The European wars of religion were a series of wars waged in Europe during the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries. Fought after the Protestant Reformation began in 1517, the wars disrupted the religious and political order in the Catholic countries of Europe. Other motives during the wars involved revolt, territorial ambitions and great power conflicts. By the end of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), Catholic France had allied with the Protestant forces against the Catholic Habsburg monarchy. The wars were largely ended by the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which established a new political order that is now known as Westphalian sovereignty.

The conflicts began with the minor Knights' Revolt (1522), followed by the larger German Peasants' War (1524–1525) in the Holy Roman Empire. Warfare intensified after the Catholic Church began the Counter-Reformation in 1545 against the growth of Protestantism. The conflicts culminated in the Thirty Years' War, which devastated Germany and killed one third of its population, a mortality rate twice that of World War I.[2][4] The Peace of Westphalia broadly resolved the conflicts by recognising three separate Christian traditions in the Holy Roman Empire: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism and Calvinism. Although many European leaders were sickened by the bloodshed by 1648, smaller religious wars continued to be waged until the 1710s, including the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–1651) in the British Isles, the Savoyard–Waldensian wars (1655–1690), and the Toggenburg War (1712) in the Western Alps.

The Peace of Westphalia is the collective name for two peace treaties signed in October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster. They ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and brought peace to the Holy Roman Empire, closing a calamitous period of European history that killed approximately eight million people. The Holy Roman Emperor (Ferdinand III), the kingdoms of France and Sweden, and their respective allies among the princes of the Holy Roman Empire participated in these treaties.

The negotiation process was lengthy and complex. Talks took place in two cities, because each side wanted to meet on territory under its own control. A total of 109 delegations arrived to represent the belligerent states, but not all delegations were present at the same time. Two treaties were signed to end the war in the Empire: the Treaty of Münster and the Treaty of Osnabrück. These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire, with the Habsburgs (rulers of Austria and Spain) and their Catholic allies on one side, battling the Protestant powers (Sweden and certain Holy Roman principalities) allied with France (though Catholic, strongly anti-Habsburg under King Louis XIV).

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  • JamesConeZone [they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    i absolutely agree that offering prayer at a DSA meeting is not the place for it, but just to add some religious context here: interfaith prayer meetings are very common among ecumenical groups and it is very common to have wiccans, muslims, jews, and christians all offer various bits of prayer to whoever or whatever they want in these meetings, and it's fine in that environment. but yeah, it's not appropriate for a DSA meeting, and i have no idea why it was even put forward in the first place (your post was the first time i'd heard of it)

    • Asa_the_Red [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      That's fine when all parties consent and importantly all faiths can participate.

      Christians (and Jews and Muslims afaik, but I dont have experience with them doing this kind of stuff) cannot hold other gods before their own, so any prayer that exclusively centers Christians cannot be inclusive of outside faiths.

      My real problem here is that they even considered this a fine thing to do with a secular gathering and especially without everyone's consent.

      • JamesConeZone [they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Yes, we're in agreement that it was a weird thing to do, especially without everyone's consent.

        Respectfully, I would question your theological point that Christians, Jews, and Muslims don't worship the same God, and the point that they cannot theologically handle prayers from other faiths (as I have very literally seen this), but this is a separate discussion though, so I'll leave it at that.

        • Asa_the_Red [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Im not saying Jews and Muslims dont also worship the Abrahamic God lol sorry if my wording there came off that way.

          And yes this could quickly devolve into a debate over theology so your right lets just leave it at that.

        • Frank [he/him, he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Depends on which Christians. I'm pretty sure there are entire sects that think Jews and Muslims are Satanists, or that Muslims worship the moon.