Did the Reformation Lead to Atheism?

Photo by Wim van 't Einde on Unsplash

I recently watched a video where Dr. Michael Horton responded to Tom Holland’s claim on a The Rest is History episode that the Reformation contributed to the rise of Atheism in Europe.

Here is Horton’s response:

Horton does a good job of pushing back on several aspects of Holland’s account of Martin Luther and the German Reformation. So it is worth a listen!

That said, I think there is one point on which Holland is spectacularly correct, in that the Reformation precipitated a crisis of church authority which eventually and inevitably became a crisis of religious authority that birthed several skeptical movements of which atheism was one!