Melissa Holguin Global 9

Wednesday 5/1/12 Ms. Beniamino

PROTESTANT REFORMATION
The Roman Catholic Church was the center of the lives of those living in Northern and Western Europe. Those who had no financial stability had the only option of depending and circling their lives with the Church to prepare for a better afterlife. Over the centuries, the Church began to change. Instead of focusing on the spirituality and good of the people, Popes were now interested in materialistic concepts, wealth and power. These actions sparked the Protestant Reformation. By definition it means a movement for religious reform, which can be translated to a time when those who disagreed with the Churchs new ways took a stand and protested. The Protestant Reformation had all social, political, economic and religious causes. Socially, the changed value of humanism and secularism led to people questioning the purpose of the Church and the newly invented printing press helped spread ideas and thoughts that people had against the Church. The people of Europe noticed the decreased value of actual teaching and meaning of the sacraments and the increased desire for materialistic values within the Church and began asking questions about what the real purpose was and why they were doing what they were doing. Also, the invention of the printing press helped mass produce and spread around the ideas of those questioning the Church. Politically, powerful monarchs challenged the power of the Church and also the Pope. Once these ideas started developing and others began to learn about them the authority of the Church as the head power in Europe and the authority and real purpose of the Popes actions. Economically, princes and kings from Europe were jealous of the Churchs wealth and the merchants and others didnt like having to pay taxes to the Church. In any other empire, royalty rules over everyone but in this case the Pope and Church did and the royalty of Europe did not like that. They resented its wealth and merchants and those who paid taxes didnt like doing so because the money given was no longer being used for the right purposes. Religiously, some Church leaders had become corrupt and many people found Church practices such as indulgences inappropriate. Church leaders became obsessed with having fancy and materialistic items such as being drenched in gold and were offering things to the people that those faithful to the religion considered highly

inappropriate. Indulgences was when a person who committed a horrible sin and was scared of being damned to hell would pay a high amount of money to the Pope to be cleansed of those sins and be accepted to heaven. Many, especially the poor considered this unfair and unmoral because they were buying their way into heaven. Overall, these different concepts caused the people of Europe to revolt and thus began the Protestant Reformation. The man responsible for the Protestant Reformation was Martin Luther. He was very devoted to the Church and completely disagreed with the new practice of indulgences that Johann Tetzel was selling. He decided to take a public stand and wrote down 95 Theses expressing his disagreement towards it and posted them on the door of the church in Wittenberg. He invited other scholars to come and debate these ideas with him and after someone saw his post-its he copied Luthers words and took them to the printing press to make copies. His ideas immediately became well known across Germany and began the Reformation. He didnt purposely mean to rebel against the Church. He was simply expressing his feelings against the practices of Tetzel. It wasnt his fault that someone decided to make copies of his thoughts and spread them around. If Luther didnt post them with the wrong intentions or wasnt the one who mass produced it then he shouldnt get any blame. The Protestant Reformation left a very big impact. With all the effects not only in the religious area, it set the stage for the modern world. It also ended the unity of the Christians in Europe and left it culturally divided. Despite the many accusations and turmoil of the Church it flourished and became more unified. Both Protestants and Catholics focused on the value of education when spreading their beliefs which led to the creation of parish schools and new colleges and universities along Europe. Also, as the Churchs power declined politically the monarchs and states gained power. This led to the development of nation-states. Lastly, the questioning of the beliefs and authority led to a period called the Enlightenment, which was an intellectual movement that swept through Europe in the last 18 th century. Once the Protestant Reformation began and the whole idea of questioning things started to occur many disagreements and new ideas also developed. As differences in beliefs began to occur, new practices developed. In the 16th century three new practices were started called Lutheranism, Calvinism and Anglicanism. When it came to the tradition of the Church these three practices had some differences which included; they all believed the Bible was the source of all their questions and revealed the truth, their services focused on preaching and ritual and the believed they could interpret the Bible for themselves. Lutheranism was based on the teachings of Martin Luther in Germany and had ministers as the head of the Church. Calvinism was based on the teachings of John Calvin in Switzerland and had the council of elders to govern each church. Anglicanism was based on the teachings of King Henry VIII in England and had the English monarch as the head of the Church.