第七章：遗产

原书及其作者：牛津通识读本系列丛书，或者“A Very Short Introduction series”，一个非常高质量的学科入门读本系列。16到17世纪左右，这段宗教改革的故事从近乎偏执于原教旨的圣经解读出发，最终却落在了催生多元社会的终点上。

系列上一篇：Others | 非我族类 

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Chapter 7 Legacy

 

>p132 The beating heart of Protestantism was not in any case unfettered enquiry, but deference to an authoritative text, and throughout our period there were plenty of Protestants who opposed heliocentrism on the basis of the Book of Joshua’s reference to the Sun ‘standing still’ at Gibeon, just as today plenty of Protestants oppose evolution on the basis of the Creation account in Genesis. Christian fundamentalism has its roots in the certainties of the Reformation.

• 宗教改革是时代的产物，当时已经严重僵化的天主教和教会系统催生出了自己的挑战者。那么挑战之后呢？新教改革带来了整一轮社会规范的重新洗牌，新教首先承担了一个修补、改善，和挑战者的角色，而社会规范撕裂之后的必然程序就是重建，建设比破坏更考验一个东西的本质内核。脱离了挑战者身份标签的新教，和受到刺激后自己也有所改变的天主教在这个层面上又回到了同样的起跑线。

>p133-134 These are all ways of saying that the principal legacies of the Reformation were the fact of division, and the emergence of strategies for coping with that fact. …… The religious stalemate in Europe and America had consequences for what we can recognize as the emergence of the ‘secular’ state and the practice of religion within it. If no single religious ideal was able to serve as the unifying and integrative principle of society, then shared identities, rights, and obligations had to be reconstituted on some other basis, like respect for an abstract concept of law, or common national pride. …… Modern Europe’s pluralistic and broadly tolerant society does not represent an inevitable triumph of progress, but the specific historical outcome of a contested religious past.

• 社会面貌都是由历史塑造的，历史事件不断叠加，而形成一个历史事件的因素往往都有许多是偶然。

• 历史事件的起因或者初衷和所造成的结果往往相去万里，放在一个比较宏观的层次上来看，许多政策也是这样，为了解决某个问题而产生的决策并不一定就会往解决问题的方向去，人的心里认为自己想要达成什么目标和实际行为会产生什么样的影响是完全分开的。理解手段与目标之间的确切关系需要的是基于实际的考察和研究，理解看得见的现象是由哪些看不见的因素所造成，因而理解想要改变现状的真正方向在哪，是复杂而务实的思维活动。而社会运动裹挟的是全社会，这种复杂而缓慢的思维往往不能在人潮中迅速成型并掌握影响力。许多社会运动，经过了足够的历史沉淀之后来反思，几乎就很难感觉到“目的”的存在了，更像是社会实验或者实践。发生时，社会里的每一类主体都受影响，各自为了自己想象中的目标和想当然能达成这种目标的方法而动，最后造成的结果其实更像是对人本身的反映。

>p136 But the age-old questions which the Reformation framed in new ways – about the ultimate meaning and purpose of human existence; about the mutual obligations one to another of people constituting a society; about the balance between conscience and political obedience – these remain compelling ones for all right-thinking people.

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原书信息：Marshall, P. (2009). The Reformation: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-923131-7