[just_a_quack]

The Lutheran reformation was a political movement. And the spread of this movement was dependent on things like population density, economic potential and proximity to catholic institutions and influence. Conditions based on the above lead to adopting the heterodoxy. Not the other way around.

Contrary to this, what the article here is talking about is an intellectual exercise.

[nyolfen]

elite culture churns downward over a few generations. an intellectual exercise becomes a discourse, becomes a practice, becomes a culture