Zhong Wen: Recently I’ve often been thinking about one question—the relationship between the Protestant Reformation and Matteo Ricci’s activities in China. It served both as a driving force and as a constraint.

Bo Ya: That’s a very interesting and profound question.

Zhong Wen: You think so too?

Bo Ya: Yes, because this was also a major event that influenced—and even determined—the destiny of China.

Zhong Wen: Exactly!

Bo Ya: There is a causal relationship between the Reformation and Ricci’s arrival in China; and the Reformation was closely connected with the Age of Discovery.

Zhongwen: How so?

Bo Ya: Around the year 1500 we see the beginning of modern world history and of globalization. Before the “Age of Discovery” in 1492, the world was largely separated, and the Old and New Worlds were absolutely isolated. Around 1500, when Columbus reached the Americas, Vasco da Gama opened the route around Africa, and Magellan circumnavigated the globe, this isolation was finally broken and regular interactions between regions began. It was the first step toward global integration.

Zhong Wen: The year 1500 marks the beginning of modern history also because after the geographic discoveries, Western Europeans went overseas, began colonial conquest, and European trade broke out of the narrow confines of the Mediterranean and expanded to the entire world. This opened new arenas for colonialism and accelerated Europe’s transition from self-sufficient economies to free trade, exerting strong influences—often coercive—on the social and economic development of other regions.

Bo Ya: The Age of Discovery was not an isolated event. At roughly the same time, or shortly before or after, two major movements occurred in the West: the fall of Byzantine Christians to the Turkish Muslims, which stimulated the Renaissance, and the Protestant Reformation along with Catholic overseas missionary activity. These were interconnected. Both the Age of Discovery and the Reformation were influenced by the Renaissance; and the Renaissance itself was a direct result of the Crusades.

Zhong Wen: The Crusades were driven by religious zeal, while the Renaissance was driven by humanistic spirit. Are these two really related?

Bo Ya: They are. The humanistic spirit of the Renaissance, which sought earthly happiness and progress, was directly a result of the Crusades breaking Europe’s previous isolation. The Age of Discovery was likewise carried forward by Crusading ideals.

At the same time, the Renaissance also pushed religious reform. Humanists condemned the corruption of the Catholic Church and provided arguments for the Reformers. Their study of the original biblical texts and early Christian teachings paved the way for the formation of Protestant doctrine. And from different directions, the Renaissance, the Age of Discovery, and the Reformation all beat the drum and cleared the path for free trade.

Zhong Wen: Moreover, the Age of Discovery changed trade routes—from primarily intra-European trade to overseas trade. This caused the decline of Italy and Germany, while Atlantic coastal states rose. This double pressure agitated Germany greatly and provided additional momentum for the Reformation!

The Renaissance made people realize their own value and encouraged the idea that “the world can be understood and conquered,” which led to global voyages and the discovery of new routes and new continents.

Bo Ya: In addition to the Crusades, the immediate cause of the Renaissance was the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. Many cultural elites and classical works of the Eastern Roman Empire flowed into Western Europe, directly causing the Renaissance. The influx of Greek texts expanded Westerners’ horizons and broke many intellectual taboos.

The direct goal of the Age of Discovery was to break through, from the sea, the encirclement of Christian Europe by the Turks and the Islamic world, and then mount a counter-encirclement in order to eliminate the land-based blockade against Western Europe. All three aims pointed toward a shared objective: to remove the Ottoman Empire, the “enemy of Christ.”

Zhong Wen: Indeed. In the 15th century, after the Renaissance began, religion continued to play the strongest role in shaping European culture. Almost everyone believed in God and in the afterlife. Atheism was unimaginable. Religion provided answers to life’s deepest questions; every stage of life was guided by religious belief. Rituals marked birth, youth, and death, and religion organized political order.

The Reformation resulted from the corruption caused by the failure of the Crusades, commercial prosperity, and widespread disorder, all of which reshuffled Europe’s power structure. Nations, motivated by political need, selectively supported the Reformation.

The 16th-century Reformation in northern Europe, led by Luther and Calvin, was not the “religious liberation” often praised in traditional narratives. Rather, it attempted to rebuild Christian morality that had collapsed during the Renaissance in Italy, and to restore Christianity as the new “spiritual opiate” unifying northern Europe.

If the Renaissance in southern Europe was a process of “complete moral dissolution”—a period of extreme luxury, corruption, depravity, and cruelty—then the Reformation in the poorer and more conservative north was a distorted reflection of it.

To examine the social and political needs that fueled the Reformation, we can summarize them in three main points:

First, the failure of the Crusades led to moral decay, corruption in the papacy, and unscrupulous wealth-seeking behavior, including the Catholic Church’s abuse of indulgences. The pope openly used them to exploit the people. Northern feudal lords sought to break away from Rome’s economic domination, seize Church property, and gain financial autonomy.

Second, the moral corruption of the Renaissance triggered a syphilis epidemic that destroyed family life, even among the nobility. Northern religious elites therefore promoted a return to Christian “moral fundamentalism” and asceticism, eventually giving rise to the Puritan movement.

Third, there was a strong desire to “take a share” of the territorial and commercial gains won by Portugal and Spain during the Age of Discovery. Overseas expansion, along with the growing demand for timber, metallurgy, and mining created by gunpowder warfare, revitalized the economies of the Baltic and northern countries. Economic growth increased the desire of northern monarchies to break free from Rome and gain sovereignty over their own religious affairs. Military power and ideology became essential to achieving national independence.

Bo Ya: So the Reformation in northern Europe at the end of the Renaissance was not the “liberation of thought” portrayed in Marxist interpretations. In fact, Protestantism was more hostile to science and more theocratic than Catholicism. But because the Catholic Church had grown extremely corrupt, an internal counter-force emerged demanding restoration of moral authority. In that sense, the Reformation was reactionary. But from the perspective of breaking superstition and loosening religious control, it acted in the opposite direction.

Zhong Wen: The Catholic Church’s corruption and the disorder in Italian politics provided several lessons for the northern states. First, religion must maintain social order—hence Henry VIII’s Church of England and strengthened centralization. Second, to achieve national interests, countries needed independence from Rome.

Bo Ya: “National interest” then became a kind of religion demanding absolute loyalty!

Zhong Wen: Yes. Under the pope’s protection, Portugal and Spain dug up vast wealth from the Americas and Asia. Northern nations longed for a share. The political motive behind breaking from Rome was to join the global colonial enterprise. England even allied with the Ottoman Turks against Rome and Spain, and sponsored “royal pirates” to plunder Spanish fleets. Eastern wealth—gold, spices, silk, porcelain—should not belong only to the southern pirates blessed by the pope.

Bo Ya: The origin of Christianity itself shows the power of the state. Christianity was marginal until Emperor Constantine converted in 312, after a vision. Within a century, it replaced Roman paganism and spread across Europe. New barbarian kings adopted it to justify their divine right to rule. Charlemagne styled himself as God’s appointed ruler. On the eve of the Crusades, Latin Christianity had reached nearly every corner of the West. Christianization was Rome’s greatest legacy.

Zhong Wen: Precisely. The 1588 naval battle between the Spanish Armada and England revealed the redistribution of power within Christendom. The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) continued this redistribution. The conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism was just surface ideology; real motives were geopolitics and national ambition.

From the 15th century onward, European monarchs encouraged overseas plunder, turning piracy into a national enterprise. Luther’s teaching that personal wealth signified salvation gave justification to this predatory era. The so-called “secularization” of religion was, in reality, a complete moral deconstruction in pursuit of commercial gain.

Bo Ya: American historian Mark Koyama pointed out in 2017 that religious freedom was impossible in early 16th-century Europe because religion was essential to political order. Europe’s innovation during this time was not triggered by Luther or Calvin, but by the growth of state bureaucracies, military competition, and mercantilist policy needed for war. Enormous military spending required revenue that only overseas trade could supply. This historic shift—from governing souls to conquering overseas resources—was driven by the Age of Discovery and colonial plunder.

Bo Ya: Isn’t that essentially a “social mobilization theory”? Indeed, Protestant Reformers did not respect science. For example, when Luther learned that Copernicus was circulating the heliocentric theory, he was furious, saying, “This fool wants to overturn astronomy; but the Bible tells us Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, not the earth.” Protestant states had more intellectual freedom not because Protestantism was more tolerant, but because Protestant clergy were weaker than the monarchs. As Russell said: “The importance of Protestantism lies not in establishing heresy, but in creating divided churches, and divided churches weaken religious control over the state.”

Zhongwen: Luther’s hostility toward science and Calvin’s persecution of heretics prove that Protestantism did not pave the way toward religious freedom. American Puritans were even more intolerant of dissenters than many Catholic countries. Thus the scientific spirit of early modern Europe was not created by the Reformation. The Renaissance shows that genuine intellectual freedom requires political fragmentation powered by mercantilist nation-states. And the material basis for mercantilism came from trade—including redistribution of Chinese goods—and from gunpowder warfare brought to Europe via the Mongols.

Bo Ya: Even by the Enlightenment (17th–18th centuries), European monarchs did not embrace religious freedom because of Enlightenment ideals, but because rising state power made religious persecution inefficient and costly. This was not the triumph of Locke or Spinoza—it was the triumph of fiscal-military states.

In response to Protestant and northern state pressure, Catholic Spain and France committed themselves to internal reform. The Jesuits practiced self-purification to defend Catholic authority.

Because anarchic competition in the Renaissance made society unstable, Italy’s brilliance advanced Europe as a whole, while Catholic Spain and Portugal learned from Italy’s mistakes. They remained committed to Crusading zeal and treated commerce as the highest royal priority. They encouraged trade among the people and maintained church-state unity to preserve stability. They were determined to complete the unfinished business of the Crusades.