Germany - Blog #2 - German Renaissance

I found a few things interesting in the Chapter 2 readings, one of which was the Imperial Diet at Augsburg in 1555 that established the beliefs of the empire as those of the ruler.  What I found intriguing about the German Renaissance in contrast to America today, is that it is similar to Christianity being the dominant religion in the United States.  Of course, here in the U.S., religion is left up to the individual and there is a defined separation between the church and state.  In today’s day in age, it would be considered entirely unacceptable if this scenario were to happen in America, but with the structure of our government and current beliefs within society, it is not something that could even be considered feasible.  In fact, you can see in recent years that the government appears to be separating itself even further from religious issues evident in the recent arguments about the use of “god” in the Pledge of Allegiance and by removing religion from other pieces of the government so as to not show a preference toward any one religion.  I found that the freedom to choose your religion by relocating under what the book defined as, ius emigrandi, to be obviously very different from what the norms are now in the western world for the obvious reason that people are granted the freedom to worship as they choose.  However, for this same reason, you could also argue that the two are very similar as the United States and many other countries, in granting the freedom to worship based on your own personal beliefs.

 Depicted here is the negotiations of the Peace of Augsburg which not only established the Lutheran states of the empire, but also allowed, ius emigrandi, or the ability to emigrate to another region that aligned with your religious beliefs.

At the same time that this was happening in Europe, the teachings of John Calvin and Calvinism were rather intriguing as it is similar to the battle that the United States is having in the Middle East.  Much of the conflict over there, and around the rest of the world through acts of terror, are being driven by religious beliefs and extremists who are jeopardizing the religious freedoms that others around the world are enjoying.  

John Calvin, teacher of Calvinism, proscribed that beliefs of the population should be personal and not those of the state.

A return of Calvinistic belief is what you expect to see in a country like the U.S. if a national religion were to be adopted as this country has been built on diversity over the past 50 years.  With the current social and religious standards in America, it would obviously be extreme if a group were to begin a civil war over religious beliefs within the borders of the United States, but that is easily assumed because of the demographic of the population and the ideals of freedom that the country has been built on.  People come to the United States as a way of escaping religious persecution or strife, so coming to the U.S. and causing conflict is not entirely likely.

Through the chapter reading, and through my own German heritage, it is evident to me that German’s have a strong belief system and a unified structure of dealing with important matters.   I find that this is also evident in Europe today in the European Union and their governing body.  Through Parliament, the EU uses a unified approach that is designed to be operated with all the member countries in mind, and while this has not been entirely successful recently with the downtown in the European markets, it is certainly the current trend in much of the world today with a concentration on equality.