The Protestant Reformation: Causes, Luther's Role, and Spread

The Protestant Reformation

The Spiritual Crisis of the Church

At the end of the Middle Ages, people began to question the practices of the Church, including:

• The luxurious lifestyles of the high clergy.
• The lack of culture and weakening of moral standards of the clergy, who set a bad example.
• The buying and selling of ecclesiastical positions for personal economic benefit.
• The selling of papal bulls and indulgences, which made the Church wealthy under the pretense of pardoning sins and granting access to heaven.

The Lutheran Reformation

In 1517, Martin Luther condemned the wealth of the Church, denied the value of indulgences, and advocated a new religion based on:

• Salvation through faith: Only faith in God could lead to eternal salvation, regardless of acts.
• Authority of the Bible: The Bible should be read and interpreted by believers, without the intervention of the Church.
• Universal priesthood: All baptized people were priests. The clergy was not the intermediary between God and believers.

The Lutheran doctrine denied the sovereignty of the Pope, removed religious orders and the worship of images, and reduced the sacraments to two: baptism and the Eucharist (communion).

The Spread of Reformation

Luther's ideas to reform the Church gave rise to other Protestant churches. Despite their differences, all of them agreed on the importance of the individual reading of the Bible and rejected the Pope's authority.

The Lutheran Church

Luther's doctrines were supported by German princes and nobles who wanted to strengthen their authority against Emperor Charles V and the Pope. They quickly spread throughout Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.

The Calvinist Church

Calvinism was started in Switzerland by John Calvin. It spread to France (Huguenots) and England (Puritans). In Scotland, John Knox founded the Presbyterian Church. It was based on predestination: only a few people were predestined for salvation, and the rest were condemned. They argued that work dignified human beings and that success in business was a sign of predestination.