The Berlin Cathedral, a United Protestant cathedral in Berlin

Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Although the Reformation was a religious movement, it also had a strong impact on all other aspects of life, including marriage and family, education, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy, and the arts.^[9] Protestant churches reject the idea of a celibate priesthood and thus allow their clergy to marry.^[22] Many of their families contributed to the development of intellectual elites in their countries.^[167] Since about 1950, women have entered the ministry in most Protestant churches, and some have assumed leading positions (e.g. bishops).

Protestantism has promoted economic growth and entrepreneurship, especially in the period after the Scientific and the Industrial Revolution.^[168]^[169] Scholars have identified a positive correlation between the rise of Protestantism and human capital formation,^[170] work ethic,^[171] economic development,^[172] the rise of early experimental science,^[173]^[174]^[175] and the development of the state system.^[176]

As the Reformers wanted all members of the church to be able to read the Bible, education on all levels was strongly encouraged. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the literacy rate in England was about 60 percent, in Scotland 65 percent, and in Sweden 80 percent.^[177] Colleges and universities were founded. For example, the Puritans who established Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1628 founded Harvard College only eight years later. About a dozen other colleges followed in the 18th century, including Yale (1701). Pennsylvania also became a center of learning.^[178]^[179]

Members of mainline Protestant denominations have played leadership roles in many aspects of American life, including politics, business, science, the arts, and education. They founded most of the country's leading institutes of higher education.^[180]

Thought and work ethic

The Protestant concept of God and man allows believers to use all their God-given faculties, including the power of reason. That means that they are allowed to explore God's creation and, according to Genesis 2:15, make use of it in a responsible and sustainable way. Thus a cultural climate was created that greatly enhanced the development of the humanities and the sciences.^[181] Another consequence of the Protestant understanding of man is that the believers, in gratitude for their election and redemption in Christ, are to follow God's commandments. Industry, frugality, calling, discipline, and a strong sense of responsibility are at the heart of their moral code.^[182]^[183] In particular, Calvin rejected luxury. Therefore, craftsmen, industrialists, and other businessmen were able to reinvest the greater part of their profits in the most efficient machinery and the most modern production methods that were based on progress in the sciences and technology. As a result, productivity grew, which led to increased profits and enabled employers to pay higher wages. In this way, the economy, the sciences, and technology reinforced each other. The chance to participate in the economic success of technological inventions was a strong incentive to both inventors and investors.^[184]^[185]^[186]^[187] The Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that influenced the development of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution. This idea is also known as the "Protestant ethic thesis".^[188]

However, eminent historian Fernand Braudel (d. 1985), a leader of the important Annales School wrote, "all historians have opposed this tenuous theory [the Protestant Ethic], although they have not managed to be rid of it once and for all. Yet it is clearly false. The northern countries took over the place that earlier had been so long and brilliantly been occupied by the old capitalist centers of the Mediterranean. They invented nothing, either in technology or business management."^[189] Social scientist Rodney Stark moreover comments that "during their critical period of economic development, these northern centers of capitalism were Catholic, not Protestant—the Reformation still lay well into the future",^[190] while British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper (d. 2003) said, "The idea that large-scale industrial capitalism was ideologically impossible before the Reformation is exploded by the simple fact that it existed."^[191]

In a factor analysis of the latest wave of World Values Survey data, Arno Tausch (Corvinus University of Budapest) found that Protestantism emerges to be very close to combining religion and the traditions of liberalism. The Global Value Development Index, calculated by Tausch, relies on the World Values Survey dimensions such as trust in the state of law, no support for shadow economy, postmaterial activism, support for democracy, a non-acceptance of violence, xenophobia and racism, trust in transnational capital and Universities, confidence in the market economy, supporting gender justice, and engaging in environmental activism, etc.^[192]

Episcopalians and Presbyterians, as well as other WASPs, tend to be considerably wealthier^[193] and better educated (having graduate and post-graduate degrees per capita) than most other religious groups in United States,^[194] and are disproportionately represented in the upper reaches of American business,^[195] law and politics, especially the Republican Party.^[196] Numbers of the most wealthy and affluent American families as the Vanderbilts, the Astors, Rockefellers, Du Ponts, Roosevelts, Forbes, Fords, Whitneys, Mellons, the Morgans and Harrimans are Mainline Protestant families.^[193]^[197]

Science

Protestantism has had an important influence on science. According to the Merton Thesis, there was a positive correlation between the rise of English Puritanism and German Pietism on the one hand and early experimental science on the other.^[198] The Merton Thesis has two separate parts: Firstly, it presents a theory that science changes due to an accumulation of observations and improvement in experimental technique and methodology; secondly, it puts forward the argument that the popularity of science in 17th-century England and the religious demography of the Royal Society (English scientists of that time were predominantly Puritans or other Protestants) can be explained by a correlation between Protestantism and the scientific values.^[199] Merton focused on English Puritanism and German Pietism as having been responsible for the development of the scientific revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries. He explained that the connection between religious affiliation and interest in science was the result of a significant synergy between the ascetic Protestant values and those of modern science.^[200] Protestant values encouraged scientific research by allowing science to identify God's influence on the world—his creation—and thus providing a religious justification for scientific research.^[198]

According to Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States by Harriet Zuckerman, a review of American Nobel Prizes awarded between 1901 and 1972, 72% of American Nobel Prize laureates identified a Protestant background.^[201] Overall, 84% of all the Nobel Prizes awarded to Americans in Chemistry,^[201] 60% in Medicine,^[201] and 59% in Physics^[201] between 1901 and 1972 were won by Protestants.

According to 100 Years of Nobel Prize (2005), a review of Nobel Prizes awarded between 1901 and 2000, 65% of Nobel Prize Laureates, have identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference (423 prizes).^[202] While 32% have identified with Protestantism in its various forms (208 prizes),^[202] although Protestants are 12% to 13% of the world's population.

Government

Church flags, as used by German Protestants.

During the Middle Ages, the Church and the worldly authorities were closely related. Martin Luther separated the religious and the worldly realms in principle (doctrine of the two kingdoms).^[203] The believers were obliged to use reason to govern the worldly sphere in an orderly and peaceful way. Luther's doctrine of the priesthood of all believers upgraded the role of laymen in the church considerably. The members of a congregation had the right to elect a minister and, if necessary, to vote for his dismissal (Treatise On the right and authority of a Christian assembly or congregation to judge all doctrines and to call, install and dismiss teachers, as testified in Scripture; 1523).^[204] Calvin strengthened this basically democratic approach by including elected laymen (church elders, presbyters) in his representative church government.^[205] The Huguenots added regional synods and a national synod, whose members were elected by the congregations, to Calvin's system of church self-government. This system was taken over by the other reformed churches^[206] and was adopted by some Lutherans beginning with those in Jülich-Cleves-Berg during the 17th century.

Politically, Calvin favored a mixture of aristocracy and democracy. He appreciated the advantages of democracy: "It is an invaluable gift, if God allows a people to freely elect its own authorities and overlords."^[207] Calvin also thought that earthly rulers lose their divine right and must be put down when they rise up against God. To further protect the rights of ordinary people, Calvin suggested separating political powers in a system of checks and balances (separation of powers). Thus he and his followers resisted political absolutism and paved the way for the rise of modern democracy.^[208] Besides England, the Netherlands were, under Calvinist leadership, the freest country in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It granted asylum to philosophers like Baruch Spinoza and Pierre Bayle. Hugo Grotius was able to teach his natural-law theory and a relatively liberal interpretation of the Bible.^[209]

Consistent with Calvin's political ideas, Protestants created both the English and the American democracies. In seventeenth-century England, the most important persons and events in this process were the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell, John Milton, John Locke, the Glorious Revolution, the English Bill of Rights, and the Act of Settlement.^[210] Later, the British took their democratic ideals to their colonies, e.g. Australia, New Zealand, and India. In North America, Plymouth Colony (Pilgrim Fathers; 1620) and Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628) practised democratic self-rule and separation of powers.^[211]^[212]^[213]^[214] These Congregationalists were convinced that the democratic form of government was the will of God.^[215] The Mayflower Compact was a social contract.^[216]^[217]

Rights and liberty

Thumb — Enlightenment philosopher John Locke argued for individual conscience, free from state control and helped influence the political ideology of Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers of the United States

Protestants also took the initiative in advocating for religious freedom. Freedom of conscience had a high priority on the theological, philosophical, and political agendas since Luther refused to recant his beliefs before the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire at Worms (1521). In his view, faith was a free work of the Holy Spirit and could, therefore, not be forced on a person.^[218] The persecuted Anabaptists and Huguenots demanded freedom of conscience, and they practiced separation of church and state.^[219] In the early seventeenth century, Baptists like John Smyth and Thomas Helwys published tracts in defense of religious freedom.^[220] Their thinking influenced John Milton and John Locke's stance on tolerance.^[221]^[222] Under the leadership of Baptist Roger Williams, Congregationalist Thomas Hooker, and Quaker William Penn, respectively, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania combined democratic constitutions with freedom of religion. These colonies became safe havens for persecuted religious minorities, including Jews.^[223]^[224]^[225]

The United States Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the American Bill of Rights with its fundamental human rights made this tradition permanent by giving it a legal and political framework.^[226] The great majority of American Protestants, both clergy and laity, strongly supported the independence movement. All major Protestant churches were represented in the First and Second Continental Congresses.^[227] In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the American democracy became a model for numerous other countries and regions throughout the world (e.g., Latin America, Japan, and Germany). The strongest link between the American and French Revolutions was Marquis de Lafayette, an ardent supporter of the American constitutional principles. The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was mainly based on Lafayette's draft of this document.^[228] The Declaration by United Nations and Universal Declaration of Human Rights also echo the American constitutional tradition.^[229]^[230]^[231]

Democracy, social-contract theory, separation of powers, religious freedom, separation of church and state—these achievements of the Reformation and early Protestantism were elaborated on and popularized by Age of Enlightenment thinkers. Some of the philosophers of the English, Scottish, German, and Swiss Enlightenment—Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, John Toland, David Hume, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Christian Wolff, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau—had Protestant backgrounds.^[232] For example, John Locke, whose political thought was based on "a set of Protestant Christian assumptions",^[233] derived the equality of all humans, including the equality of the genders ("Adam and Eve"), from Genesis 1, 26–28. As all persons were created equally free, all governments needed "the consent of the governed".^[234]

Also, other human rights were advocated for by some Protestants. For example, torture was abolished in Prussia in 1740, slavery in Britain in 1834 and in the United States in 1865 (William Wilberforce, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln—against Southern Protestants).^[235]^[236] Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf were among the first thinkers who made significant contributions to international law.^[237]^[238] The Geneva Convention, an important part of humanitarian international law, was largely the work of Henry Dunant, a reformed pietist. He also founded the Red Cross.^[239]

Social teaching

Protestants have founded hospitals, homes for disabled or elderly people, educational institutions, organizations that give aid to developing countries, and other social welfare agencies.^[240]^[241]^[242] In the nineteenth century, throughout the Anglo-American world, numerous dedicated members of all Protestant denominations were active in social reform movements such as the abolition of slavery, prison reforms, and woman suffrage.^[243]^[244]^[245] As an answer to the "social question" of the nineteenth century, Germany under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck introduced insurance programs that led the way to the welfare state (health insurance, accident insurance, disability insurance, old-age pensions). To Bismarck this was "practical Christianity".^[246]^[247] These programs, too, were copied by many other nations, particularly in the Western world.

The Young Men's Christian Association was founded by Congregationalist George Williams, aimed at empowering young people.

Liturgy

Arts

The arts have been strongly inspired by Protestant beliefs.

Martin Luther, Paul Gerhardt, George Wither, Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, William Cowper, and other authors and composers created well-known church hymns.

Musicians like Heinrich Schütz, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Henry Purcell, Johannes Brahms, Philipp Nicolai and Felix Mendelssohn composed great works of music.

Prominent painters with Protestant background were, for example, Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Lucas Cranach the Younger, Rembrandt, and Vincent van Gogh.

World literature was enriched by the works of Edmund Spenser, John Milton, John Bunyan, John Donne, John Dryden, Daniel Defoe, William Wordsworth, Jonathan Swift, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edgar Allan Poe, Matthew Arnold, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, Theodor Fontane, Washington Irving, Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Thomas Stearns Eliot, John Galsworthy, Thomas Mann, William Faulkner, John Updike, and many others.

Luther Monument in Worms, which features some of the Reformation's crucial figures
The International Monument to the Reformation in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Adoration of the Trinity by Albrecht Dürer
The Crucifixion of Christ by Lucas Cranach the Elder
Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Younger
A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew's Day, Refusing to Shield Himself from Danger by Wearing the Roman Catholic Badge by John Everett Millais.
The Return of the Prodigal Son, a 1669 portrait by Rembrandt
The Church at Auvers, 1890. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, by Vincent van Gogh.