have some kinship with the ancient Hebrew Essenes, at least in favoring the relatively egalitarian economic life of peasants or artisans. If government could not be egalitarian, some could lean against government entirely. The y understood themselves, probably not incorrectly, as attempting to retrieve the simple practices of the earliest Christian churches. While R. H. Tawney in 1926 notes that such ideas had been especially common among German reformers likely to "appeal fro m the depravity of the present to a golden age of pristine innocence," one could say that Baptists, Anabaptists, and Quakers were likely to invoke the lapsed traditions of the earliest Christian churches: "The aim of religious leaders was to reconstruct, not merely doctrine and ecclesiastical government, but conduct and institutions, on a pattern derived from the forgotten purity of primitive Christianity" (Tawney, 1955, 77). Not himself a believer in any religion, Friedrich Nietzsche had remarked in hi s The Will to Power: "Primitive Christianity is the abolition of the State: it prohibits oaths, military service, courts of justice, self-defense or the defense of a community, and denies the difference between fellow-countrymen and strangers, as also the order of castes" (paragraph #207, Nietzsche, 1914, Vol. 1, 172). Although not evident among many Anabaptist sects, sometimes their egalitarianism was extended to women. Although less immediately so in politics than in worsh ip, it could be said of the Quakers that "women were placed either on a near equality or a complete equality with men" (Latourette, 1975, 981).
The individualistic Seekers or Spiritualists tended to identify with the humble small-propertied people as well, but some such as the later Roger Williams distrusted organized religious forms of any kind, fearing, like the Essenes (who could not dine w ith non-Essenes), "pollution" from familiar intercourse with the ungodly. Williams quite oddly would not give thanks at meals with his wife, just in case she could be Unregenerate, or not reborn in Christ. We do not know what she thought of that.
Class egalitarianism was especially true of many radical religious communitarians (such as Gerrard Winstanley's Diggers in England). The fourth stratum without any property at all probably furnished most enthusiasts for wilder millenarian cults such a s the Fifth Monarchists or the Ranters. In a context complaining of many "low mechanics" who had gotten into Cromwell's Barebones parliament, David Hume writes in disgust of "Fifth Monarchy men, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Independents; the very dregs of t he fanatics" (A History of England, VI, lxi). While one may question his inclusion of Independents, many of whom were solid squires, some milenarians of that time were egalitarian political extremists (for details, see Hill, 1972; see also Tuveson , 1964). They are somewhat reminiscent of the ancient Jewish Zealots, who at the time of Christ burned registries of land titles, wanted no money changers in the Temple, assassinated both Romans and their Jewish collaborators, and in part ended up besieg ed by Roman arms at Masada, committing mass suicide when defeat was sure.
Even if it would an error to expect precise fits of sects and classes, the rough correspondence was clear enough. I am aware of opposed interpretations. Thus when strangely challenging the middle class view of Protestantism, Guy Swanson writes: "In most of Europe of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, kings, princes, and nobles were the politically significant elites whereas merchants and urban artisans were only a minute proportion of the population and were of comparatively little economic impo rtance" (Swanson, 1967, 21). But sometimes small numbers can make big waves. Swanson's own accounts show only unusual cases of higher nobility attachment to Protestantism, especially in the more militant Calvinist variants, and he recurrently concedes c lass relevance.
Surely the best evidence would be close empirical studies of at least class origins of adherents in the time. It would doubtless show many anomalous yet intelligible cases, such as when servants in manors identified with Anglicanism or when some young er sons or daughters of the nobility turn to the Quakers. If our purpose left out a concern to show how such class identities shaped political positions, we could take these last as presumptive evidence of class origins of ideas. Put simply, certain policy preferences respecting religion or the secular sphere join with preferences on religious and political institutions to suggest no other plausible basis for such commitments. But for space limitations, I would show that other orientations such as ontologies, epistemologies, human nature premises, etc. do not generate or even closely predict the substantive commitments of political thought. One knows that class loyalties constituted the central orientation then and there for this reason: No other suggested kind of orientation would be plausible as a predictor of the positions which are taken. I readily agree that in other times and places ethnic or other loyalties could be more central in a system of thought.
An idealist critic, simply reversing our suggested order of causality, could retort that distinctively religious commitments caused the differences on more tangible questions of policy. In part an analysis over time would be needed to conclusively val idate the present view, as in showing that people first belonged to a class (or at least became identified with it), then formed substantive preferences, and only then began to embrace the religious justifications of substantive choices.
Another kind of argument would simply show that only class identities could plausibly account for the specifics such as reviewed below. The Bible, for example, could be silent, ambiguous, or even contradictory on a given question. When so, mere Bibli cal interpretation, as if it were divorced from practical concerns of life, could not plausibly account for why specific thinkers adopted a specific viewpoint. For example, when the Bible is apparently silent on a question about some practice, we may fin d some arguing that it is prohibited, others holding that it must be permitted, but even some who may dare to say it is mandated, perhaps arguing from some supposed spirit of the work as a whole. Where the Bible is ambiguous or contradictory, even more f lexibility in interpretations arises. The obvious plasticity of Biblical interpretation begs explanation of how specific thinkers come down to their substantive preferences. Human beings are notoriously tempted to confuse their own purposes with the pur poses of God. But let us get into specifics.
Policy Preferences. Thomas Hobbes once suggested that "safety," "gain" and "reputation" were the objects over which people quarreled, and the three kinds of values are indeed central to most policy concern. In practice the three spheres of pol icy substance may be interactive, i.e., a rise or fall on one may impact the level of satisfaction of another.
I will say relatively little about safety (security against aggressive war or crime) or status policies (symbols of social prestige such as public praise, statuary, etc.), apart from noting a general priority on more security or more status for favored groups, often at the cost of less of it for disfavored ones. Obviously the local fate of certain religions could have very practical questions of physical security in early modern history, especially in contexts of the sharpest Catholic and Protestant r ivalry, expressed as civil or international warring. Status policy could touch even bizarre distinctions, as when Cromwellians insulted captured royalist English nobles by executing them not with the blade but on the gibbet, as if common criminals.
I will offer more elaboration on how economic policy preferences predictably array themselves across the spectrum.
Most generally, toward the right are those faiths, which, especially at the official levels (and the "high church" tradition in Anglicanism) revealed least discontent with the economic status quo. That is, in secular economic policy, they were those l east discontented with the systems of property and regulation, taxation, and budget expenditure.
In contrast, those toward the left were more indignant about trade restrictions such as the existence of royal monopolists, about new tax levies likely to be put anywhere but on great landed estates, and about exorbitant state expenditure on dynastic w ars, lavish courts, sinecurists and placemen, and the like.
Roughly parallel patterns apply to "economic" policies regarding the established church. Toward the right would be those who (often sons or other kinsmen of large landowners) were archbishops, bishops or important parish priests, the latter with the m ore generous "livings" or rents from land or a portion of its produce attached to them. These would defend costly cathedrals, statuary, clerical vestments, etc. as what Sir Richard Hooker called useful aids to faith. They would accept prominent Church l andowning as well as mandatory tithing as necessary to support such an established church and its clergy in grand style. As one moves toward the left, even beginning with the Presbyterians (e.g., Scot lowlanders or London merchants), secular economic dis content becomes apparent. Grievances regarding free trade or taxation become increasingly marked. The Levellers denounced Charles I for the then novel issuance of patents, for although even these earliest patents were ostensibly to encourage innovation, they were often abused as just another way to raise revenue through a royal monopoly, as when a patent was granted to a favored soapmaker when virtually everyone knew how to make and perhaps sell soap. The Levellers also wanted progressivity in taxation and initiation of some welfare programs. Quantitatively oriented historians are increasingly making the case that Reformation malcontent in large part was due to rising population pressures, causing declining wages and rising prices on popular necessiti es. That vise of declining real incomes, Goldstone and Fischer show, underlay most of the rising violence of the Reformation era (Goldstone, 1991; Fischer, 1996).
In agrarian policy, increasingly members of such faiths would express discontent over such economic policies as surviving feudal land tenure, the enclosure movement which dislodged cottagers to make way for sheep runs, overly high rents or exactions o f services from tenants, or lack of any cultivation of wastelands of the larger estates. At an extreme, some Diggers on religious grounds questioned private property in land as such. Those called the Familists believed it right to at least hold their me mbers' lands and goods in common. The Melchiorite Anabaptists of ill-fated Munster made food, money and even real estate common property, although in this last accepting de facto private use.
Toward the left there was rising indignation with luxurious living, whether on the part of the secular royal court or of the church itself. Royal dispensation of economic privileges to cronies, after all, was likely to be reflected in higher tax burde ns imposed on those of lower class.
Purgation of luxury was to extend to the Church. It is ironic that the huge St. Peter's in Rome, one of the grandest expressions of Roman Catholic expenditure for a place of worship, was, through its financing by sales of indulgences, one of the causes of the Reformation movement which left the Church. Toward the left the faiths increasingly want to simplify everything which surrounds worship. Instead of cathedrals, they favored more practical, plain church buildings of moderate cost. Also, one should avoid lavish decoration within them, or perhaps even destroy religious statuary, etc. in the practice called iconoclasm ("breaking icons," perhaps with a sledge hammer). Physical simplification of the place of worship and its decor at gr eat cost savings runs to these extremes: The Quaker meeting room could be a bare room in any house. As noted, the Ranters held it perfectly proper to hold their religious meetings in an ale house, where one could curse quite freely.
Luxurious ceremonials were also anathema: Zurich's Huldreich Zwingli spoke to the concerns of middle classes, apparently including artisans as well as merchants: "His chief supporters came from the guilds, or trade unions, which controlled the great and small councils in Zurich" (Potter, 1977, 45). He quite typically stressed purely religious grounds for his objection to lavish displays: "Ceremonials achieved nothing else than the cheating of Christ and his faithful followers and doing away with th e teaching of the Spirit, calling men away from the unseen to the material things of this world" (letter to Erasmus Fabricius, April 1522, in Jackson, ed., 1901, 18).
The middle classes loved to make virtues of their own life necessities. Careful avoidance of luxury purchases, of drunkenness, of gambling, and, of course, idleness was literally necessary for their economic self-improvement. Condemnation of the diss olute living of the higher orders went with a rising denunciation of anyone's idleness, giving rise to what came to be called the "Protestant ethic" of industry, frugality, etc. Not only did they condemn the idleness of courtiers but also of the high cle rgy and any religious orders, such as the monastic orders of Roman Catholicism. Clerical self-indulgence is sharply attacked. One practice of Roman Catholicism attacked by Protestants was the sale and purchase of a benefice: A priest could purchase a r ural hardship post, even a Bishopric, hire a perhaps ill-trained substitute, and go off to live in Rome on the difference between the income and the lower pay for the hireling. Himself the son of a prosperous farmer and village head, Zwingli denounced th e greed of the Roman Catholic clergy: "All those in spiritual authority shall quickly humble themselves and serve solely the cross of Christ, and not money-chests; otherwise perdition is upon them and the axe is laid to the root of the tree" (Theses, LXVI, in Potter, 1977, 25). Recognition of dissolute life styles among many lower Roman Catholic (or even Anglican) parish clergy was one motive behind the demand for a parishioner prerogative to appoint or remove their pastors.
In all of such matters, it was not always true that Scripture strictly forbade institutional church practices. But the mere absence of Scriptural warrant was enough for those of humbler means to feel comfortable with their interpretation of God's wil l. In other matters a Reformer could hold that if Scripture did not prohibit something, it was permitted, as in Zwingli's position denying clerical celibacy: "All that God has allowed or not forbidden is right, hence marriage is permitted to all human b eings"(Sixty-Seven Theses, xxviii, in Potter, 1977, 23).
Bertrand Russell was correct in noting that "a philosopher's inconsistencies are the clue to his passions" (Hook, 1970, 58). When specific theologians of ordinarily clear intelligence fail to follow any consistent rules for the interpretation of Scrip tures, we can quite confidently hypothesize that practical considerations of the world shaped theological positions, rather than the other way around.
III: The Politics of Regime Forms: Ecclesiastical Polity and Secular Polity
There are three and only three ways to shape the policy decisions emerging from an office or institution, and I have elsewhere urged the importance of understanding the pragmatic rules of such distinctive fields (e.g., Cook, 1991; Cook, 1994, esp. 125- 30). I will discuss these fields of possible action to shape decisional outcomes rather than merely adapt to them: (1) structures strategy: Broadly, one takes incumbent authorities and their wills as if constants, working rather the variable of the allocation of powers of decision among various possible decision units. For the most one pulls powers from institutions controlled by rivals, puts those powers rather wherever friends can be expected to prevail; (2) recruitment strategy: Here one takes as if constant the locations of powers to decide as well as the wills of incumbents in relevant decision units. One focuses instead on controlling policy by control over personnel, pulling rivals out of positions and putting friends into them; (3) influence strategy: Here taking as if constant both the allocations of powers and the existing pattern of incumbency, one plays the influence strategy by attempting control over the wills of those who have the power to decide or determine who will have such powers.
i: The Structures Strategy in Church and State
The contemporaneous term, "ecclesiastical polity," suggests already that there was recognition that a church was like a polis, a political regime in some respects. Church regime arrangements had practical consequences regarding such policy prefere nces as reviewed above. As we shall suggest below, there was usually a close parallel between the kinds of structures and procedures favored within the church regime and those favored for the secular regime. Some such as Harry Eckstein could argue non-r ational longings for congruence of institutional authority patterns (cf. the appendix in Eckstein, 1966). But I think rational calculations of advantage make it intelligible enough. Such calculations also explain inconsistencies in favored authority patt erns when the same pattern does not in all contexts always advantage the favored groups. Given their group loyalties and policy preferences within the circumstances, their quite general preferences of either centralized or decentralized, descending or as cending authority patterns were arguably quite rational.
The Structures Strategy: Church and State. Again, the structures strategy aims at control over policy by any of various means of pulling power from rivals, putting powers to decide with friends. Obviously one great choice of the structures str ategy concerned whether certain vital religious decisions would be made by the Pope in Rome or rather by some authority within the nation, and it would be a mistake to understate the weight of that question in the Reformation.
Other structural concerns cut across the ecclesiastical and secular spheres, as in the question of relative authority of church and state. Some high medieval Catholic clergy had enunciated the Papalist position holding that Popes were superior to secu lar monarchs such as the Holy Roman Emperors or the lesser princes. That claim of the supremacy of the spiritual realm to the secular was one of the "Three Walls of Romanism" which Martin Luther expressly attacked. Protestants would first return to the earlier medieval view of "two swords" theory, viewing church and state as spheres each having their own authority. While the Roman Catholic view held that clergy should not be answerable for their actions before secular courts, to be tried only before th e Church's canon law tribunals, Martin Luther rejected that view. At the outset of the Reformation, Catholic clergy were also usually exempted from taxation. For the most, Protestantism favored termination of clerical privileges and immunities, putting clergy on secular matters on a level with ordinary subjects, approximating what Protestantism does in religious matters as well.
The closer the tie of the Roman Catholic Church to a hated secular authority, the stronger the appeal of Protestantism, even if some Protestant denominations would direct or indirect state linkages of their own. While opposing some Roman Catholic ties with the state, many Presbyterians wanted their own faith established in Britain, and even Independent Congregationalists were not closed to establishment provided that non-established sects were also tolerated. But leftward of them increasingly Protest ants favored full separation of church and state, typified in the thinking of Baptists such as Roger Williams or Quakers such as George Fox and William Penn.
Church or Ecclesiastical Polity. But let as look at the structures field as it relates to the internal organization of the church. Toward the right on our continuum are those who tend to favor not only a state established church but a highly c entralized church structure, involving "episcopacy," a hierarchy of appointive officials. The hierarchy was topped off by the head of the church, who was the Pope (Catholic), the formally designated monarch (the Church of England from the 1534 Act of Sup remacy) or at least informally so (some national Lutheran establishments). The central apparatus of Roman Catholicism had major powers, extending to church courts to try major disputes within the church, but bishops and archbishops were especially signi ficant. If one ranges leftward, there was increasing distrust of such a centralized or concentrated church apparatus. At minimum, power should be pulled from the Pope to more representative church councils, argued Luther in attacking as another one of the "Three Walls of Romanism" the idea that only a Pope could convene a council. After all, there had been two centuries of counter-argument by conciliarists. In Britain, critics of the Anglican arrangement understood (correctly) that the royal power to appoint archbishops and bishops meant in that time an extension of royal political power, communicated down the line to even the parish clergy.
As already apparent, while many Presbyterians and even Independents remained establishmentarian, those toward their left turned disestablishmentarian. The Presbyterians also retain some central church authority, but the authority of the central synod must rise from the presbyteries, which in turn derived their authority from parish councils of clergy and lay elders. The Presbyterian model's use of councils mixed laity and clergy. As such, this model already shows a degree of decentralization and dem ocratization, recognizing that authority flows not outward or downward from a center unless it first passes inward and upward from the periphery, from local congregations.
I pass by variants of Congregationalism, repeating that a Cromwellian Independent was yet willing to imagine an established church, provided that other sects were also tolerated. To the separatist Congregationalists, the Baptists and the Quakers, the church structure becomes increasingly decentralized, leaving most authority with local congregations only. Needless to say, church courts enforcing a church or canon law over clergy (yet found among Catholics, Anglicans and Lutherans) vanish.
State or Secular Polity. Part of the meaning of Protestantism was assertion of national political autonomy against what was alien, whether the target was Pope, Holy Roman Emperor, or even an unwanted alliance with a foreign prince (as in Scot P resbyterian objections to Stuart links to Catholic France as a counter to England). Beginning with Martin Luther, who defended such rights of German principalities, this was one of the preconditions for the defense of the Reformation. As often noted, it was a marriage of convenience, for while princes defended Protestant clergy, the Protestant clergy helped rationalize what the princes wanted to do, including confiscation of Roman Catholic church lands or limitation of the drain of specie to Rome.
Within such political entities, in secular politics, conservative forces often recognized that retention of centralized hierarchy within the state depended upon keeping like forms within the established church. With his long memory running back to ear lier Stuart problems in Scotland, King James I would say against acceptance of the Presbyterian synodical form, "No bishop, no king, no nobility." Part of his anxiety was no doubt a more diffuse challenge to the theory of descending authority. Forces to ward the left playing the structures game sought to pull powers out of the monarchy and into the House of Commons. Indeed, some went so far as to advocate outright abolition of the monarchy as well as the House of Lords (during the Interregnum, 1649-1660 , Cromwell merely suspended both).
The origin of two key political terms of British discourse is instructive: The term "Tories" arose as an abusive epithet which parliamentarians applied to supporters of Stuart divine right, the word in question was a variation on a Gaelic term for "th e pursued ones," having been originally applied to Irish Catholic fugitive-highwaymen (also known as "bog-trotters"). The term "Whigs" was first used of Scot Presbyterian farmers, probably after "whig" or "whigg," a whey-whiskey mix which had been a popu lar beverage among them. In each case, what had been an abusive epithet applied by rivals came to be accepted with pride by those to whom it had been applied.
If a shift of functional authority to representative bodies thus was parallel in the Protestant church and state spheres, the tendency of some Protestants to demand decentralization of church authority to local congregations had less of a parallel in s ecular political preferences, since county governments had come under close control of local nobles. Only those extremists imagining an end to the nobility could tend to near anarchist visions of secular political decentralization. But even the conserva tive David Hume in his "The Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth" was apparently influenced by the Presbyterian model of church structures in depicting an ideal political order as one where legislative power grew upward by indirect elections from the parishes a nd counties to an all-national central assembly. After all, he himself was from Scotland.
Hume understood the Fifth Monarchists as bordering on anarchy, for he speaks of them as holding that "dominion being founded in grace, all distinction in magistracy must be abolished, except what arose from piety and holiness; who expected suddenly the second coming of Christ upon earth; and who pretended, that the saints in the mean while, that is, themselves, were alone entitled to govern" (A History of England, V, lxi).
Guy Swanson has argued that in Europe the key predictor of eventual national commitment to Protestantism or Catholicism was whether or not practical governing authority had come to be shared with intermediary special interest constituencies. While cen tralist autocracies strongly tended to remain Catholic, limited centralist ones (by definition, with only some local participation in administration) tended either Lutheran or Anglican. The regimes which were of balanced form (including power sharing bet ween the chief executive and usually some legislative council or assembly) tended to Calvinist forms of Protestantism. This was also true of what he calls "heterarchic" regimes, those with weak executives but very strong interest group representation, as in Zurich, Basel or the Netherlands. Yet in certain regimes (which he calls "commensal") where the executive was very weak and the voting elements roughly equal, but without guild or like representation, the tendency was again to choose Catholicism (e. g., Venice, the Catholic cantons of Switzerland, Poland). (Swanson, 1967, passim)
While his work seems descriptively valid, Swanson, I think, errs in regarding the secular regime form as his ultimate independent variable in predicting religious forms. Surely the presence of power-sharing in Geneva, certain Rhineland cities, or even in 16th century Scotland was largely a registry of the status of long historical struggles among classes, as Marx understood of the so-called balanced government of King, Lords and Commons in Britain. Put otherwise, where guildsmen and other burgher soc ioeconomic interests were strongest, they tended (1) to have more voice in government, (2) to seek religious forms and doctrine which would further legitimate their pursuit of self-interests.
ii: The Recruitment Strategy in Church and State
The recruitment strategy aims at control of policy through control of who makes the policy decisions. The main instrumental goal is putting friends into key posts, pulling rivals out.
Church. Toward the right on the continuum, especially in the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran variants, there was a largely descending image of authority, passing downward from God directly to his "viceregents" who ruled on his behalf on e arth. A Pope was "elected" by Cardinals, but these were past appointees of Popes. The monarchs who formally (Anglican) or informally (sometimes true of Lutheran) headed churches derived their office through inheritance, not any form of election. The f aiths on the right have episcopal hierarchies, whereby the head of the Church appoints archbishops and bishops, these in turn appoint parish
priests within their dioceses. For ordinary parishioners, not even church membership involves their voluntary choice: even baptized infants are understood to belong to the established church.
Toward the left on our continuum, the recruitment strategy shifts to the idea of ascending rather than descending authority. It ascends in the sense that authority exists only by the free consent of those subject to it. It was a shift from a "laying on of hands" from above to a "showing of hands" from below as the fount of authority. This of course had the very practical consequence that any clergy would be less likely to be derived from the major landowning elites, and also less likely to be respon sive to their interests. Instead, clergy would be selected by ordinary parishioners and thus be more responsive to their concerns.
Already Martin Luther had begun the practice of having lay assistants share some functions with professional clergy, a practice continued in other Protestant denominations. Indeed, some of the religions toward the left abandon any professional clergy at all, whether using lay "mechanic preachers" or none at all, as among Quakers.
There is increasing democratization as one moves leftward on our suggested continuum. As one moves toward the left, the faiths favoring disestablishmentarianism and decentralization tended to make churches purely voluntary associations. The individua l had to choose to want to become a member, but usually from the other side, the existing membership could also choose to accept or reject a member. Some, such as the Baptists, even opposed infant baptism, since adult baptism would more lik ely require the subject's careful consideration and commitment, while also permitting parishioners the chance to vote acceptance or rejection.
Consider also the strange Calvinist doctrine of Predestination, the notion that God only intervened to save a small minority (Calvin never gives us a number), letting the others slide to hell. Once one denounces episcopacy, and especially to the exten t that authority becomes meaningful at the level of individual congregations, it became important for burghers to have some rationale to screen out the riff-raff who could demand equal authority. This applies not only to the church but also the state: T he high involvement of merchants and guildsmen in the governance of Geneva, Zurich, Basel and other Rhineland cities made the doctrine especially important. Doubtless there are Pauline texts which could be and were cited, but that merely pushes the quest ion back to why even Paul was originally drawn that way, or why his teaching was found attractive among certain groups in certain contexts over sixteen centuries later. I find it most revealing that Zwingli leans to the view that apart from exceptional c ases such as God's displeasure with Esau, children of the Elect are likely to be also Elect: "...all infants are doubtless of the elect by the laws of the testament" (Jackson, 1901, 244). What is hidden behind his "doubtless"? Certainly such an interpr etation of the doctrine at its origins would require careful study of specific theologians in specific places, but it is at least clear enough that the doctrine functioned to screen suffrage for a long time (1630 to 1679) in Puritan Massachusetts Bay. Th inking of Geneva as well as Calvinist strongholds in the Rhineland or Scotland, perhaps one could hypothesize that strong Predestinarianism is most prominent only where (1) a Calvinist sect is a monopoly or near-monopoly, (2) there is considerable religio us authority at the level of the church membership (congregation), and especially if (3) church membership is also precondition of voting rights even in secular politics. If this very political interpretation of the theological view of Predestination is valid, one would expect absence of at least one of these conditions in the city of Basel in the time, since at least one authority notes that "Basel was not inclined to favor Calvin's convictions on predestination..." (Latourette, 1975, 761) Or again, th e hypothesis would predict the last stands of hard Predestinationism wherever a spirit of caste-like exclusivity regarding voting rights prevailed, as among of the rightist wing of the Dutch Reformed church in South Africa. Regarding the Dutch Reformed, however, it is puzzling to read that the upper classes were more likely to be Remonstrants (opponents of Predestination) in the Netherlands (Latourette, 1975, 764). Roger Williams, when Baptist, strongly insisted that only the Regenerate should become ch urch members, but as a person advocating tolerance of many religions, he was open to larger citizenship in the secular sphere. But beyond him, Quakers increasingly dropped not only secular exclusivity but also the theological doctrine of election.
State. Preferences were broadly parallel when adherents of various faiths along the continuum turned from the ecclesiastical to the secular sphere. Those identifying with Roman Catholicism or Anglicanism (especially the high church tradition) in the 17th century were likely to accept hereditary recruitment, as in defense of the monarchy (including in Britain the popularity of
"the divine right of kings") and the hereditary nobility and its bastions, such as the House of Lords in Britain. British adherents to the divine right of kings were attracted to the ideas in Robert Filmer's Patriarcha (written much earlier, pu blished 1679), which among other things held that the father by birthright held monarchical authority over both wife and children even within the family unit.
While many of the middle-range faiths in England, such as Presbyterians or Congregationalists, had been willing to accept limited or constitutional monarchy, the eventual choice of even Whig parliamentarians in the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, the m ovement leftward along the continuum finds more who reject all principles of hereditary right to rule, embracing more consistently the view that the only proper source of authority was the consent of those subject to it. Increasingly they would understan d such "consent" as not a once and for all acceptance of a dynasty (as in Richard Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity) or even of a single monarchical heir but rather a recurrently tested consenting, that of competitive elections.
During the Interregnum, many defined themselves as republican or commonwealthsmen, stressing the centrality of parliament and usually, inspired by the Roman republican model, holding that "where annual elections end, there tyranny begins." As typified in the writings of Harrington, not only were electoral terms to be limited to one year, but the principle of "rotation" would disrupt continuity in office.
Those toward the left also favored broadened rights of suffrage beyond the narrow circle of affluent propertied such as envisioned by John Locke, who never committed himself for or against expansion of suffrage. James Harrington apparently had been wi lling to give the vote to those who owned as little as one cow pastured on a common. While the Levellers would have included all men but for servants and beggars, in fact the vote was to be denied to ordinary working people in Britain for over two centur ies more, until 1867, and full equality of suffrage awaited 1948, when extra votes for one's place of business or for one's university constituency were terminated.
In passing, we should note that those toward the left tended to deny any innate superiority of the nobility, stressing the common humanity as part of their justificatory language. Our assumed similarity in sharing the "Inner Light" led the Quakers to expect that good meetings would arrive at unanimity. But a descendent of Quakers, Thomas Paine, would by the late 18th century even turn things around, arguing that in-breeding had made the nobility if anything biologically inferior. Jefferson uttered l ike sentiments.
iii: The Influence Strategy in Church and State
The influence strategy aims at control over policy by directly or indirectly shaping the wills of those who make the policy decisions. Within the influence strategy, the main tactical fields are (1) creation of messages, (2) communication of mess ages, and (3) the reinforcement of persuasive messages, or backing them up with some more tangible consequence than mere words.
Toward the right, while by no means preventing all such efforts during the Middle Ages, Roman Catholicism had not pushed translations of the Bible into vernaculars, and Latin texts and services effectively debarred participation of the laity in formula ting ideas. Most variants of Protestantism would not only work toward vernacular translations but also use vernaculars in sermons, etc., while encouraging at least basic education in reading and writing for all church members. In short, in what Luther c alled "the priesthood of all believers," each individual would now be able to read and interpret Scripture, ending the clerical monopoly in reading or the Pope's monopoly in interpretation (the third of Luther's "Three Walls of Romanism"). Like other Pro testant reformers, Luther favored mandatory elementary education of children, primarily to permit reading of Scripture.
But for some Protestants it was not enough to make the clergy speak the languages of their flocks. Anglican clergy, even when speaking English, tended to rather complex, ornate sermons, filled with the ornaments of their college learning. The Puritan preachers tended to favor instead a "plain" style of sermon, where the medium of expression did not block popular access to the message (Haller, 1938).
Yet focused on the creation of messages, more militant Protestants differed not only with Roman Catholics but even Anglicans in stressing the centrality of the Bible as the immediate fount of doctrine. At least all leftward Protestantisms deny the co- equal authority of church corporate traditions or philosophic reason, such as maintained by the Anglican divine Richard Hooker, in his Laws of the Ecclesiastical Polity. Although of course often citing Scriptural passages as helpful to defend exis ting inequalities, the upper classes distrusted the unguided Biblical fundamentalism among the lower classes, since it sometimes takes a dangerous egalitarian turn. To the left, many religious traditions were upper class corruptions, and the prescribed o r traditional rights of nobles were increasingly to be challenged, eventually by the 17th century doctrine of "natural rights," God-given and common to all. As for the authority of philosophic reason, Martin Luther said reason was a "whore." If the Bibl e was the Word of God, it must be restored to centrality in theological argument. It must also be made central to religious services, thought Zurich's reformer Huldreich Zwingli, who opposed even singing or other music in church services.
John Calvin drew largely from the Old Testament his theory of the appropriate polity as an aristocracy bordering on democracy. As one moves leftward on the continuum, however, some deny that the Old Testament is coequal with the New, as when Roger Wil liams held that most of the Old Testament was meant only for the Jews in the time before Christ, that only the New Testament should govern Christians. An extreme adherent to the Bible, Williams practically held that in religious matters, if it was not au thorized by scripture it must be forbidden, while in secular matters, if it was not prohibited by scripture, it was permitted.
But other left-Protestantisms even go beyond the Word, which yet supposes that only the literate can get into the game. Some decide that God speaks directly to us in a sort of continuing revelation, through the voice of conscience, or what Quakers cal l "the Inner Light." Quakers and Familists even held that this "Inner Light" had to guide any interpretation of Scripture. This fully democratizes religious discourse, putting everyone on the same level as clergy educated at Oxford or Cambridge. Elites saw the danger, as when even the Congregationalist Puritans in Massachusetts Bay attacked the Antinomianism of Anne Hutchinson. Even middle-class Protestants saw dangers if the lower classes should go beyond Biblical literalism to claim that God spoke d irectly to them.
As for flows of messages, Protestants worked to end the state censorship which had given a monopoly of communication to the established Church. If Gutenberg's press with movable type permitted wide availability of Bibles, it also permitted wide dissem ination of religious commentaries, especially in the 16th and 17th century pamphlets aimed at the widest possible literate audience. Even within congregations, Protestants reacted against a clerical monopoly over religious communications, typified in the extreme form when the English Quaker founder George Fox would in the mid-seventeenth century stand up after an Anglican sermon to give his "counter-sermon." If arrested, he would even preach when led off to jail, tied to a saddle (Wildes, 1965).
Thus while religions toward the right had stressed a predominantly one-way flow of messages from highest clergy toward the laity, aside from any rote responses from these, Protestantism gave voice to the laity, bringing them into a more active, articulate role even during church services. Volunteer "witnessing" becomes important to worship among some sects. Luther loved choir music and wrote lyrics for many hymns and music for many of them, too. Mass congregational singing becomes typical of Protestant churches.
Finally, in reinforcements of messages, as one moves left along the continuum, there is less and less reliance on state coercion to support clerical judgments of orthodoxy or heresy. Also, the increasingly trimmed Roman Catholic seven sacraments meant less dependency of the parishioners on the clergy, a dependency which had otherwise been avoided within Roman Catholicism by a rise in the cults of Mary and the saints as alternative intercessors with Christ. If the main Protestant wings accepted bapti sm and communion as sacraments, the Quakers denied the need for clergy even in those rites. Further, once the clergy were voted upon by the church members and made directly dependent on their voluntary contributions for their livings, clergy had to becom e more responsive to popular beliefs and aspirations. The declining deference to the clergy is typified in many ways. Unlike Roman Catholic practice, where the wine chalice in communion was reserved to the priests, it was extended to the laity by Protes tants. Only recently has the Catholic chalice been extended to the lips of laity, but now with concerns raised that it could spread disease! Protestants have long used separate cups for parishioners.
When pews were put into the Anglican churches in Britain in the 17th century (before then most would simply stand during church services), special ones were reserved for the landowning elites. But as Puritanism came to Maryland, one parish voted that persons should instead be assigned their pews by lot. The Quakers were even more emphatic about the need to challenge authority, and their meetings symbolize this by typically arranging chairs about a circle. As if complementing his notorious refusal to be deferential to either clerical or political potentates, George Fox and his followers would refuse to doff their hats to any merely human superior.
The State. Especially because religious and political discourses were so intertwined in the 17th century, preferences regarding the generation, delivery and reinforcement of messages within the religious sphere are roughly parallel in the secul ar sphere.
With regard to generation and delivery of political messages, the Protestants were to curtail coercive censorship of flows, even if only limited in the first instance to what John Milton's Areopagitica called "neighboring differences" (meaning t hat he would tolerate Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, possibly Baptists and Quakers, but not Roman Catholics). Milton and Locke ("Letter Concerning Toleration") would not only continue to muzzle Catholics but also atheists or other kinds of religious zealots who would encourage action undermining public order, such as undermining the sacred nature of promises so central to the liberal contractual order. Thus Zwingli attacks the Anabaptist (or Catabaptist) rejection of religious oaths: "Ta ke away the oath and you have dissolved all order....all order is overthrown when the oath is done away....Give up the oath in any state then according to the Catabaptists' desire, and at once the magistracy is removed and all things follow as they would have them. Good gods! What a confusion and upturning of everything!"("Refutation of Baptist Tricks," in Jackson, 1901, 208-9). The Zurcher tradesmen soon made Anabaptist rebaptizings of adults or even attendance at Anabaptist meetings capital of fenses(Williams, 1962, 142-44).
Yet Protestantism pointed toward democratization. The eventual expansion of the role of the House of Commons and enlargement of the suffrage would assure that by their votes more people could reinforce their political messages, if rivaled to this day by various forms of money influence over politicians. The whole pattern of deference to the upper classes was to be challenged by Protestant religio-political views.
Conclusion. By all streams of evidence, class adherence, policy preferences in sacred or secular spheres, and by institutional preferences of church and state reflecting structures, recruitment, and influence, the conclusion is clear: Reformati on theologies were practical politics, however the adherents may have understood themselves. Nothing retards understanding of political thought so much as letting attention to forms of discourse cause the neglect of its substance. Once we give primary a ttention to policy aims and only then turn to choices of political means such as institutional arrangements, or even more protean fashions in justificatory rhetorics, we would see that fundamentally similar political outlooks may be articulated through ch anging fashions in rhetorics. Thus while liberalism has changed its paramount rhetorics over time, in the 16th and 17th centuries the leading rhetoric of emergent liberalism was theological. I have retrieved some of the practical meanings of the theolog ies of early modern history, showing how various 17th century sects can be fitted to what we now call the left-right continuum.