CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS

CHAPTER 15: RELIGION AND SCIENCE1450 – 1750

AP WORLD HISTORYWAYS OF THE WORLD

R. STRAYER

GLOBALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY

• Christianity was largely limited to Europe at the beginning of the modern era. In 1500 Christendom stretched from Spain to England and West Russia.

• Christianity was divided in to Roman Catholic of Western and Central Europe and Eastern Orthodox of Eastern Europe.

• Christian crusaders from their toeholdds in the Holy Land by 1300 with the Ottoman seizure of Constantinople in 1453.

• 1529 Muslim marked an advance into the heart of Central Europe.

PROTESTANT REFORMATION• The Reformation began in 1517 when priest Martin Luther

(1483-1546) publicly invited debate about various abuses within the Roman Catholic church (wrote a document called the 95 Theses – critics). – Church selling indulgences, corruption, immortality to some clergy etc.

• Martin Luther – talked about the new understanding to salvation, only through faith alone. Faith as a free gift.

• To Luther, religious authority in general, was not the teaching of the Church, but the Bible alone – interpreted according to owns conscience. (challenged the authority of the church)

Luther provoked massive schism, and social tensions as well as religious differences.

Protestants vs Catholics• The importance of protestants gave to reading the Bible for

oneself stimulated education and literacy for women (still viewed as housewives, under male supervision=.

• Reformation thinking spread quicky beyond German country. – Printing press

• Variety of Protestant churches: Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican, Quaker, Anabaptist (all of them with protestant denominations).

• French society was torn by violence between Catholics and Protestants known as Huguenots. = Edit of Nantes, which granted measure to religious tolerance.

• = Thirty Years War Catholic-Protestant struggle, Destructive war 15-30% German population died.

Counter Reformation• These conflicts, war = provoked the Counter Reformation

(catholic reformation). = Council of Trent (1545-1563) Catholics clarified their unique doctrines: Authority to pope, Priest celibacy, veneration of saints and relics, church tradition of good works.

• New religious orders evolved, such as the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), provided dedicated brotherhood of priests commited to the renewal of the Catholic Church. – Specially abroad.

Differences of Catholic and Protestants

CHRISTIANITY OUTWARD• Religion drove justified European ventures abroad. Brought

faith to many conquered homelands,• New England: Protestant version of Christianity in North

America. (emphasis on education, moral murity, civic responsability).

• Missionary orders: Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans took lead in Africa, Philippines and Latin America.

• Christianity represented major cultural tradition in Latin america.

• Europeans saw their political and military success as a demonstration of power of the Christian God.

• By 1700 millions accepted baptism, specially for women conversion was high, - prominence of Virgin Mary.

ASIAN COMPARISON: JESUITS AND CHINA

• Peoples of Spanish America had been defeated, their societies largely disrupted and cultural confidence shaken,

• China encountered Christianity between 16th century and 18th during prosperous Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912). There was NO cultural integrity threatened by European missionaries.

• China: Strong, Independent and Confident. Europeans needed permssion of Chinese authority to operate (missionaries).

• Jesuists were respectful of Chinese culture, pointing out the parallels between Confucianism and Christianity.

• Christian monogamy, require Chinese men to put away their concubines.

• Many expelled, and missionaries lost.

AFRO ASIAN CULTURAL TRADITIONS

African forms of religious ideas and practices accompanied slaves to the Americas (dream interpretation, visions, spirit possession) found a place in the Africanized versions of Christianity.Vodou in Haiti, Santeria in Cuba, Candomble and Macumba in Brazil persisted. – derived from West African traditions.

EXPANSION AND RENEWAL ISLAMIC WORLD

• The expansion of the Islamic frontier, a process of 1000 years, extended far. Conversion to Islam meant assimilating Islamic rituals, cosmologies and literatures.

• Islamization was not a product of conquering armies and expanding empires. Depended on holy men, sufis, Islamic scholars and traders. – Schools, Quran teachings.

• Some Islamic Slaves (Africa) practiced their faith in North America and Brazil.

• Southeast Asia illustrate the diversity of belief and practice. • Sumatra: Islamic law and dietary codes.• Java: Some women served in court.• India: Mughal Empire (toleration to Hinduism) until Aurangzeb

Arab world• Well known Islamic renewal movement: in Arabia;

Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab (1703-1792). • Al Wahhab upset about common religiois practices in

central arabia that seem to him as idolatry (veneration of saits or sufis) or even the respect to Muhammads tomb at Mecca.

• The Wahhabi movement took a new turn 1740s and tombs, were eliminated, idols or any images of sufis, eliminated.

• He authorize the stoning of a woman who comitted adultery, • He emphasized the rights of women within a partriarchal

Islamic framework.

CHINA: NEW DIRECTIONS• China during the Ming Dynasties continue to operate broadly

within a Confucian network, enriched now by the insights of Buddhism and Daoism = a new system of thought called NEO CONFUCIANISM.

• Chinese intellectuals to support the new dynasty, whithin this context, a considerable amount of controversy, debate, and new thinking emerged during the early modern era.

• Wan Yanming´s (intellectual thinker) ideas had undermined the Ming dynasty and contribuited to Chinas conquest. – By his contemplation, without education, study of classical texts of Confucianism.

• Elite culture in China took shape in a movement known as KAOZHENG, or “research based on evidence”. – seek for the truth trough facts.

INDIA: BRIDGING THE HINDU AND MUSLIM

• Hindus and Muslims together in a new form of religious expression. Another grew out of devotional form of Hinduism known as BHAKTI. – through songs, dances, poetry and prayers. Poets like Mirabai a high caste women who abandoned her upper class and declined sati.

• Another major cultural change that blended in Islam and Hinduism emerged with the growth of SIKHISM a new distinctive religious tradition. “There is no Hindu, no Muslim, only God” – the brotherhood of all mankind.

• They developed their own sacred book: Guru Granth

A NEW WAY OF THINKING: MODERN SCIENCE

• Vast intellectual and cultural transformations that took place between the mid sixteetn and 18th centuries.

• Men no longer rely on the authority of the Bible, Church. • Knowledge acquired through careful observations and

controlled experiments. Ex: Copernicus (Poland), Galileo (Italy), Descartes (France), Newton (England) = Scientific Revolution.

• Altered ideas about the place of humankind within the cosmos and challenged the teachings and the authority of the Church.

• Tecnological innovations of the Industrial Revolution fostered both marvels of modern production and horrors of modern means of destruction.

QUESTION OF ORIGINS: WHY EUROPE?• Why did the Scientific Revolution occur first in Europe?• 12th and 13th centuries, Europeans had evolved a legal system that

guaranteed a measure of independence for a variety of institutions- Church, towns, cities, guilds, associations and UNIVERSITIES.

• 1215 University of Paris grant licence to “teach”, Oxford, Cambridge and Salamanca became neutral zones of intellectual autonomy. Major Scientific Revolution had been trained with these universities.

• VS the Islam world – science was patronized by variety of local authorities. Quranic Studies and religious law held the central place. Quran held all wisdom and scientific thinking for them.

• China – focused on preparing for a rigidly set of civil service examination and emphasized the moral texts of Confucianism. Behaviour to authority.

SCIENCE AS CULTURAL REVOLUTION

• Scientific Revolution was revolutionary because it fundamentally challenged this understanding of the universe.

• Nicolas Copernicus – earth was no longer unique• Kepler – Planets followed orbits• Galileo – Telescope• Isaac Newton – culmination of the Scientific Revolution

came with his work: laws of motion and mechanics, gravity.

SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION THINKERS

SCIENCE AND ENLIGHTENMENT• Adam Smith (1723-1790) formulated laws that accounted for

the economy.• People started to believe in the term Enlightenment. – if

human reason could descover how the universe moved, surely we could discover ways to govern effectively.

• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) “Encourage to use your own understanding!” – knowledge to transform society.

• Enlightenment thinking was directed against the superstition, ignorance and corruption of established religion.

• People became also pantheists, who believed that God and Nature were identical. “Natural Religion”.

• Encyclopedias were printed, people started reading, thinking and sharing their ideas.

LOOKING AHEAD: NINETEENTH CENTURY

• Modern science was a cumulative and self critical enterprise, which led to new domains of human inquiry.

• Charles Darwin (1808-1882) laid complez argument that all life was in constant change, struggle for survival. (The Origins of Species (1859).

• Karl Marx (1818-1883) articulated a view on human history that emphasized on struggle, Conflicting social classes, slave owners and nobles, capitalits and workers. = historical transformation.

• Darwin and Marx believed strongly in progress, and education was a motor for progress.

• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) applied scientific techniques to operation of the human mind and emotions. Sexuality and aggression derived from civilization.

EUROPEAN SCIENCE BEYOND THE WEST

• European science had substantial impact on a number of Chinese scholars. Kaozheng thinkers interested in mathematics. – Chinese scholars assimilated ideas with their own terms (confucianism).

• Japan closed their country for West, when Dutch was permitted to trade (west books were imported) Japanese leaerned about medicine, astronomy, geography.

• Until the mid 19th century Japan was fully opened to Western penetration of European Science.

• Like China, Japan, the Ottoman Empire in the 16th & 17th centuries, were independent, powerful and successful societies. The elites saw no need to embrace European thinking. Ottoman scholars were conscious o the rich tradition of Muslim astronomy. Focused on making maps and calendars.

CULTURAL BORROWING AND ITS HAZARDS

• Ideas are important in human history, they shape the mental or cultural worlds that people everywhere inhabit, often influence the behaviour as well.

• Western Hemisphere solidly incorporated into Christendom. • Wahhabi version of Islam remains official faith of Saudi Arabia in

the 20th century and has influenced many contemporary Islamic revival movements.

• Cultural borrowing of Christianity into Native American peoples, Siberians, Filipinos.

• Asian and Africa borrowerd, scientific and medical ideas from the Islamic world.

• Many people accepted Christianity and Islam but not monotheism.• Elite Chinese more interested in mapmaking and maths.• Japanese fascinated with anatomical work of dutch.

CONSEQUENCES CULTURE BORROWING

• Borrowing culture frequently caused conflict.• Taki Onqoy movement in Peru VS Spanish• Chinese and Japanese VS European missionaries.

• To ease tensions, there were efforts to “domesticate” foreign ideas and practices. Jesuits in China tried to point out similarities between Christian and Confucianism. Native Americans identified Christian saints with their own gods and spirits.

• The pace of global corrowing and its associated tensions stepped up even more as Europes modern transformation unfolded in the 19th centuries.