All Things Expounded

“Although the Reformation manifested itself in various ways in different areas of Europe, it shared a number of common denominators. The feudal nobility and the Roman Catholic church hierarchy suffered a loss of power and prestige, which benefited the bourgeois middle class and the monarchs of Europe’s emerging nation states. Regions such as The Netherlands, which were formerly under Spanish or German domination, gained independence, and even in areas where Catholicism prevailed, religious independence gelled through the wide dissemination of Christian literature and Bible translations in the vernacular instead of Latin. Education was stimulated through the establishment of numerous schools and became accessible to the new new middle classes. This, in turn, cultivated a spirit of individualism and critical thinking.

This spirit of individualism which Protestantism fostered was to have long-ranging effects on Western culture. It was a catalyst in the development of democratic forms of governments which further undermined the medieval political and ecclesiastical hierarchies. This opened the door to the elimination of religious restrictions on trade and banking, removing a large obstacle to the development of modern capitalism.”

from The Fall of Christendom and the Rise of the Church by Peter Pikkert, p200-2001