this is an incredible resource thanks for posting have just listened to 20 hours of Reformation History and Audible along with about another 12 hours on the Papacy Bless you for your free gift to the world

Can't wait to get through these videos! Thank you so much for taking the time to create these!

I enjoy your lectures. Really helps my understanding of Medieval history and the central role of religion in everyday life

Thank you! I've always wondered about the passion of the "catholic vs. protestant" argument in some second and third generation German immigrants to the U.S. Really can be a problem.

thumbs up!!! thank you Ryan. Im learning.

thank you for these videos.

excellent content and delivery

Great summary of the Reformation. Although a painting of what looks like Philip instead of Charles is provided suggesting Philip as emperor.

Wonderful lecture of our diverse and painful faith story.

Thank you for the great educating content sir :) . Much appreciated, considering there is not much out there covering these interesting topics. Cheers

@RyanReevesM

9 жыл бұрын

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.

@lobogo777

9 жыл бұрын

Ryan Reeves Are you going to touch the Religious wars of the 16th century and the 30 yrs war any time soon ? :)

@RyanReevesM

9 жыл бұрын

lobogo777 // Not soon but it's coming. The plan right now is to finish the early and medieval periods and this playlist focusing exclusively on Luther and Calvin. However, the very next thing slated is to do Reformation to modern history and I'm already sketching those videos now. So I would think by mid-summer at the latest those subjects will be up. It's a pretty amazing period of history so I can't wait to cover it.

@MatthewMcVeagh

9 жыл бұрын

Ryan Reeves I look forward to this as the 30 Years War is one of my favourite history subjects and it's woefully under-discussed in the English-language world. Are you planning to do something on the radical reformers too? I'd like to understand Anabaptism, Puritanism etc. better.

@RyanReevesM

9 жыл бұрын

Matthew McVeagh // Hey Matt. Yep, I will finish up the medieval period here in the next few weeks and also the Luther Calvin playlist. After that I move immediately to start the 'Reformation to Modern' videos, which will go through each of those topics in detail. Should be fun. :)

There is a certain sense in which the reformation has taken on too much importance. Too many people have let their attitudes be formed and informed by the Reformation arguments without realizing that both Catholic and Protestant churches have grown and changed since that pivotal time. In particular, Catholicism in the post-Vatican II era is considerably different in practice and tone from the church that Martin Luther left. On the Protestant side, what was once a fairly coherent voice has been broken into 10,000 or even 100,000 individual voices, each loudly proclaiming their own version of the truth. It is this never-ending fractionation in Protestantism that lead so many rationalists to throw out all religion and espouse relativism. In many ways, the Reformation is the wound in the body of Christ that never heals.

@RyanReevesM

9 жыл бұрын

Hey there. I am coming at it from the other direction, so the question of importance is not so much harping on the past but rather explaining its widespread effects. In my years of teaching I do not believe the Reformation is made a big deal of, per se, at least not in terms of understanding what it was REALLY about. There are slogans and vague impressions of the split, but often no real substantive exploration as to the context of medieval faith and the Reformation critique of several of those elements. I do agree that it is a wound and I always stress in lectures that the reformers were not simply rebellious folks who wanted to rip the church apart. But if there was a 'divorce' then it stands to reason that exploring the roots of the problem would be helpful--at least as helpful as appealing to how much both sides have changed. Both sides have changed certainly, but I'm an historian, so this is where I do my work.:) One quibble I have is the claim that Protestants have broken up into groups who proclaim their own truth. The varieties of denominationalism is often driven by non-essential differences of practice and worship (though denominations have not been on their best behavior at expressing unity). The Catholic church, too, has always had a variety of expressions and emphases within it, only they have the unity of the papacy and magisterium to hold it all together. Take the papacy off the top of the middle ages and you have a similar diversity of theological expressions that easily would have developed into something similar to denominations. I do in the video admit that there has to be some accounting for the Enlightenment stemming from the Reformation. I would ask, though: were there not heinous issues in Catholic treatment of Protestants that can be owned by modern Catholics? Or the role of poor leadership in provoking Luther's excommunication? Surely there's more than 'The Reformation was a wound but we're grown up now after Vatican II'?

@dlwatib

9 жыл бұрын

Ryan Reeves My reaction is not so much with what you've said, but what I've heard parroted to me from ignorant Protestants over the years who continue to use the same old touchstones of the past in their arguments without any clue that they are 4 or 5 centuries out of date. I can readily admit that the Catholic church has been at times extremely overbearing. But that is not my own experience with the church. It's been my pleasure to have had some extremely warm and concerned and winsome pastors in the Catholic church who are not about lording it over their congregations. Yet when I tell Protestants that, they look at me like I just claimed to be best friends with the devil himself! My experience is not alone. J R R Tolkien's pastor went far beyond what was expected of him when he took in two orphan Tolkien boys and raised them to adulthood. Many people benefit daily from the charities of the Catholic church. Even at the height of the controversy, Catholic theology was not fairly represented in Protestant arguments. Catholicism has never been about being saved by our own merits. That's a gross distortion and needs to be expunged from the toolkit of every thinking Protestant. Catholics do believe unequivocally that it is Christ's merits, not our own, that saves us. Substitutionary theology did not arise among Protestants. It was already extant in Catholicism. But Catholics do insist upon giving James his due, and properly understanding faith. Faith is not a single one-time assent to certain dogmas. It's not a set-it-and-forget-it act. Instead, it's an ongoing attitude that informs and transforms our lives. Without works, faith is dead. Jesus tells a parable about a man who asks his sons to go work in the fields. One son says "Yes I will" and never goes. The other says "I refuse" but then changes his mind and goes to work. Jesus makes clear that it is not the assent alone that pleases the father. Advancing the debate can never take place while Protestants refuse to engage with the real Catholic church, but instead build their own strawmen in order to more easily win the fight. But to objective unchurched onlookers, Protestants are a wild and crazy collection of Don Quixotes tilting at windmills. They care not that Protestants agree 95% with each other and with Catholics. They only care that there is no unity there, and therefore no voice of authority that stands above the rest. In a certain sense, it makes it even worse that Protestants divide at the drop of the hat over the most inconsequential of issues. To non-Protestants fractionation of authority is a big deal and a clear breach of the peace of God. If the church is being guided by the Holy Spirit such events should be extremely rare, and always reconciliation and agreement to live in diversity within a single family should be preferred.

@RyanReevesM

9 жыл бұрын

dlwatib // Yeah I hear you. I started posting these lectures publically to be at least a voice of historical sanity. I'm making sure not to come across as snobby or exasperated at the current level of conversation, but it would be easy to do so. I've had as many overly-simplistic Catholic statements about Protestantism (mostly that we are anti-nomian and unthinking apes). My mother is Catholic though, so I guess I have it in my dna to weigh these things historically. Also my training in history won't let me resort to slogans. For me, many of the opportunities for thinking Catholics and Protestants to have a clear conversation about merit, justification, and works in the Christian life came about only as a result of the Reformation controversy. There was a great deal of confusion and craziness in the later middle ages on these subjects, which in part explains Luther's rhetoric of calling Catholicism 'works righteousness'. He's a walking hyperbole machine. But there was at the time significant representation within the theological world of Luther's day who may as well have been fully Pelagian. So the conversation is improving--or at least I hope it is. JPII said before he did that Luther should be praised as a man seeking after the proper understanding of justification, which certainly could not have been said prior to the 20th century by a pope. Of course now there's Francis, who's a whole new ball of wax...

@lindamcgrath2461

7 жыл бұрын

dlwatib and Ryan Reeves I enjoyed reading your comments to each other. Thanks to the both of you for your intelligent and sincere discussions. I've read them a few times already and will read them again. You've both said so much worth pondering. Thank you so much.

@lindamcgrath2461

7 жыл бұрын

dlwatib she

Usery

As a Christian I have come to the conclusion that the current state of the organized church, both Protestant and Catholic, is that of a quagmire. I consider it essential for a Christian, if he is to have any intellectual peace, to once and forever recognize the difference between faith and religion. I have come to base my hopes and dreams all upon faith and not at all upon religion. If this leaves me vulnerable to relevatism, so be it. Here I stand.

@henryv4222

7 жыл бұрын

Jesus hung on a cross, died so we might live, gave us the Word via apostles and is knowable through the Holy Spirit. What did the pope do? He is only a man.