[nathanbedford]

Let me put it this way for you: the medieval church sanctified and apologized for a governing system we call feudalism which puts God on top and the King or the Pope (they battled incessantly for the honor) as a divinely ordained and therefore unchallengeable, then the nobility and finally the peasantry.

Under this arrangement there was no communication between man and God except by way of intercession of the church. Until the divine right of kings was shattered there was no hope of an expression of all men being created equal. That medieval epistemology could not be shattered so long as the will of God was exclusively determined by the clergy and the secular authority was not only endorsed but sanctified by the clergy.

The 95 thesis began the process of unraveling all of that and initiated a re-knitting, new understanding of the relationship between man and God, man and sovereign and man and man which ultimately led to a new epistemology so eloquently and economically described in the Declaration of Independence.

[vladimir998]

There are some mistakes in your mini-treatise.

“Under this arrangement there was no communication between man and God except by way of intercession of the church.”

That is patently false - or else no lay person would have prayed in the Middle Ages yet they did daily even hourly.

“Until the divine right of kings was shattered there was no hope of an expression of all men being created equal.”

Except the “divine right” of kings was an idea that showed up late in the Middle Ages and flourished well into the early modern era - including in Protestant countries. Apparently you’ve never heard of the Basilikon Doron of James VI of Scotland.

[sasportas]

To any unbiased individual, it should be obvious the dramatic effect the Reformation had on the flow of history. Before the Reformation, aptly named “the dark ages,” a totalitarian scripture-suppressing system ruled Europe, enter the Reformation, enter William Tyndale, who said of the Papacy:

While I am sowing in one place, they ravage the field I have just left. I cannot be everywhere. If Christians had the Scriptures in their own tongue, they could themselves withstand these sophists: without the Bible it is impossible to establish the laity in the truth. If God give me life, ere many years the ploughboys shall know more of the Scriptures than you do.

The availability of the Bible, the word of God, was an emancipation to Europe, being emancipated from the chains of political-ecclesiastical slavery individual freedom began to spring up everywhere. It bore great fruit in Britain, but the greatest expression of it was to be in America.

Traced to its roots, it is to the Bible Americans owe their great system of liberty.

Totalitarian Romanists hate Sola Scriptura, like the totalitarian communist left hates the Constitution. The former sees Sola Scriptura the enemy, the latter sees both their enemy.

[paladinan]

Let me put it this way for you: the medieval church

Stop there, for a moment. Since I'm a stickler for logic and proper use of terms (and since many anti-Catholics use the word "medieval" as a sort of swear word--rather than as a genuine descriptor of a time period, as any rational historian would do): could you please tell me the date (during the medieval period) when this alleged "Papal coup" took place? Rounding to the nearest decade is fine.

sanctified and apologized for a governing system we call feudalism which puts God on top and the King or the Pope (they battled incessantly for the honor) as a divinely ordained and therefore unchallengeable, then the nobility and finally the peasantry.

Forgive me, but: regarding both the terms and the concepts, I see no evidence that you know what you're talking about, on this particular point. First of all: feudalism was a tremendous step UPWARD from its preceding systems (i.e. slavery), and it involved a local lord/noble exchanging protection and stability for fealty from the serfs and peasants. It was hardly the monstrosity you make it out to be. Secondly: I hardly think you'd object to "God on top", right? Thirdly: "king or Pope" is a slippery bit of opinion-laden, content-free editorial, on your part... which served only to express the fact that you have disdain for both.

Under this arrangement there was no communication between man and God except by way of intercession of the church.

Where on earth are you getting this nonsense? "No communication"? You mean to say that the Catholic Church forbade people to pray? That's news to me (and to the rest of the world which follows history instead of polemics). Yes, the Church is necessary... because Christ founded it, and because He established it as the pillar and foundation of the truth (cf. 1 Timothy 3:15). But to say that there was "no communication" between God and men by any indirect means is simply silly.

Until the divine right of kings was shattered there was no hope of an expression of all men being created equal.

So... you think Christ should have represented Himself as a president or prime minister (or some other egalitarian, democratic/republic-based figure), rather than the King of Kings? The presence or absence of a king has absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that all men are created equal, in the Image and Likeness of God. Any suggestion to the contrary is simple fantasy and fluff.

Luther's 95 Theses (have you actually read them?) contained some legitimate complaints (against abuses perpetrated by individual clerics) mixed with a jumbled mess of misunderstandings, heresies, and incoherencies. He invented his unbiblical ideas of "sola Scriptura" and "sola fide" out of whole cloth, and used them to anoint himself "his own pope", by which he gave himself permission to do whatever he wished, morally (including endorsement of polygamy [cf. Philip of Hesse], encouraging others to sin [cf. Jerome Weller], and a potty-mouth which would get his writings barred from most public recitations, were they to be rendered in equivalent English). Rarely has a man been more responsible for more moral and religious disaster than was Luther (and Calvin, and the other notable heresiarchs).

Suffice it to say that the Declaration of Independence could easily have been written by a faithful Catholic; the fight against tyranny isn't the sole province of Protestantism (nor did Protestantism always encourage it--cf. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc., who all benefited from the protection of sympathetic lords and princes--Luther owed his life to some of them, in fact).

Hint: when one finds that one needs to rewrite history in order to make a claim, then that claim is probably not a true one.

[vladimir998]

Democracy not a “child of the Reformation”

Modern democracy is often asserted to be the child of the Reformation. Nothing is farther from the truth. Robert Filmer, private theologian of James I of England, in his theory of Divine right, proclaimed, The king can do no wrong. The most sacred order of kings is of Divine right. John Neville Figgis, who seems little inclined to give Catholicism undue credit, makes the following assertions. Luther based royal authority upon Divine right with practically no reservation (Gerson to Grotius, p. 61). That to the Reformation was in some sort due the prevalence of the notion of the Divine Right of Kings is generally admitted. (Divine Right of Kings, p. 15). The Reformation had left upon the statute book an emphatic assertion of unfettered sovereignty vested in the king (ibid. p. 91). Luther denied any limitation of political power either by Pope or people, nor can it be said that he showed any sympathy for representative institutions; he upheld the inalienable and Divine authority of kings in order to hew down the Upas tree of Rome. There had been elaborated at this time a theory of unlimited jurisdiction of the crown and of non-resistance upon any pretense (Cambridge Modern History, Vol III, p. 739). Wycliffe would not allow that the king be subject to positive law (Divine Right of Kings, p. 69). Lord Acton wrote: Lutheran writers constantly condemn the democratic literature that arose in the second age of the Reformation....Calvin judged that the people were unfit to govern themselves, and declared the popular assembly an abuse (History of Freedom, p. 42).

A closer study of the Declaration of Independence discloses its dissimilarity with the social-contract or compact theories as explained with slight variations, by Rousseau, Hobbes, Locke, Puffendorf, Althusius, Grotius, Hooker, Kant, or Fichte. The American Declaration, like the political doctrine of Cardinal Bellarmine, declared political power as coming, in the first instance, from God, but as vested in a particular ruler by consent of the multitude or the people as a political body. The social-contract or compact theories sought the source of political power in an assumed social contract or compact by which individual rights contributed or yielded their individual rights to create a public right. Contracts of individuals can create individual rights only, not public or political rights. According to the American Declaration and Cardinal Bellarmine, government implies powers which never belonged to the individual and which, consequently, he could never have conferred upon society. The individual surrenders no authority. Sovereignty receives nothing from him. Government maintains its full dignity, it is of Divine origin, but vested in one or several individuals by popular consent.

The names of Montesquieu, Rousseau, and James Berg are often mentioned as possibly having influenced the spirit and contents of our American Declaration. The Spirit of Laws by Montesquieu, though read in America, did not present that theory of government which was sought by the Fathers of our Country. Rousseau’s writings were less widely known than Montesquieu’s. George Mason, not knowing French, in all probability never read the Contract social nor had Rousseau’s writings obtained currency in Virginia in 1776. The book of James Berg appeared in 1775, rather too late to have rendered service in May of 1776, even if it had discussed such general principles as are laid down in these two American Declarations.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/common-misconceptions/catholic-sources-and-the-declaration-of-independence.html

[Campion]

Until the divine right of kings was shattered

The "Divine Right of Kings" was an English Protestant idea, not a Catholic one.