Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a major sixteenth-century European movement, which in its inception intended to reform the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church and some of its practices deemed as obsolete and corrupt. The conflict divided European Christians into Protestants and Roman Catholics. Many scholars consider it the catalyst for the modern age. As the religious homogeneity of the medieval era broke down, people began to think of their regional interests and individuals felt more empowered to follow their own conscience rather than traditional dogma. This gave way to diverse ideological standpoints, which in turn opened paths to new political, social, and economic goals. The Protestant Reformation was supported by rulers interested in expanding their power and becoming independent from the authority of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Social changes were already occurring, with a growing commercial bourgeoisie in northern Europe, which weakened the traditional established order, and the rise of powerful city-states and principalities.

Brief History

The Protestant Reformation ended the religious unity imposed by medieval Christianity and, according to many scholars, sparked the birth of the modern era. The emergence of thriving hubs of commerce and political power weakened the old feudal order and gave way to the emergence of a prosperous middle class of merchants and professionals.

Although there were already schismatic religious movements before the crisis, the Protestant Reformation officially dates to 1517 in Germany, when the Augustinian prior Martin Luther (1483–1546) famously posted his ninety-five theses (theological arguments) on a church door in Wittenberg. This was, at the time, a common way to call for a debate in university towns. Luther’s theses, or proposals, critiqued some church practices and, by extension, challenged traditional dogma.

The movement, which in its inception was meant only to reform the church, rapidly gained many followers throughout Germany and northern Europe, as well as in Scotland and some regions of France. Although the term “protestant” was initially applied to the reformist movement, in time it was applied to anyone protesting Roman Catholicism. The Roman Catholic Church resisted the reform movement, forcing the reformists to separate, starting with the Lutheran churches in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries, and some eastern European regions, as well as the Anglican Church in England and the Presbyterian Church in Scotland. Many other religious branches have evolved from these initial reformist churches.

The religious protest, which became a revolution, was a very complex phenomenon. Its most renowned leaders were Martin Luther and John Calvin. However, there were many others, as new denominations sprang up in response to Catholicism or the emerging Protestant groups. In time, this revolution became the foundation for Protestantism, which, along with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, forms one of the three major branches of Christianity.

Overview

In medieval Europe, the Catholic Church was deeply entrenched in the political sphere, which led to many cases of undue enrichment, political manipulation, and abuses of power. The enormous power and wealth wielded by the church were the cause of much criticism over what many perceived as its moral bankruptcy and loss of spiritual leadership, particularly in the sale of spiritual pardons known as “indulgences” by the higher clergy. In this view, such corruption jeopardized the church’s authority. Political leaders who chafed under its authority and envied its wealth conspired to lessen its power and spiritual leadership, seeking ways to bring this to fruition.

As early as the fourteenth century, medieval church scholars such as John Wycliffe (ca. 1330–84) and Jan Hus (ca. 1370–1415) had offered diverse proposals for the renewal of the church and criticized what they saw as superstitions, corruption, and a general movement away from the original teachings of Christ. Moreover, the posting of theses was an accepted means of initiating debate. Martin Luther, then, was following a long traditional of reform proposals when he placed his theological arguments on a church door on October 31, 1517.

Luther, however, went beyond challenging the corruption of the church. He challenged church dogma itself, most specifically in relation to grace and redemption. Luther, a lecturer at the University of Wittenberg, attacked the granting of indulgences, claiming that the pope had no authority to offer pardons to souls in purgatory, among other critiques. Moreover, he claimed that scripture, rather than church tradition, was the sole authoritative source of spiritual truth and that redemption was solely through faith, not works. Luther had not initially sought to break away from the church, but he was excommunicated by Pope Leo X in 1521 and gained a large following among the German principalities, which gave way to a deep division within the Western Christian world.

The 1530s saw a rapid, largely decentralized diversification of Christian sects across northern and eastern Europe. In 1534, King Henry VIII of England, displeased with the Roman Catholic Church because the pope had refused him an annulment, used parliamentary action to establish the Church of England (or Anglican Church) with himself as its head and, unlike many Protestant sects, with most theological features of Roman Catholicism intact. Around the same time the French theologian Jean Calvin (better known as John Calvin; 1509–64), took Luther’s ideas further from their Catholic roots and emphasized predestination of the faithful. His sect, the Calvinists, later gave rise to the Huguenots in France, Puritans in England, Presbyterians in Scotland, and Congregationalists in early America, among others. A vast array of other denominations, including the Anabaptist, Methodist, and Reformed Church, were formed thereafter in response to the existing Protestant churches, the Roman Catholic Church, or both.

The Roman Catholic Church sought to put an end to such splintering through the Counter-Reformation, which began with the Council of Trent in the mid-sixteenth century. During that period, Catholic teachings and ecclesiastical policies were solidified and disseminated, and the Inquisition, an enforcement body, dominated southern Europe. Finally, between the early-to-mid sixteenth and early eighteenth century, sectarian wars raged in much of northern Europe. Thus, the Protestant Reformation had a dramatic, long-lasting effect on the culture and national histories of the European countries and, ultimately, their colonies, which followed their religious traditions.

Bibliography

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