Reformation Analogy

As I read somewhere on Wiki recently, if I have seen further than other men it is because I have stepped on the toes of giants.

In case you didn't know this is a witty parody of a famous saying of IsaacNewton. Newton was nearly a reformation character at least time wise. What's interesting to me is that he considered his theological ideas and speculations much more important than anything he did in what was called NaturalPhilosophy?, what today we would call Mathematics and Science. Yet these same speculations almost landed him into serious trouble with the Protestant thought police of his day.

This all seems kind of apt because it seems that I may have stepped on the tender toes of some very good people in what I wrote in ExtremeIconoclasm.

What I was not trying to do was to offend sincere Catholics on Wiki. If I caused any offence please accept my sincere apologies. I've tried to explain my original purpose as best I can in ExtremeIconoclasmQuestioned.

For all this I believe that the reformation period (like most things) does have some analogical value for XP and software development theory and practice. The highlights for me would be:

• Erasmus, as an example of a great man who stayed within the original church (consensus) and pleaded with the reformers to do the same, out of his love for the church and his equally burning desire for it to be reformed
• The RadicalReformation, the title of a book on what I consider to be the most consistent breakaway groups of the time, normally called Anabaptists. One difference with Southern Baptists of today was that these heroic folk normally had to pay for their beliefs with their lives, at the hands of both Catholics and Protestants. Until a bunch of them under Menno and other leaders made their way to a land where they hoped to find a bit more tolerance ...
• The obvious point that in many ways in Europe the cure was as bad as the original disease: state church, oppression of the poor, persecution of dissenters, racism ... you know, business as usual
• The use by Luther of great phrases like "Priesthood of All Believers" that made the reformation attractive to ordinary people but did not lead to much, if any, real change to actions on the ground. There may be a lesson there too, you never know.

You are free to disagree with any of the above because you're a much better historian, philosopher or software developer than I am. This is Wiki. Go ahead and make my day.

But please don't let's say that any area of history or thought is banned from making a contribution to our "discipline", at least by analogy. Let's show some real discipline and learn the really hard lessons.

--RichardDrake

---

CategoryHistory