The Reformation was more of a religious movement than political movement in the perspective of its influence to the world today. Religiously, Catholicism is not the sole Christianity the people in Western Europe follows anymore, which is the result of the Reformation. The different Protestant Sects that grew out of the Reformation gave people different choices as to the kind of Christianity they believe in, and moreover weaken the Catholic Church’s dominance in religious, worldly, and political affairs. The political impact of the Reformation today is limited because the Catholic Church’s decline of political influence was to come as a process as we move into the Modern Era, just as how Edward Gibbon argues that the Fall of Rome is a process, not an event. Religious freedom was to come, since people in the Medieval period have already begin to question the Church. The Reformation was defined by the struggle between the Church and the Protestants to create a new definition of Christianity. If the Church didn’t struggle against the Protestants, then Reformation wouldn’t be such a big deal because new sects of Christianity would have just grown naturally without such a big political and religious struggle produced by the Church. But every institution on the planet, as a result humanity’s influence, would produce a struggle to try to eliminate a rising competitor come against it. There are countless examples of revolutions between rebels and the power wielding state. The Reformation was an imminent process just like how every revolution in the world is: A change in political power as a result of inevitable, flagrant corruption. When we look back into history, the revolutions are natural to us just like how a political upheaval today would be shocking to us. We will deem it unnatural because we are the people present, but it is all just an imminent process to the people in the future. Nevertheless, the Reformation is both a political and religious movement. Lives of the people back then were changed both politically and religiously. It is just that its influence to humanity is much greater in terms of religion than politics.
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