Historians call the process by which Native Americans exchange cultural and financial goods with the Europeans is the Columbian Exchange. It is a misconception which is widely believed that the Europeans had a much larger impact on the Americas than the Americans had on their conquerors. But one of the greatest impacts that the discovery of the Americas had was on religion, especially Christianity. Before 1492, European Christians could not accept criticism from other Churches such as Lutheran and Protestant. After the discovery of the Americas, however, Europe’s uniformity of Catholicism became broken and Western Europe began to break apart into different sects of Christianity.
Orthodox Catholics were confused by the fact that Noah put one animal of each species onto the arch and landed on Mt Ararat which is in the Middle East – not North America. They questioned where all the animals of the Americas, including the humans, came from. This new development triggered the Protestant Reformation. The Protestant Reformation was the change by which a large number of Catholics switched to a more liberal and modern view of Christianity, which became the overarching branch of Protestantism. “Why does not the pope, whose wealth is to-day greater than the riches of the richest, build just this one church of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the money of poor believers”(Luther’s Ninety Five Theses, #86). This quote exhibits Luther’s ideas of his new church which to this day rivals the Catholic church. Without the discovery of the Americas it is quite possible that no one would ever question the pope, let alone create a new Church. Europeans converted many Indians, but the Native Americans were a leading cause of the creation of a new Church and more tension.
Martin Luther (1483-1517) was the first to create full tension between the Roman Catholic Church and a rising new Christian establishment. Luther was a German monk created a new theology which challenged outstanding Catholic beliefs. Humanist scholars agreed with Luther’s Ninety-five Theses which was the essay Luther wrote to concrete his ideas. As a result publishers throughout Germany published his ideas into papers and other writings to spread his Ninety-five Theses. As more and more people read these new texts, many Catholics distressed by the Native Americans and animals in the Americas switched to Lutheran. To this day Lutheran is a large Church. Clearly the discovery of the Americas had a large impact in Europe during the end of the Renaissance but also to this day.
Picture on top: a typical cross. A local pilgrimage spot in Dominus Sanctos. Thanks to: http://flickr.com/photos/jasnakomendanovic/219898868/
Picture on bottom: A Lutheran Church in Lower Saxony. Thanks to: http://flickr.com/photos/jasmic/307780933/
