e Word of God as revealed in the Bible alone and as interpreted by an individual's conscience"; that the church was comprised not just of the clergy but "of the entire community of Christian believers"; and that, with respect to the highest Christian life, "all vocations have equal merit, whether ecclesiastical or secular, and that every person should serve God in his or her individual calling" (McKay 446).
Protestantism changed life throughout Europe religiously, politically, socially and economically. It altered the way people saw both secular and religious life on earth:
Because a common religious faith (Catholicism) had been the one element uniting all of Europe for almost a thousand years, the fragmentation of belief led to profound changes in European life and society. The most significant new form of Protestantism was Calvinism (McKay 456).
Calvinism was a harsh interpretation of Protestantism, created in part in reaction to the disintegration of religious standards resulting from Luther. Calvin believed, for example, that an individual was either saved or not, from the beginning of time, and there was nothing he could do to alter that fact. Also, there was no way for him to know whether he was saved or not. Therefore, since "hard work, well done, was pleasing to God" (McKay 458), Calvinism resulted in many hard workers who believed that being such a hard worker was a sign of salvation:
This doctrine encouraged an aggressive, vigorous activism. . . . The Reformed church of Calvin had a strong and well-organized machinery of government. These factors, together with the social and economic applications of Calvin's theology, made Calvinism the most dynamic force in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestantism (McKay 458).
The effects of Calvinism can still be seen today in the notion and practice of the "Protestant work ethic," which holds that a hard worker is a good person while a lazy person is a bad person...