(Please excuse the obnoxiously long title)…

The topics of religion and politics have always been intertwined in the material we’ve discussed for this course, but throughout the past couple of chapters in the narrative and in the source book, the in depth discussion of the various sects of Protestantism have been something I feel is noteworthy. From what I can gather, I feel that politically England was weakened as the number of dissenting sects of the Protestant religion grew. I argue that because the English government was attempting to have their monarchy be the head of both the Church and State, the constantly changing religious landscape made it increasingly difficult for the political realm to function efficiently.

On the religious side of things, since Protestantism was a relatively new creation in the early modern period, the rules that were to govern the new religion were regularly evolving and therefore consistently influencing how the English government was running. The recording and understanding of these new church laws required great effort by those of the nobility and the laity alike as they kept having to redefine how they practiced and lived out their faith. This influenced the political realm significantly in the governance of the monarch and the nobility. There is numerous accounts in the documents we’ve discussed of how much religion played a part in political affairs during the early modern period. The Christian faith motivated the actions of the government as a political body; it was an integral part of the decision making process, ranging across all foreign and domestic issues. I may be oversimplifying the situation, but I feel that if there had been a more set understanding of how the Protestant faith was to be practiced, it could’ve saved the English government quite a bit of time and effort.

Politically, the religious landscape was also being shaped by the monarchy and those in Parliament. The beliefs of those in power had a trickle down effect on the British people as they were often forced to change their practices to those dictated by, or deemed acceptable, to the monarchy and those in the Parliament. The political unrest during the early modern period helped to lay the groundwork for the religious factions to develop. As the common people became more literate, and Bibles were distributed throughout the empire, with each person seemingly being able to speak their mind on the matter of religion, there always was some sort of disagreement politically of how to handle this new religious expression. I am not stating that the government should’ve censored the people and their religious expression, I’m just saying that I think there would’ve been a lot less strife in English history during the early modern period if the leaders of the Protestant religion had followed their own initial ground rules.

My apologies if this seemed a bit like a rant, but I suppose that it kind of was. I simply was getting frustrated in the readings with the constant indecision of the religious and political landscapes of the time period. I hope that you found my viewpoint interesting though, and I’d definitely would like to hear yours.

I appreciate your reading this and again, please let me know what you think about this topic.