JOAN OF ARC/CHARLES V/ HENRY V
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PROTESTANTISM
Today the word Protestantism is used to refer to most Christian denominations and sects that do not form part of the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox groups. Included within the framework of Protestantism are the Anglican Communion, Adventists, Baptists, Brethren, the Church of God, Disciples of Christ, Friends (or Quakers), Lutherans, Methodists, Mennonites, Moravians, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Reformed groups, Shakers, United Church of Christ, all Christian fundamentalists, and many more. Because it is used to cover such a diverse assortment of more than 400 separate organizations and many extremes of teaching, the word is almost devoid of any doctrinal meaning.Protestantism is rooted in the Reformation of the 16th century. It began with Martin Luther’s break with the Roman church, starting in 1517. Gradually it spread throughout Europe, aided by the work of Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin in Switzerland and that of John Knox in Scotland. From the major denominations they founded, many splinter groups have broken away and continue to do so to the present. The term Protestant originated in Germany in 1529 at the second Diet of Spires. (A diet is an assembly of either governmental or religious officials.) The gathering voted to reverse a decision of the first Diet of Spires (1526) that would have allowed each prince in the German part of the Hapsburg Empire to determine the religion of his territory. On April 19, 1529, a minority of the assembly issued a formal “Protestation”, which said that “in matters which concern God’s honor and salvation and the eternal life of our souls, everyone must stand and give account before God for himself.” The key word in the quotation is “stand.” Protest, in its original meaning, meant to stand for something—not to be opposed, as is the common use today. From the date of the “Protestation” the supporters of the Reformation doctrines of Martin Luther began to be called Protestants. Adherents of Luther’s teaching in Germany preferred the term evangelicals, and in France Huguenot was used. In general, throughout the English-speaking world Protestant became the preferred term and is today widely accepted. During the 16th century the word Protestant was used mainly to describe the two primary Reformation traditions—the Lutheran and the Reformed. At the time it had some doctrinal significance. Protestants were Christians who accepted the basic early Christian creeds (statements of belief), accepted the Bible as the supreme authority in all matters of faith and practice, believed in salvation by faith alone, and accepted two sacraments instead of the seven insisted on by Roman Catholics. In the 17th century in England some Anglicans used the term Protestant to describe themselves in contrast to Baptists and others who were regarded as unorthodox. Roman Catholics, by that time, tended to lump together as Protestants all Christians who were opposed to them. In England the Toleration Act of 1689 was entitled “an Act for exempting their Majesties’ Protestant subjects dissenting from the Church of England.” But the act allowed toleration only for accepted dissent—not all forms. In the same year, the English coronation service included for the first time an oath to defend the “Protestant Reformed Religion by law established.” The Enlightenment, or Age of Reason, posed a powerful threat to Protestantism in England and on the Continent. Doubt was cast on the need for, or even possibility of, divine revelation, miracles, the life of Christ, the authority of the Bible, and other traditional Christian teachings. Deists, believers in a natural religion, rejected supernatural revelation. Many Protestant theologians, in order to preserve something of Christian faith, devised a liberal Protestantism. CATHOLICISM Roman Catholicism is the oldest and largest branch of Christianity. There are more than 1 billion Catholics worldwide. The Roman Catholic Church is led by the pope. The pope rules the church from Vatican City, which is a separate country inside Rome, Italy. THE RELUCTANT REVOLUTIONARY: MARTIN LUTHER
Following the invention of the Printing Press, more people in Europe learned how to read. People who can read on their own, can learn on their own. Having independent learners is dangerous to the Catholic Church because the Church did not want people to develop non-Catholic ideas. Authors such as Giovanni Picodella Mirandola wrote books that introduced ideas like the peaceful coexistence of Islam and Christianity which challenged the Catholic crusades. The German priest and scholar Martin Luther began the Reformation in 1517. This movement at first sought to change, or reform, the Roman Catholic church. Instead it led to the establishment of Protestantism, one of the major branches of Christianity. The Protestant religion known as Lutheranism grew out of Luther’s teachings. The Catholic Church responded by arresting authors and readers of non-Catholic books, accusing them of heresy. JOHN CALVIN The French religious thinker John Calvin was one of the leaders of the Reformation. Calvin and others wanted to change, or reform, the Roman Catholic church. Instead the Reformation led to the creation of a new branch of Christianity called Protestantism. This became one of the three major branches of Christianity. Calvin was born on July 10, 1509, in Noyon, France. He studied religion and law during the 1520s. He also became involved in the movement to reform Roman Catholicism. The Catholic church encouraged people to do good works and to perform rituals in order to get to heaven. But the reformers thought that God alone decided who went to heaven, and not because of their actions. In 1530 John Calvin broke from the Catholic Church and created the idea of Calvinism. Calvinism believes in predestination, the idea that God chooses who will be saved not the clergy or the individual him/herself. They also believe that God speaks through his word (the Bible) and not through the clergy. In 1533 Calvin moved to Switzerland, where he studied religious ideas, especially those of a German priest named Martin Luther. Like Luther, Calvin began to reject Roman Catholicism. Calvin began writing down his new Protestant beliefs. He published these beliefs in a book, which inspired many people to become Protestants. Calvin became well known and moved to Geneva (now in Switzerland). He worked with other leaders to make this city-state into an important center of Protestantism. Calvin also eventually convinced Geneva’s leaders to follow his ideas about government. He thought that governments should make laws based on religious beliefs. Calvin died in Geneva on May 27, 1564. After his death his followers, called Calvinists, spread his ideas across Europe. In the 1600s some English Calvinists brought Calvinism to North America. Today many people view Calvin as the founding father of several Protestant churches, including the Reformed and Presbyterian churches. William Tyndale (1492?–1536). During the Protestant Reformation, English scholar William Tyndale translated part of the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into English. Unlike Roman Catholics, Protestants believe that the Bible is the sole source of religious authority. For this reason, Protestant reformers believed that it is important for people to be able to read the Bible for themselves in their own language. The Roman Catholic Church insisted, however, that it alone had the authority to interpret the meaning of the Bible for the people. Roman Catholic authorities suppressed Tyndale’s translation and ultimately had him executed. His work nevertheless became the model for a series of English biblical translations, which culminated in the celebrated King James Version, or Authorized Version (1611).Tyndale was born about 1490–94, near Gloucestershire, England. He was educated at the University of Oxford and became an instructor at the University of Cambridge. At Cambridge in 1521 he fell in with a group of humanist scholars who were meeting at the White Horse Inn. Tyndale became convinced that the Bible alone should determine the practices and doctrines of the church. He decided to translate the Bible into English to make it accessible to all English believers. Church authorities in England prevented Tyndale from translating the Bible there. With financial support from wealthy London merchants, he went to Germany in 1524. There he completed an English translation of the New Testament in July 1525. He had it printed in Germany, first at Cologne and, when Roman Catholic authorities there suppressed it, at Worms. In 1526 the first copies of his translation reached England, where it was soon banned. Tyndale then began work on an Old Testament translation. He published English-language versions of the five books of the Pentateuch in Marburg, Germany, in 1530. Before he was able to complete the rest of his translation, however, he was captured in Antwerp (now in Belgium). Tyndale was executed on October 6, 1536, at Vilvoorde (now in Belgium). At the time of his death, several thousand copies of his New Testament had been printed. Today, two complete volumes and a fragment are all that remain. Tyndale was not the first person to translate the Bible into English. John Wycliffe and his followers had produced the first complete English-language version of the Bible in 1382. However, Tyndale’s translation was highly influential. It was the first part of the Bible to be printed in English (as opposed to copied out by hand). Tyndale’s greatest achievement lay in striking a balance between the needs of scholarship, simplicity of expression, and literary gracefulness—all in a uniform style of language. Tyndale’s style of biblical translation served as the model for all subsequent English versions of the Bible for nearly 400 years. Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536). Often called simply Erasmus of Rotterdam, he was the leading scholar of the northern Renaissance. While the Renaissance in Italy was chiefly concerned with the revival of the ancient Greek and Roman classics, that of northern Europe was centered on reforming and revitalizing Christianity by going back to its sources in the New Testament and the church fathers. His greatest influence resulted from his writings and other scholarly efforts. He wrote on theology, religious issues, education, and philosophy. He published editions of the works of the church fathers, including Jerome, Augustine of Hippo, Cyprian, Irenaeus, and Origen. His publication of the Greek New Testament was a landmark achievement for its time, enabling scholars to examine a more accurate text than had been available for centuries. Among his own books the most popular and enduring are Enchiridion, on Christianity, published in 1503, and The Praise of Folly (1509), his best-known book. In one respect Erasmus differed from the spirit of his time. He wanted a reformed Christianity, but he was opposed to a divided church. Thus he opposed the Reformation, though he praised many of its goals. The Catholic Counter-Reformation was the Catholic Churches attempt to oppose the rise of Protestantism. The Council of Trent ran from 1534-1549 and was a group of clergy that met to get rid of corruption in the Catholic Church. St. Ignatius of Loyola was once a Knight who became a Catholic leader and tried to convince people to stay in the Catholic Church. St. Ignatius was the leader of the Jesuits, a Catholic group that creates universities and monasteries to try to spread Catholicism around the world. The Jesuits focused on maintaining Europe as a Catholic continent during the Counter-Reformation. The Catholic Counter- Reformation/Saint Ignatius Over the centuries there had been many attempts to revitalize the church and cleanse it of abuses and corruption. Many clergy and laymen denounced the church for its vast accumulation of wealth, the lax morality of the popes and clergy, the woeful ignorance of parish priests, corruptions of doctrine, low levels of devotional life, and the virtual sale of salvation in exchange for money. Some reformers, Jan Hus and Girolamo Savonarola among them, were burned at the stake for their efforts. Others, such as Cardinal Ximénes de Cisneros in Spain, had great success in reforming monasteries and revitalizing education. Several new reformist monastic orders were founded. Among them were the Oratory of Divine Love, the Theatines, and the Capuchins in Italy and the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, in Spain. The Jesuit order, founded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1539 and given its charter by Pope Paul III in 1540, became a zealous defender of Catholicism through its promotion of education, mission work, and its attempts to win back converts to Protestantism. Another tool the church used to fight the influence of Protestantism in its territories was the Roman Inquisition. This institution was established in 1542 by Pope Paul III and was similar in its operation to the earlier medieval and Spanish inquisitions. Its goal was the suppression of heresy, error, and false doctrine. Council of Trent By the time of Paul III, who was pope from 1534 to 1549, the demands for reform were too intense and the Protestant threat too substantial for the church to delay housecleaning any longer. There were persistent demands for calling a council to deal with all of the church’s problems. Popes had never looked favorably upon councils because there was real difference of opinion in the church over whether a council had greater authority than a pope when it came to deciding and enforcing matters of doctrine and practice. Paul III became convinced that only a council could deal with the crisis. He therefore convened the Council of Trent in northern Italy, which opened officially on Dec. 13, 1545. In spite of the diversity of views represented in the council, Paul III and his successors succeeded in dominating it. The results assured papal supremacy in the church. The council met in three different sessions from 1545 to 1563. During its sessions the council succeeded in redefining its doctrines and in overhauling the institutional structure of the church. |