Dan Minette wrote:
Reform means many things. Muhammed was a reformer from polytheism to structured monotheism, with the addition of written transcription of the prophet's exact words -
The last I heard is that the scholaraly consensus is that the redaction of Muhammed's words was done years after his death.
If it is true, there's a great irony in that many historians agree that a great difference between Islam and Christianity is that Islam didn't take to books nearly as fast. Even today, there is a huge empahsis on memorizing the Koran, while we Christians tend to be satisfied with a nearby reference copy.
But, Paul's book of Romans was Luther's inspiration for his part of the
Reformation.
Romans? I thought it was Ephesians (2:8-9, as we Lutherans like to mention) that is rather central to his theology.
As for reformers, I see Luther as a guy who triggered rebellion against entrenched powers who had figured out how to take advantage of seemingly untouchable "truths" about the ultimate source of orderliness in the world -- the hierarchy of trust and obedience. I'm starting to regard conservatism as something that become poisonous when a group of people figures out how to "game" such a system on its fundamentals. Luther was right to rebel against his day's conservatives; they were (naturally) taking advantage of the very worldview in which the Pope and curia were infallible.
I think we're coming into the same sort of situation today. A number of people have figured out how to "game" democratic capitalism, protected by the untouchable "truth" that free markets, democracy and other feedback systems are an ultimate source of orderliness in the world. But we are starting to see that network effects and such make it possible to evade the self-regulation of feedback systems.
The time is growing ripe for someone to lead a challenge to our fundamental ideas about capitalism and democracy... but the stage won't be set until two things happen: (1) people are as frustrated with our "kleptocracy," as David puts it, as they were with Rome's greed in Luther's time, and (2) tacit knowledge that there are alternative sources of order. That's just beginning to happen in technology (as it did in Luther's time with clockworks, publishing, etc.) with "gift economies" and such. I think we'll see some brilliance along the lines of Darwin and Adam Smith, revealing elegant self-organizing systems where few would even imagine to look today.
All I really meant to say was that I believe that extreme conservatism is purely self-interest of people who've figured out how to abuse the foundations of the systems we trust.
This is one of my "one of these days I'll write an essay" ideas...
Nick
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