Question

Write a paper to state reasons for the protestant reformation during the Renaissance and representatives. (about 600 words)

Answer 1

The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in particular to papal authority, arising from what was perceived to be errors, abuses, and discrepancies by the Catholic Church. Although the Reformation is usually considered to have started with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses by Martin Luther in 1517, there was no schism between the Catholic Church and the nascent Luther until the 1521 Edict of Worms. The edict condemned Luther and officially banned citizens of the Holy Roman Empire from defending or propagating his ideas. The end of the Reformation era is disputed: it could be considered to end with the enactment of the confessions of faith. Other suggested ending years relate to the Counter-Reformation or the Peace of Westphalia. From a Catholic perspective, the Second Vatican Council called for an end to the Counter-Reformation.

Today there are many types of Protestant Churches. For example, Baptist is currently the largest denomination in the United States but there are many dozens more.To understand the Protestant Reform movement, we need to go back in history to the early 16th century when there was only one church in Western Europe - what we would now call the Roman Catholic Church - under the leadership of the Pope in Rome.

Movements had been made towards a Reformation prior to Martin Luther, so some Protestants, such as Landmark Baptists, in the tradition of the Radical Reformation prefer to credit the start of the Reformation to reformers such as Arnold of Brescia, Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, Petr Chelčický, and Girolamo Savonarola.Luther began by criticising the sale of indulgences, insisting that the Pope had no authority over purgatory and that the Treasury of Merit had no foundation in the Bible.

The initial movement in Germany diversified, and other reformers arose independently of Luther such as Zwingli in Zürich and John Calvin in Geneva. Depending on the country, the Reformation had varying causes and different backgrounds, and also unfolded differently than in Germany. The spread of Gutenberg's printing press provided the means for the rapid dissemination of religious materials in the vernacular.

Although Protestants were excommunicated and ended up worshiping in communions separate from Catholics, contrary to the original intention of the Reformers, they were also suppressed and persecuted in most of Europe at one point. As a result, some of them lived as crypto-Protestants, also called Nicodemites, contrary to the urging of John Calvin, who wanted them to live their faith openly. Some crypto-Protestants have been identified as late as the 19th century after immigrating to Latin America.