Luther, Calvin, and the Reformation (David Jones)
The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation,
was the religious revolution that took place in the Western church during the
16th century, between c1517 – c1648. The Reformation began as an
attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church and their practices of spreading
false doctrine and open abuse of their power. This outcry against their corrupt
practices led to the formation of Protestantism and its major branches, which
include Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicanism, Methodism, and the Baptists.
The Reformation
began on October 31st, 1517, when a rebellious Augustinian monk
named Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of his church
after becoming disillusioned by the rampant open corruption of the Roman Church.
The Ninety-Five Theses protested the pope’s sale of reprieves from penance, or
indulgences. Indulgences were monetary donations to the church in exchange for
a written promise from the Pope to reduce a sinner’s time in purgatory. Luther
claimed that Bible alone held God’s truth and that the pope had no authority
over purgatory, leading to his excommunicating in 1521.
The
foundation of Protestant Reformation lies in the Biblical principles that are
taught by Lutheran and other Reformed branches called the Five Solaes. The
earliest Solaes, which formed the basis of Lutheranism, advocated that
scripture alone is the true word of God (sola
scriptura), that faith alone is the only means of salvation, not good works
(sola fide), and that salvation comes
by divine grace or unmerited favor, not as something merited by the sinner (sola gratia). The spread of Lutheranism’s
influence was rapid and by the mid-16th-century, it became the
primary belief of northern Europe.
The
second most important figure in the Reformation was John Calvin. He fled to
Switzerland where he wrote the “Institutes of the Christion Religion”, which
viciously attacked the theological teachings of institutions that Calvin
considered unethical, but also described different practices of Christianity,
inspiring the ideas that would later become Calvinism. Another important figure
residing in Switzerland was John Knox. Influenced by John Calvin, his work led
to the establishment of Presbyterianism, a form of Protestant Church government
in which the church is administered locally by the minister with a group of
elected elders of equal rank. In England, Henry VIII, angry at Pope Clement VII
for refusing to grant him an annulment of his marriage, established the
Anglican Church, which permitted the beginning of religious change in the
country. He declared that he was the ultimate authority in matters relating to
the church. The Reformation was not a peaceful movement. There were decades of
rebellions and open warfare, decimating nearly 40% of the German population as
a result. The Reformation ended with Thirty Years War in 1648.
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