Part III

Part III: The Reformation

Background: Cairns Chapters 26, 27

The World in 1500

Presaging the reformation

John Wycliffe

Wycliffe was originally a scholar at Oxford, where he was master of Balliol College. He bucked the current intellectual trends by being a Realist at a time when Nominalism was more popular.
He was appointed to the parish of Lutterworth by the Crown in 1374, which is where he began his work of writing and organizing his beliefs.

Wycliffe then began what was basically a one-man Protestant Reformation. He attacked the wealthy bishops of the church and held that benefices should be abolished and the Church financed by voluntary offerings. He asserted that popes could err. He formulated the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer. He likewise rejected Transubstantiation and repudiated indulgences, masses for the dead, the cult of saints, relics and pilgrimages. Likewise, when preaching he drew from the Bible rather than from material like the lives of the saints.
Most importantly, Wycliffe led an effort to translate the bible into the vernacular (English). This was due to his belief that the scriptures were the supreme authority under God and his belief that all men could profit by hearing them.
His teaching aroused hostility of the Archbishop of Canterbury but he was under the protection of John of Gaunt, the King’s uncle. He died peacefully in bed in 1384.
The backlash was perhaps inevitable, and harsh. His disciples (called Lollards) were viciously persecuted, he was posthumously condemned for heresy and his bones exhumed and burned at the stake in 1428. Likewise his English bible was put on the papal register of forbidden books and existing copies were to be burned along with his other books.

Jan Hus

Jan Hus was a continental follower of Wycliffe’s teachings. He was educated at the University of Prague, and was rector of the church of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem in Prague. Like Wycliffe, he was motivated to reach out to the common man and preached in the Czech vernacular as well as Latin.
While he was perhaps less radical than Wycliffe, he agreed with him on many points and protested the abuses of greedy clergy. Likewise, he held that the pope could err, and that many popes had in the past. However, it was his condemnation of indulgences that led to his excommunication by the Pope and an interdict on the city of Prague.
He was condemned for following the heretical teachings of Wycliffe, and even though he denied that he had followed Wycliffe in every point he refused to condemn every article of Wycliffe’s that the council of Constance had anathemized, primarily due to his holding that Scripture was the sole test of Doctrine. He was removed from the priesthood, and burned at the stake on July 6, 1415.
His followers (called Hussites) never entirely died out and remained active in central Europe until after the reformation, where they were absorbed into either the Calvinist or Anabaptist groups of the time.

The political and social conditions in 1500

The Roman Catholic Church as a whole

Remember that since the fall of the Roman Empire that bishops had been regarded as nobles. As noble families motivated by a desire to gain reward in heaven gave more and more land and wealth to the church, and the church acquired more through various legal and extra-legal means, the bishops and abbots became powerful political figures in their own right.
At the same time, corruption, which had always been present, reached a high point. Clerical offices were bought and sold freely. Many enjoyed sinecures, or clerical offices fro which they received a salary but performed no work. Non-resident bishops holding multiple sees became common, and the bishops completely ignored the pastoral duties of their office. Finally, the priesthood neglected preaching in favor of solely performing the mass, which (in Thomistic theology) was seen as a “magic” rite that conveyed grace to a person

The Papacy

The Papacy reached a new, and spectacularly low point between the years of 1300 and 1500. The dream of the medieval scholastics for one church, one theology, one teaching and one understanding of the universe was turned on its head by a string of popes who were more motivated by the power, prestige and wealth of the office than by any interest in the spiritual welfare of the Church.
A major signal of the downfall of the papacy from its height of influence came with the “Babylonian Captivity” starting with Clement V, who moved the papal residence to Avignon (under the control of France) in 1309. The papal residence would remain there until Gregory XI returned it to Rome in 1377. During this time, the popes (and the college of cardinals) were controlled by the king of France, which especially aroused ire in their enemies, the English.
At this point came the great schism of 1378. When Gregory XI died, Urban VI was elected pope. He soon offended the Cardinals, who then elected Clement VII. Clement moved to Avignon, and from this time on you had two popes, both elected by the same college of Cardinals, and who claimed the other was anti-pope and a heretic. This situation remained until the Council of Constance ended this with the election of Martin V in 1415.
However, even the unified papacy didn’t end the abuses of the church and the election of men with worldly ambitions, as is shown with the elections of Callixtus III in 1455 and Alexander V in 1492, the Borgia popes.

At the same time this was happening, the medieval world was fracturing politically and economically as well. The nation states of France, Spain, and England all became well established during this time and struggled for dominance on the Continent and increasingly in the rest of the world. This expansion brought a growth in the middle class, which emerged as a literate, educated, and individualistic group not satisfied with the rigid structures of medieval society.
Political structure of the Germanys

The situation was perhaps worst in the Germanys of this time. The Germanys were not unified except under the nominal leadership of the Holy Roman Empire, but were a crazy-quilt of principalities, bishoprics, and smaller baronies and dukedoms. This lack of strong secular leadership especially made Germany ripe for the abuses of greedy clergy and immoral priests and bishops.

The life of Martin Luther

Early life as a monk and teacher

Martin Luther was born on November 10, 1483 in Eisbleben. His father was a man of considerable wealth with interest in copper mining and smelting. Luther was sent to school in Eisenach in 1489, and attended the University of Erfurt in 1501. He was granted a BA in 1502 and an MA in 1505.
In 1505 Luther entered the monastery of the Augustinian order in Erfurt. In 1507 he was ordained a priest.
In 1511 he was transferred to Wittenberg, received his doctor of theology and became professor of Bible there.

Luther’s discovery of Justification by Faith

Luther’s dilemma

At the time Luther began teaching at Wittenburg, he was a very conflicted and tortured man. He felt he could never live up to God’s demands, and began to wonder if God was really just at all, or simply an arbitrary tyrant.
Luther could find no solace in the teachings of the Church, and felt that he could never live up to God’s demands.

Lecturing on the Psalms and Romans

At this point he began lecturing on the Psalms and came to Psalm 22:1, quoted by Jesus on the cross. He realized at this time that since Christ had, on the cross, taken upon himself all the sins of the world, that this had led him to the feeling of lostness and aloneness that led him to exclaim this. Thus, through Christ’s sacrifice, God could be not just just, but merciful as well.
He then began lecturing on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans and came to the following understanding when considering Romans 1:17. In his own words:
“I greatly longed to understand Paul’s’ Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression ‘the justice of God’ because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him…”
“Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that ‘the just shall live by his faith’. Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Whereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of scripture took on new meaning.”

Luther at Wittenberg

Indulgences

The storehouse of grace theory

By the mid 1300’s the Catholic Church had developed a complex theory of penance that enlarged the scriptural notion of penance as a state of mind and attitude of the heart to include a temporal element whereby sins must be confessed to a priest, and absolved by the priest through performing specific penitential acts to avoid a spiritual penalty. (Enlarging John 20:23)
Closely tied to the sacrament of penance was the doctrine of Purgatory, which (as we saw earlier) was elucidated by Gregory I and developed by Thomas Aquinas and the other scholastics. This held that after death those souls guilty of “venial” sins were held in a kind of “mid-way” point between earth and Heaven where they must be “purged” of their sins before admitted to Heaven.
The final piece of this puzzle was a false conception of the meaning of grace. In the “storehouse of grace” theory, it was conceived that Christ and the saints had amassed such a wealth of grace that they formed a treasury that the Church could tap into and use to relieve the temporal penalty of the sins of others.
One way that the Church could tap into this treasury was through the acquisition and viewing of relics of saints. For instance, those who contributed to the Castle Church at Wittenburg and viewed the 19,000 relics stored there could receive almost 5500 years off of their time in purgatory. Likewise, the Pope could absolve a person of their sins by granting a special “indulgence”.
The first such indulgence was granted by Urban II to those participating in the first crusade. In 1346 this concept of indulgences was extended to souls in purgatory by a papal bull. The practice became more common, so when Leo X needed money in order to build St. Peter’s Basilica in 1517, he granted a new set of indulgences.

Johann Tetzel

The chain begins with Albert of Brandenberg, who wished to purchase the Archibishopric of Mainz he obtained funding through the Fuggers (a banking family) and decided to pay off the debt through the sale of indulgences in his territories. Half the proceeds would go towards his debt, while half would go to the pope.
Johann Tetzel, a Dominican monk and very slick salesman, began selling indulgences at Juterbock near Wittenberg in 1517 using such sales lines as “When a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs”. The cost of an indulgence would vary upon your station in life, but Tetzel pushed even the poor to purchase indulgences for their dead parents and loved ones.

The 95 theses

Luther was so angered by Tetzel’s claims, and likewise concerned over the abuses of cult of relics, that he composed 95 articles (or theses) describing his objections to the abuse of indulgences in a public call for debate he nailed to the door of the Castle Church on October 31, 1517.
The content of the 95 Theses

In his 95 Theses Luther was careful to avoid condemning the concept of indulgences itself, while harshly condemning what he saw as abuses of the system.
He began by stating that when Christ said “repent” that he didn’t mean the sacrament of penance, but a life of repentance of the believer.
He then carefully drew a boundary around what he saw as the pope’s power to grant an indulgence, specifically that it could only apply to those who are alive, and that both granting an indulgence to (or saying masses for) the dead are both contrary to canon law and scripture.
He specifically addressed some of Tetzel’s claims, for instance, the “coin in the coffer rings” statements, as well as some of his more outlandish claims about the efficacy of the indulgences in the forgiving of mortal sins like blasphemy.
He wrapped up by specifically pointing out that giving money to the poor is better than buying an indulgence, and that in no means should someone purchase one who could not afford it.

Luther against Rome

The Diet of Augsburg

In 1518 Luther was summoned to appear before the Imperial Diet of Augsburg. At the Diet Cardinal Cejetan demanded that he retract his statements, but Luther refused to do so until he was convinced of their falsity by Scripture.
In 1520 Luther published three pamphlets further describing his position. In these, he drew farther and farther away from Rome, and closer to and understanding of Scripture as the final arbiter in matters of faith.

In the Address to the German Nobility he attacked the hierarchy of the Church at Rome and denied that the authority of the Pope was above secular authority. He also stated that princes should reform the church when necessary, and that all believers were spiritual priests of God who could interpret scripture and could choose their own ministers (in this he was starting to formulate the Doctrine of the Priesthood of the Believer).
In the Babylonian Captivity he attacked the sacramental system. He appealed to scripture and demonstrated that elements of the medieval mass (like withholding the cup from the believer, the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the notion of mass as a means of grace) were contrary to scripture and served only to distance the laity from the clergy. He also emphasized the validity of only baptism and the Lord’s supper as compared to the other sacraments.
In The Freedom of the Christian Man, he attacked the theology of the Roman church by asserting the priesthood of believers.
As a result of these, Pope Leo X issued the bull Exsurge Domine that condemned 41 of Luther’s statements and would eventually result in Luther’s excommunication.

The Diet of Worms

Luther was finally summoned by the new Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V to an imperial diet at Worms in 1521. As before, he was protected by his powerful ally, Frederick of Saxony, who offered him safe passage to Worms. Again, Luther was told to recant and refused.
At Worms the question was directly placed to him: "Would you reject your books and the errors they contain?" To this Luther replied, "Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason —I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other— my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe."
According to tradition, Luther then said: "Hie stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Amen." ("Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.")
After this, Luther was spirited away and held (for his own protection) by Frederick at the castle of Wurtburg, where in 1522 he completed his German translation of the bible.

Zwingli and the Swiss Reformation

Zwingli’s early history

Like Luther, Ulrich Zwingli was born of moderately wealthy parents, and went to University to study for the priesthood. He received his degrees from the University of Basel in Switzerland.
Zwingli served as a parish priest from 1506 to 1516. In 1516 he served as pastor at Einsiedeln and began to oppose the abuses of the Roman church. He was a student of Erasmus, going so far as to copy the letters of Paul from a copy of Erasmus’ Greek New Testament by had, and then memorizing Paul’s letters in Greek. In 1519, during an attack of the plague, Zwingli underwent a conversion experience.
Zwingli first had a major influence on the northern cantons of Switzerland when the city council in Zurich set to decide which faith the city and canton should adopt. Zwingli wrote his sixty-seven articles, which emphasized salvation by faith, the authority of the bible, the headship of Christ in the church, and which condemned unscriptural Roman practices. He then held a debate against Johann Faber in 1523. The council decided Zwingi’s arguments were better, and brought Zurich into the protestant fold in 1525.

Zwingli vs. Luther on the presence

In the fall of 1529, Luther and Zwingli met at the Marburg castle of Philip of Hesse in what became known as the Marburg Colloquy. The agreed on fourteen out of 15 propositions on the protestant faith, but could not reach agreement on the nature of the communion.
Zwingi took the approach that the bread and wine were a memorial only. Luther argued instead that even though the substance of the bread and wine did not change, that there was a real, physical presence of Christ in the communion. This notion (called Consubstantiation) kept the two from agreeing and joining forces.

The work of John Calvin

Calvin’s early life

Calvin was born in France to a respected citizen who had a church benefice set aside for his son’s education. He studied at the University of Paris, the University of Orleans, and the University of Bourges, where he received his law degree in 1532.
Sometime around 1533 Calvin was converted – he only mentioned this in passing in two of his works, and never described it the way that Luther did.
He gave up his benefices, left France after calling for a biblical reformation like Luther’s, and went to Basel in Switzerland, where he completed The Institutes of Christian Religion.

The Institutes of Christian Religion

The purpose of the Institutes

Originally the Institutes were an attempt to defend the protestant faith in France, and were addressed to Kling Francis I. It was thus an apologetic, which developed a biblical theology. It’s not an emotional work like many of Luther’s, but instead a clear and systematic development of a biblical theology.
Calvin developed his theology in The Institutes by first addressing the Ten Commandments, then The Apostles Creed, then faith, then prayer (based on the Lord’s Prayer), then his view on the two sacraments, and finally the Christian liberty of the citizen.
Calvin begins by teaching that “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts; the knowledge of God and of ourselves”. The sad truth is “…the whole man is overwhelmed, as if by a deluge, from head to foot, so that no part is immune to sin”. In other words, we cannot understand ourselves if we ignore God. Our sin prevents us from seeing the world in the right way, and only the Scripture can provide our guide to understanding God or ourselves. Calvin had a deep commitment to and understanding of the holiness and absolute sovereignty of God, which shows through clearly in his theology.

Calvin on Grace

While Luther strongly maintained that we are saved by Grace alone (Sola Gratia) and thus emphasized a deep difference between the Law and the Gospel, Calvin contended that we as Christians are still within the same covenant God first made with Abraham. For the Christian, “the law remains a constant sting that will not let him stand still”
Faith alone saves us, but in gratitude for that Grace, we then try to do God’s will. That effort was so important to Calvin that in the Institutes he reversed Luther’s order and discussed sanctification before justification.

Calvin on Predestination

The issue for which Calvin is best known is in fact, only briefly discussed in the Institutes. His overview of how we are saved led to a doctrine of predestination different from Luther’s – called Double Predestination.
Calvin notes that our experience shows that not all to whom the Gospel is preached are transformed, and that the scripture teaches about the sheep and the goats even within the fold. Thus, if some are saved and others damned, then it can have nothing to do with merit; it can only be because God has predestined some to salvation and some to damnation.
Calvin did not speculate on why some are saved and some are damned, and even on the issue of the certainty of our salvation, noted “Experience shows that the reprobate are sometimes affected by almost the same feeling as the elect, so that even in their own judgment they do not in any way differ from the elect…”

The TULIP summary

Although not totally accurate, you can summarize Calvin’s theology with the mnemonic, TULIP
His foundation is the Total depravity of all men
Salvation is a matter of Unconditional election apart from human merit
Since the work of Christ is limited to those predestined to be save, this leads to a belief in Limited atonement
The doctrine of Irresistible grace is a corollary that shows that those predestined to salvation will be drawn irresistibly to Christ.
The Perseverance of the saints demonstrates that those elect will never be finally lost.

Calvin in Geneva and the formation of Presbyterianism

While Calvin was in Basel writing the Institutes, Guillaume Farel was establishing the reformation in Geneva. Farel realized that he needed someone with more organizing ability to help him, and when Calvin stopped in Geneva in 1536, Farel went to him and convicted him that the curse of God would be on him if he did not stay. Calvin stayed, and the two cooperated until they were exiled (but only for a short time) in 1538 over disputes about the liturgy.
In 1541 the reforming forces invited Calvin back to Geneva, where he remained until his death in 1564. During his time in Geneva, he organized a system of education for the youth in Geneva, founding what eventually became the University of Geneva. Likewise he organized the Church on a biblical model, with four offices:

Ministers of the Word were to preach and administer the sacraments
Doctors were to teach laymen and train ministers
Elders were laymen who were to enforce public morality and church discipline
Deacons oversaw works of charity, including working at hospitals, and with the poor.

He also organized the Consistatory, which was an ecclesiastical court consisting of the elders and pastors, who maintained order among the church’s officers and ministers. While the maximum punishment the Consistatory could enforce was barring someone from Communion, they could also turn people over to the secular court, which Calvin held was the place to handle serious offences against religion like Blasphemy or Heresy. There the punishment could be exile, or the death penalty, which was exercised many (by some counts over 58) times during Calvin’s lifetime.
Finally, Calvin wrote many influential commentaries on the books of the bible, which have been long studied by those who adopted his ideas, and are still being used.

The Radical Reformation and the Anabaptists

Conrad Grebel

Encouraged by Zwingli’s insistence on the Bible as the supreme authority for doctrine, Conrad Grebel (1498-1526) began teaching in Zurich. One of his primary doctrinal points was that infant baptism had no scriptural basis; a point that Zwingli had originally made, but backed away from because it would have denied the franchise to so many.
Grebel’s followers were labeled “Anabaptists” (from the Greek, meaning “rebaptizers”) and were persecuted, and forced into exile from Zurich by 1535.

The Munster Millenarians

One radical group of Grebel’s followers were lead by Melchior Hoffman, who had a strongly millenarian eschatology, and who arrived in Strousberg and proclaimed that the Millennium was at hand.
Jan Matthys, who in 1533 declared that Munster would be the site of the New Jerusalem and led his followers there, replaced Hoffman as leader of this group of Anabaptists. There he took over the city, declared himself to be Enoch, and instituted old testament practices such as polygamy.
The Roman Catholic bishop led an army that retook Munster and slaughtered Matthys’ followers. This left a dark stain on the Anabaptists in both Protestant and Catholic circles.

Menno Simons and the Mennonites and Amish

Grebel’s followers in the Netherlands (by this time calling themselves “The Brethren” to avoid the name Anabaptists) came under the guidance of Menno Simons (1496-1561). Simons was a Roman Catholic priest who converted to Anabaptism in 1536 after renouncing his Catholic faith and office. Simons wisely encouraged the group to follow pacifism and biblical principles, and since then his followers have been known as Mennonites.
In the 1570’s a traveler to a Mennonite community in St. Gall in Switzerland described them thusly: “They avoid ostentatious clothes, despise delicate food and drink, clothe themselves with coarse cloth, decking their heads with broad felt hats, their way and conversation quite humble. They swore not, even to the authorities the civic oath. And if anyone transgressed among them he was banned; for there was the practice of daily excommunication among them.”

By the early 1700’s some Mennonites felt that the movement was drifting away from Simons’ teaching and the practices of the early Mennonite confessions of faith. Jacob Amman in particular led a group of conservative Mennonites back to their origins, insisting particularly strongly on the practice of shunning. This group became the Amish, and many of their number later migrated to America.

Basic Anabaptist Beliefs – The Schleitheim Confession

The Schleitheim Confession (adopted by the Swiss Brethren in 1527) is a particularly good example of Anabaptist beliefs. It teaches particularly that they believe:

In Believer’s baptism
That unrepentant sinners should be banned from fellowship
That Communion is a remembrance for believers only
That the Church should be separated from the world (which implicitly rejects the idea of a state church)
In Pacifism and not serving in armies
In not taking Oaths

In general, to this list can be added a strong belief in the authority of the Bible and an acceptance of the Church as a free assembly of believers.

The English Reformation

Henry VIII and the founding of the Church of England

In 1527, Henry VIII tried unsuccessfully to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon dissolved on the basis that he had married his brother’s widow, which was contrary to canon law and scripture (Leviticus 20: 21). He had earlier been granted an exception by Julius the II to marry her after his brother had died. The primary reason for wanting this dissolution was Catherine’s inability to produce a male heir, although the proximate cause was Henry’s love affair with Anne Bolyn.
Henry then turned to Parliament for aid, which banned appeals from ecclesiastical courts to the pope, then passed the Act of Supremacy in 1534. This act declared that the king was the “only supreme head” of the Church in England.
Even though there was a political split from Rome, the Church of England remained strongly Catholic in theology, affirming transubstantiation, a celibate clergy, and communion in one kind in the Six Articles passed in 1539.
At the death of Henry, Edward VI’s regent the duke of Somerset began a reform of the church under the leadership of Archbishop Cranmer. He introduced the Book of Common Prayer (in English), returned the cup to the laity, and legalized the marriage of priests.
A second edition of the Book of Common Prayer produced in 1552 recognized more Calvinistic influences. Minor modifications were made during Elizabeth I’s reign, when the Thirty-nine Articles were also passed. These remain the major statements of the Anglican faith today.

The Puritans and the Separatists

Many in England were unsatisfied with the “halfway point between Geneva and Rome” that the compromises during Elizabeth’s reign brought about in the Church of England. These dissenters became known as the Puritans because they wanted to Purify or purge the Church of Roman influences.
The Puritans wanted to remove the ritual and vestments of the Church, dispense with Saint’s days, the sign of the cross in prayer, and other relics of the Catholic Church.
They were mainly concerned with the meditating on the Bible, a need for constant repentance and reformation, and a theology that would soften the heart and enlighten the conscience.
The Puritans themselves were split into those that wanted to reform the church from within, and those that wanted to split from what they saw as a church that was no longer Christ’s. This second group was called the Separatists.

The Baptists in England and America

A Group of Separatists that were persecuted in England and fled to Amsterdam was led by John Smyth (1565-1612). This group came into contact with Mennonites while in Amsterdam and adopted many of their beliefs. It was members of this same group that later emigrated to American on the Mayflower and became known as the Pilgrims.
Other members of the congregation in Amsterdam returned to England, led by Thomas Helwys and John Murton in about 1611 or 1612. This group organized the first English Baptist churches.
A schism among the English Baptists led to the division between the Armenian, or “General” Baptists and the more Calvinistic, or “Particular” Baptists, which formed in London in 1633 and 1638.
Roger Williams, while a Puritan (Congregationalist) by training, became a Baptist by conviction and is credited with founding the first Baptist church in America in Providence, Rhode Island.

One Final connection

In the late 1600’s a movement emerged in Germany called Pietism that sought to rediscover the passion and emotion of a Christianity that was becoming over intellectualized and overly concerned with fine details of creeds and theological distinctions.
One adherent of this movement was the young Count Nicholas Zinzendorf. When he inherited his estates, he encouraged religious refugees from Bohemia and Moravia (including those who can trace their descent back to the followers of Jan Hus) to come to his lands and encouraged them in developing their beliefs.
This group became known as the Moravian Church and absorbed many of the practices and beliefs of various other Anabaptist and Pietist groups.
One group of Moravian missionaries setting off for America came in contact with a young English priest named John Wesley in 1735. This contact both changed his life and his theology, leading him to a denial of Baptismal regeneration, and the conclusion that the real change in a person comes about not at Baptism, but when they experience regeneration, or in his words “So that he who is thus justified, or saved by faith, is indeed born again.”

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