Several of them have had cataclysmic effects on world history. Puritanism, another reform movement within the Church of England, inspired its members to seek a new life in the New World and helped shape America as we know it today. Of these reform and revivalist movements, perhaps none is so visible today in America as the loose umbrella known as evangelical Christianity.
Many of the historic Protestant churches — Lutheranism, Calvinism, Presbyterianism, the Church of England — are now classified as mainline Protestant churches, which tend to be more socially and politically liberal. Evangelical Christianity, though, arose out of similar revivalist tendencies within those churches, in various waves dating back to the 18th century.
Because of the fragmented and decentralized way many of these churches operate, anybody can conceivably set up a church or church community in any building. The history of Christianity worldwide has, largely, followed the Luther cycle.
As each church or church community becomes set in its ways, a group of idealistic reformers seeks to revitalize its spiritual life. They found new movements, only for reformers to splinter off from them in turn. In America, where mainline Protestantism has been in decline for decades, various forms of evangelical Protestantism seemed to flourish for many years.
Now evangelicals — particularly white evangelicals — are finding themselves in decline for a variety of reasons, including demographic change and increasingly socially liberal attitudes on the part of younger Christians. But if the history of Lutheranism is anything to go by, we may be due for another wave of reformation before too long.
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A printing of his works was crowdfunded. Martin Luther, a German teacher and a monk, brought about the Protestant Reformation when he challenged the Catholic Church's teachings starting in This lists the logos of programs or partners of NG Education which have provided or contributed the content on this page.
Leveled by. Wednesday, April 7, The Protestant Reformation was a religious reform movement that swept through Europe in the s. It resulted in the creation of a branch of Christianity called Protestantism, a name used collectively to refer to the many religious groups that separated from the Roman Catholic Church due to differences in doctrine.
The Protestant Reformation began in Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31, , when Martin Luther, a teacher and a monk, published a document he called Disputation on the Power of Indulgences , or 95 Theses.
The document was a series of 95 ideas about Christianity that he invited people to debate with him. These ideas were controversial because they directly contradicted the Catholic Church's teachings. Luther's statements challenged the Catholic Church's role as intermediary between people and God, specifically when it came to the indulgence system, which in part allowed people to purchase a certificate of pardon for the punishment of their sins. Luther argued against the practice of buying or earning forgiveness, believing instead that salvation is a gift God gives to those who have faith.
Luther's objections to the indulgence system paved the way for other challenges to the Catholic doctrine throughout Europe. For example, John Calvin in France and Huldrych Zwingli in Switzerland proposed new ideas about the practice of Holy Communion, and a group called Anabaptists rejected the idea that infants should be baptized in favor of the notion that baptism was reserved for adult Christians.
Broadly speaking, most of the challenges to the Catholic Church revolved around the notion that individual believers should be less dependent on the Catholic Church, and its pope and priests, for spiritual guidance and salvation. Instead, Protestants believed people should be independent in their relationship with God, taking personal responsibility for their faith and referring directly to the Bible, the Christian holy book, for spiritual wisdom.
Luther argued that the church had to be reformed. He believed that individuals could be saved only by personal faith in Jesus Christ and the grace of God. He also advocated the printing of the Bible in the language of the reader, rather than in Latin.
The pope condemned the Reformation movement, and Luther was excommunicated from the church in The Reformation did not arise in a vacuum. Its rise was influenced by currents of nationalism, mercantilism, anticlericalism, and opposition to vested property interests in the hands of the church that had begun in the late fourteenth century.
The church burned Wycliffe posthumously as a heretic in and condemned and executed Hus in Most settlers in the thirteen colonies that eventually formed the United States were Protestants; indeed, several had established Protestant churches. Roger Williams —, pictured here was an early proponent of disestablishment, a movement later led by more secular leaders such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Other important leaders were Philipp Melanchthon — , Martin Bucer — , and Heinrich Bullinger — The reformers rejected the authority of the pope as well as many of the principles and practices of Catholicism of that time.
Roger Williams — was an early proponent of disestablishment, a movement later led by more secular leaders such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Elizabeth I Protestant She first tried to promote a 'middle way' in religion. She wanted to create an inclusive Protestant church that allowed her to be in authority whilst enabling former Catholics to feel that they could follow Protestant forms of worship. She later began to persecute Catholics and by the end of her reign England was a fully Protestant country.
However he introduced strict anti-Catholic laws after the Gunpowder Plot. Charles I Protestant Tried to introduce Arminian changes.
Arminianism is a form of Protestantism that has a lot in common with Catholicism. Charles ended up fighting a civil war against Oliver Cromwell — who was a Puritan a very strict Protestant who wanted to get rid of ritual in church services and lead a plain and simple life.
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