Does Protestantism contribute to Western Civilization?

St Paul's (Anglican) Cathedral, London

I follow a few Roman Catholic bloggers, thinkers, and video bloggers.  As fellow Christians we have a great many shared interests morally, spiritually, politically, and culturally: we proclaim the same Risen Christ, read the same New Testament, recite the same Creeds, worship on the same Holy Days (and even sing some of the same hymns), advocate for the same moral values.  Despite the fact that we have some different understandings of the church, spiritual authority, and how our relationship to God 'works', we nevertheless share a great deal of common interest and concern.
In fact, I would say that Roman Catholics more than either Evangelical or Historic Protestants are really on the forefront of thinking through how to revitalize and preserve Western Civilization.

This is a good thing because (despite the naysayers in some quarters of our culture), while every civilization has its evils (including the West), nevertheless Western Civilization has done more to promote goodness, freedom, truth, reason and mercy than any other human movement in History, and I'm very proud to be a product and heir of it.

Western Civilization is inescapably bound up with Christianity, so much so that Winston Churchill quite happily called it "Christian Civilization".  Inspired by the Christian message, the artistic and spiritual achievements of Western Civilization are simply staggering.

But what I've noticed is that you'll sometimes hear Roman Catholic thinkers say something along the lines of "When I say Western or Christian civilization, I am essentially talking about Roman Catholic Civilization, because the two are the same thing..."  Indeed, a few would even point to the iconoclastic tendencies of some forms of Protestantism (i.e. Puritanism), to argue that Protestantism as a whole has been a corrosive influence on Western Civilization, rather than really a contributor to it.

But clearly it is a mistake to equate Western Civilization with the Roman Catholic Church or its members' contributions.  For one thing, a major contributor to Western Civilization is without doubt the pre-Christian Grecco-Roman heritage.  The art, architecture, literature, philosophy, and legal traditions of Athens and Rome are absolutely essential to Western Civilization, and yet none of these were originally created by Roman Catholics.  Yet what would Western Civilization be without Homer or Plato or Aristotle or Virgil or Cicero?

Even if we narrow the discussion to Christendom and explicitly Christian achievements, we still find that there are major contributions to Western Civilization coming from non-Roman Catholic sources.  For example, if Greece is part of Western Civilization (and it obviously is), then that means that the cultural achievements born out of Eastern Orthodox Churches need to be considered right along side those of the Roman Catholic Church.  And it is certain that the contributions to Christian Civilization coming from Eastern Orthodox creators such as Rachmaninoff or Dostoevsky are substantial.

There can be absolutely no doubt that Protestants also have also made major positive contributions to Western, Christian Civilization as a whole.  A few examples:

Music:
I once heard the (Roman Catholic) Philosopher Peter Kreeft say that one reason he believed in the existence of God was simply the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.  I agree.
And Bach was a Protestant; he composed major spiritual works such as the St. Matthew Passion.
Beethoven was Roman Catholic, to be sure...but Handel was Protestant.  Palestrina was Catholic, but Mendelssohn was Protestant.  So were Paul Manz, and Hubert Parry and John Rutter and Henry Purcell.

Sacred Architecture:
Catholics are quite right to celebrate the great medieval and Renaissance churches...but what of the very iconic and significant contributions to sacred architecture made by men such as Sir Christopher Wren or Richard Upjohn?  The Gothic revival itself was born in Protestant England.

Visual Arts:
I'll freely admit that most of the greatest visual artists, especially those working with Biblical and Spiritual themes were Roman Catholics, such as Michelangelo and Raphael.  But surely the contributions of a Protestant like Rembrandt are nothing to sneer at either?

Literature:
Catholics are quite right to rejoice in the majesty of Dante's Divine Comedy.  But what of Milton's Paradise Lost?  What of Bunyan?  For that matter, what of Shakespeare, whose work is shot through with spiritual themes?  All Protestant.

Many younger Roman Catholics that I know are glad to count Tolkien and Chesterton among their number.  And well they should be, for these are simply outstanding authors.  But let us not forget that C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy Sayers, T.S. Elliot, and Charles Williams were all Protestants.

Of course, for English-speakers the King James Version of the Bible is itself an extremely important contribution to our literary tradition.

Ideas and Learning:
In terms of the "big ideas" that shaped Western Civilization, the Protestant affirmation of 'the priesthood of all believers' meant that each believer was equal in the community of faith, which led to the birth of modern notions of equality and the belief that every citizen should have a say in government (i.e. 'one-man-one-vote' style democracy).  This is why the Pilgrims on the Mayflower all got together and voted on a written constitution for how their colony would be run, which has had a tremendous impact on the emergence of our American Republic.  The Protestant insistence that everyone should read the Bible for himself led to the development of universal education and widespread literacy.

Institutions of higher learning such as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale and many others besides, which have come to have tremendous cultural influence, were originally created for the stated purpose of spreading Protestant Christianity.  This is barely even to begin to scratch the surface of the influence of Protestantism on Western thought and ideas over the course of these last 500 years.

Certainly, I do not aim to downplay the absolutely essential and glorious contributions of Roman Catholics to our Civilization; they are profound.  Nor am I suggesting that we should be content to enjoy or celebrate the contributions of only our own particular branch of Christianity.  The truth I want to highlight is that members of all three major branches of Christianity - Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant - have made significant contributions to our Christian Civilization, and we should celebrate and share together all of them as gifts to us all from the Lord whom we all profess.

For the reasons noted in my previous post, I have come to believe that it is Secularism (not Protestantism) which is incapable of making significant contributions to our civilization, because it has no great Beauty with a capitol 'B' or Truth with a capitol 'T' that has the power to captivate men's minds and inspire their creativity for centuries on end, as the Lord of the Bible has indeed done for Western Civilization.