I really am increasingly impressed by the volume on the history of Christianity in Holland that I’ve been working through. Here’s a delightful snippet which demonstrates, I think, the truth that ‘there is nothing new under the sun’:
At Dordrecht in 1573 the classis found that the churches in this respect “were in a very desolate, disorderly, and degenerate state.” The officiating ministers “were mostly altogether novices or those who had been Mass-priests and monks.” Furthermore, there was a contingent of former “tailors, shoemakers, weavers, locksmiths, and in short all sorts of craftsmen, most of whom wanted a lazy life and an annual income, promoting themselves rather than the glory of God and the edification of his church.”
Preachers preaching simply for their own gain and not the glory of God??? Joel Osteen (and a whole host of like minded self servers) had 16th century Dutch antecedents!
I’m telling you, dear friends- when the volume linked to above is published you ought to read it. Or, if you read the tongue of the Dutchlanders, you ought to read it now.
It’s interesting to notice the bias against the common man. There are many sources from the sixteenth and seventeenth century that describe the poor as lazy, idle, money-loving, and so on. In fact, literacy was high among the urban lower classes, and many preachers, although poor, were pretty well-educated, which is one of the main factors that explains the success of the Reformation in the Low Countries.
The following may or may not explain what was really going on. In 1566, the nobility of the Low Countries visited the Regent who was in charge on behalf of Philip II, and asked whether it was really necessary that bishops had to have a doctorate in theology. After all, the office of bishop was reserved for the younger sons from the noble families, and it was an infringement of the noble rights to force them to have a proper education.
I would not be surprised if the truth is that the rich felt threatened by the well-educated poor, but could not say that priests and ministers ought to be uneducated rich. So the mud-slinging started.