Though 2024 is not yet over, it seems safe to declare this a year of anxiety. The aftereffects of the Covid pandemic are still being felt, the world economy seems unusually fragile, war rages in Ukraine and the Middle East, and Americans have endured one of the strangest and most bitter presidential campaigns in history. None of this has come as a complete shock: we knew at the beginning of 2024 that it would be an ordeal by fire.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Half a millennium ago, as Europeans entered the year 1524, they were gazing at the heavens in trepidation, fearful of a Grand Conjunction that was set to occur. Johann Stöffler, a professor at the University of Tübingen who counted the reformer Philip Melanchthon among his former students, correctly predicted that in February all seven planets would align in the region of Pisces. He took this as proof that a great upheaval would soon strike the earth on the order of the deluge of Noah.
That will show an indubitable transformation, change, and reversal over nearly the entire world, the climate zones, empires, countries, cities and classes, in insensible creatures, the creatures of the sea, and everything born on earth, as forsooth has not been heard of for many years, neither by historians nor by the forefathers.
Many of Stöffler’s readers took this prediction with deadly seriousness. After all, the past few years had already brought a sea change in how they understood God, their institutions, and religious practice. They even viewed themselves differently, for they were being told that marital procreation was just as righteous as monastic celibacy.
But as spring turned to summer and summer to autumn, they were given a more pressing reason to fear, for the peasants of the German empire ceased harvesting wheat with their scythes and began cutting down men. By 1525, it was the largest popular rebellion in European history, with perhaps 100,000 peasants perishing at the hands of better armed princes while the words of apocalyptic preachers rang in their ears. Even theologians like Martin Luther suspected the end of the world was nigh. Writing to his brother-in-law at the height of the rebellion, Luther’s mood turned dark.
If it be God’s will, let us suffer it and call them lords, as the Scripture calls the devil prince and lord. May God keep all good Christians from honoring and worshiping them as the devil tried to make Christ worship him. Let us withstand them by word and deed as long as ever we can and then die for it in God’s name.
The crumbling of institutions, political radicalization, novel teaching on human sexuality! Though separated by half a millennium, our historical moment bears similarities to theirs. As if knowing he would later be seen as a predecessor of the global Left, Thomas Müntzer led the peasants into battle beneath a rainbow flag—only he meant it to symbolize the days of Noah when God destroyed the world with water and made it anew.
If history is the thing that rhymes, our moment is a paired couplet with the Reformation moment.
Perhaps you’ve heard a story like this: In the 1950s, Americans were joiners. They attended a church, played in a sports league, led a girl or boy scout troupe, and were card carrying members of a political party. Then over the course of seven decades, they stopped doing those things and embraced hyper individualism, coming home not to a warm meal prepared by their wife but an Uber Eats delivery and Netflix subscription.
The story gets repeated ad nauseam because it contains a significant amount of truth. As political scientist Robert D. Putnam famously observed in his 2000 book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, we are no longer joiners. But this social shift is not due to individualism or technological progress alone. People have also lost faith in institutions that have long defined American life.
Here we could point to innumerable scandals that sowed seeds of doubt in the public consciousness: clergy sexual abuse, the corruption at Enron and high stakes gambling at Lehman Brothers, one president forced to resign and two impeached (the second twice over), sexual abuse by boy scout leaders, the cynical profiteering of Purdue Pharma, etc. Whether we are talking about officials at FIFA, The Weinstein Company, The New York Times, or a major state university, few institutions have managed to escape scandal, and the public has noticed. Gallup’s annual poll measuring public confidence in U.S. institutions reached new lows in 2023.
The Reformation was characterized by similar loss of faith in institutions, and for people living in sixteenth century Europe, nearly every institution was somehow tied to the mother of them all. The Roman Church with its vast network of monasteries and cathedral schools is typically credited with keeping Western European society afloat during the Middle Ages, but the Reformation ended papal hegemony and brought the dissolution of much of the monastic system. This occurred not simply (or perhaps even chiefly) because average people had begun to doubt the church’s theology, but in response to a perceived web of corruption on which the Roman curia sat, seemingly eager to feed upon its victims.
The schism which characterized the Avignon papacy was followed by the sexual profligacy of the Borgias and the militant papacy of Julius II, even as the indulgence trade reached its apex. This all became fodder for propagandists employing Gutenberg’s new printing machine. The dawn of mass media increased awareness of corruption in the Church, the overarching institution of the day. Many concluded that the Roman Church could no longer be trusted, and that they would have to completely rebuild Christianity.
Deconstruction has a long history.
Martin Luther was a far more conservative figure than he is often portrayed. In the 1520s, his message of limited and targeted reform was increasingly drowned out by those who favored a complete revocation of historic tradition.
As the Anabaptist movement rose to prominence behind individuals like Thomas Müntzer, it called for an end to the feudal system, oathtaking, and many forms of civic participation. But though there were differences of opinion among the radicals on political issues, they were all certain of one thing: those who agreed with them were on God’s side, and their opponents were aligned with the devil.
This kind of “all or nothing” rhetoric increased the breakdown of relationships occurring due to the Reformation. Philip Melanchthon’s great-uncle, the famed Hebrew scholar Johannes Reuchlin, had already written the younger man out of his will due to religious differences. Now came a wave of political violence that threatened to sweep away the governing structures of the empire along with those of the Roman Church. Defunding the police would have been child’s play to these radicals who sought to destroy the entire political order. Being part of the wrong political faction led to persecution, imprisonment, and even execution.
Similarly, we find ourselves in 2024 bemoaning political radicalization as both Left and Right head for the extremes, not only in the United States, but throughout much of the Western world. Opponents are increasingly labeled “traitors” and “fascists,” and political rallies often carry the stench of violence, if not the substance thereof. Those on the Left are less likely to have any social dealings with those on the Right, and vice versa. Every election is cloaked in apocalyptic language as “the most important election of our lifetime” and “the last chance to save democracy.” Research by organizations like the Carnegie Endowment has demonstrated that our elected representatives are more polarized than they were a generation ago.
Politics has changed a lot over the past 500 years, but the sense of growing radicalization has not.
Sitting in 2024, the sexual revolution seems to be driving on without end, leaving fallen kingdoms in its wake. While we have certainly seen partial reversals at times (The second Trump presidency may prove to be one of these), the overall trend has been toward greater libertinism, with consent the only remaining barrier around sexual activity. The rate at which Western society has decided first that homosexual activity should not be criminalized, then that same-sex marriage should be legal, then that transgenderism should be fully embraced has created a feeling of whiplash for many.
Of course, this progression has been neither as smooth nor as direct as the popular narrative suggests. Each step in that ideological evolution may seem inevitable to us now, but there have always been contingencies: moments when we could have concluded a certain step was a step too far. But at the heart of this movement toward libertinism, there has been the belief that sexual activity and identity are not linked to personal righteousness.
At the time of the Reformation, it was still widely assumed that sex was something a person did and certain sexual actions were unrighteous, such that to engage in them would make a person unrighteous and in need of spiritual cleansing. However, the Reformation brought an end to the more than one-thousand-year-old Christian assumption that a celibate life in holy orders was the height of personal righteousness, as opposed to taking up a secular vocation, marrying, and having children. Formal statements of celibacy’s superiority may have been less common in the medieval period, but there was a widespread belief that the real heroes of society were celibates who lived righteously on behalf of everyone else. Procreation was necessary for humanity’s survival (and thus that of the Church), but it ought to be strictly curtailed, or so the Church taught. To separate the sexual act from attempted procreation was believed to be sinful.
By contrast, the Protestant reformers taught that those in holy orders were not required to take vows of celibacy, they could not be righteous on behalf of others in any case, and secular vocations were just as valid as sacred ones. Martin Luther’s marriage in 1525 to Katharina von Bora, which led to the birth of six children, was seen as a model in this regard.
Western Europeans therefore had to adjust their expectations for themselves and their children. No longer would rich families gift one or more of their children to the Church as perpetual celibates. No longer would celibates spend their lives saying Mass on behalf of others. The treasury of merits stored up by mostly celibate saints was closed and the keys of the kingdom handed over to individual believers. The reformers even came to see sexual activity between spouses as useful not only for producing children and avoiding fornication, but also for the mutual pleasure and comfort it provided.
Therefore, the Reformation and sexual revolution are both watershed moments in the history of Western thought about sex and gender. The Reformation redefined what kind of sexual expression was righteous. The sexual revolution declared that righteousness had little or nothing to do with the matter.
I could list other ways the tumultuous years of the Reformation are like our own, but these will suffice for the moment. As we approach the close of 2024 and hope for a better 2025, it is helpful to remember that others have walked in our shoes (or something very like them). They endured earth shattering events, even as we will. The stories of their lives and how they persevered in faith are useful reminders as we seek to expand our own faith.
Fear not, beloved. The world is still turning, and God is still on the throne.