AP History 9/20 The Early Reformation

Three Areas where early Protestants agreed

How is a person to be saved? Traditional catholic teaching held that Salvation is achieved both by faith and good works, it comes from faith alone. Second, Where does religious authority reside? Christian doctrine had long maintained that authority rests both in the Bible and in the traditional teaching of the church, for Protestants, authority rested in the Bible alone. Third, what is the church? Protestants held that the church is a spiritual priesthood of all believers, an invisible fellowship not fixed in any place or person.

Protestant Marriage; Protestants saw marriage as a contract in which each partner promised the other support

companionship, and the sharing of mutual goods. In Protestant eyes, Marriage was created by God as a remedy for human weakness, marriages in which spouses did not comfort or support one another physically, materially, or emotionally endangered their own souls and the surrounding community. Protestants allowed divorce

Anabaptists

means rebaptizers, people who adopted the baptism of adult believers, and enemies called them Anabaptists.

Johann Tetzel

A Dominican Friar who mounted an advertising blitz, promised that the purchases of indulgences would bring full forgiveness for one's own sings or release from purgatory for a loved one.

Martin Luther

A German university professor and priest, he propelled the wave of movements we now call the Reformation. Luther was born at Eisleben in Saxony. He was sent to many good schools and expected to become a law and a legal career, instead he felt a sense of religious calling to join the Augustinian friars. He was ordained a priest in 1507 and through his life, he frequently cited his professorship as justification for his reforming work. He was troubled that once many people bought indulgences, they thought they had no need for repentance.

Indulgences

A document issued by the Catholic Church lessening penance or time in purgatory, widely believed to bring forgiveness of all sins. Both earthly penance and time in purgatory could be shortened by framing on what was termed as the treasury of merits. This was a collection of all of the virtuous acts of Christ, the apostles, and the saints had done during their lives. Individuals who sin could be reconciled to God by confessing their sins to a priest and by doing an assigned penance.

German Peasants' War of 1525

Causes included he economic condition of the peasantry due to crop failures, nobles seizing land, and by taking the best horses from peasants. Luther wanted to prevent rebellion and had at first sided with peasants but eventually sides with the nobles. Luther said that Scripture had nothing to do with earthly justice or materials. The nobility ferociously crushed the revolt. More than 75,000 peasants were killed in 1525. The war greatly strengthen the authority of lay rulers. The reformation lost most of its popular appeal after 1525.Peasants economic conditions moderately improved.

Diet of Worms

In the highly charged atmosphere, Charles V held his first diet( assembly of the nobility, clergy, and cities of the Holy Roman empire) in the German city of Worms and summoned Luther to appear. Luther's appearance at the Diet of Worms in 1521 created an even broader audience for reform ideas, and through central Europe other individuals began to preach and publish against the existing doctrines and practices of the church, drawing on the long tradition of calls for change as well as on Luther.

Ninety-Five Theses

Luther was troubled that once many people bought indulgences, they thought they had no need for repentance. He wrote a letter in 1517 to Archbishop Albert on the subject and enclosed in Latin his ninety five theses on the power of indulgences. His argument was that Indulgences undermined the seriousness of the sacrament of penance, competed with the preaching of the Gospel, and downplayed the importance of Charity in Christian life.

Absenteeism and Pluralism

Many clerics held several offices simultaneously, but they seldom visited the benefices, let along perform the spiritual responsibilities that the office entailed. Instead, they collected revenues from all of them and hired a poor priest, paying him just a faction of the income to fulfill spiritual duties.

"Faith alone, grace alone, scripture alone

Martin Luther's summarization of his study of Saint Paul's letters In the New Testament, he gradually arrived at a new understanding of the Christian document. "..".." He believed that salvation and justification come through faith. Faith is a free gift of God's grace, not just the result of human effort; God's grace is revealed only in Scripture.

Ulrich Zwingli

a Swiss humanist, priest, and admirer of Erasmus, he was the most important other reformer than Luther. He announced in 1519 that he would not preach from the Church's prescribed readings, but, relying on Erasmus's New Testament. He was convinced that Christian life rested on the scriptures, which were the pure words of God and the sole basis of Religious truth. He went on to attack indulgences, the mass, and institution of monasticism, and clerical celibacy.

Katharina Von Bora

a former nun who married Luther. She had several children and was spoken against for marrying Luther.

Eucharist

also called Communion, The Lords supper, and the mass) This was an area of dispute. Transubstantiation, Luther believed that Christ is really present in the bread and wine, but in the result of God's mystery, not the priest. Whereas, Zwingli understood that the Eucharist was a memorial in which Christ is present in spirit among faithful, but not in the bread and wine.

Martin Luther's On Christian Liberty

arguably his finest peace, written in Latin for the pope, it contains the main themes of Luther's theology: the importance of faith, the relationship between Christian faith and good works, the dual nature of human beings, and the fundamental importance of scripture. Luther writes that Christians were freed from sin and death through Christ, not through their own actions.

Anticlericalism; Opposition to the Clergy. The critics focused primarily on 3 problems

clerical immorality, clerical ignorance, and clerical pluralism.

Protestant

the name originally given to followers of Luther, which came to mean all-non Catholic Western Christian groups. The word comes from a protest drawn up by a small group of reforming German princes at the Diet of Speyer in 1529.The princes protested the decisions of the catholic majority. They were the followers to Luther, Zwingli, and many others. Protestants held that Salvation comes from faith alone, it is achieved both by faith and good works.