Download The Luther Effect

The Luther Effect
Martin Luther sparked a fire of revolution and war that would rage throughout Europe for more
than a hundred years. This fire of change fed from the oxygen that the Gutenberg press produced.
It was the press that made the spread of Luther’s and other reforming movements possible in
Northern Europe. Luther printed all his works in the Vernacular which is the language of the
common people. Until Luther, vernacular was only spoken or written for specific families.
After Luther the vernacular becomes widely used to spread ideas through books, especially ideas
important to the common people. When Luther writes the German Bible, he does so in Prussian
and in effect creates the language of the future German nation. In essence Luther’s greatest effect
is to lay the foundation for the modern northern European national mindset.
Here are some other important Effects of Luther’s Ideas and words.
I.
The Peasant uprisings
Before the 14th century, popular uprisings were not unknown (e.g., uprisings at a manor house against an
unpleasant overlord), but they were local in scope. This changed in the 14th and 15th centuries when new
downward pressures on the poor resulted in mass movements of popular uprisings across Europe. To
provide an example of how common and widespread these movements became, in Germany between 1336
and 1525 there were no less than sixty phases of militant peasant unrest.
Most of the revolts were an expression of those below who desired to share in the wealth, status, and well
being of those more fortunate. In the end they were almost always defeated and the nobles ruled the day. A
new attitude emerged in Europe, that "peasant" was a pejorative concept, it was something separate, and
seen in a negative light, from those who had wealth and status. This was an entirely new social
stratification from earlier times when society had been based on the three orders, those who work, pray and
fight, when being a peasant meant being next to God, just as the other orders, now peasants were seen as
almost sub-human.
The Last and largest peasant uprising was a direct result of Luther ideas and words
The Peasants' War was a popular revolt in the Holy Roman Empire in the years 1524/1525. It was a series
of economic as well as religious revolts by peasants, townsfolk and nobles. The peasants were motivated
by the writings of Martin Luther which spoke of the equality of all men and the injustice the results from
lords and clergy’s oppression of the peasants.
The conflict, which took place mostly in southern, western and central areas of modern Germany but also
affected areas in neighboring modern Switzerland and Austria, involved at its height in the spring and
summer of 1525 an estimated 300,000 peasant insurgents: contemporary estimates put the dead at 100,000.
It was Europe's largest and most widespread popular uprising before the 1789 French Revolution.
Once Luther saw the ruthlessness which the peasants and knights used against each other, he spoke out in
favor of the princes and lords, in his famous tract “Against the murdering and thieving hordes of the
Peasants”
“they cause uproar and sacrilegiously rob and pillage monasteries and castles that do not belong to them, for which, like public
highwaymen and murderers, they deserve the twofold death of body and soul. It is right and lawful to slay at the first
opportunity a rebellious person, who is known as such, for he is already under God's and the emperor's ban. Every man is at
once judge and executioner of a public rebel; just as, when a fire starts, he who can extinguish it first is the best fellow.
Rebellion is not simply vile murder, but is like a great fire that kindles and devastates a country; it fills the land with murder
and bloodshed, makes widows and orphans, and destroys everything, like the greatest calamity. Therefore, whosoever can,
should smite, strangle, and stab, secretly or publicly, and should remember that there is nothing more poisonous, pernicious,
and devilish than a rebellious man. Just as one must slay a mad dog, so, if you do not fight the rebels, they will fight you, and
the whole country with you.” Luther 1525
Lutheranism Review
1. Within Lutheranism Baptism is a means of achieving grace or a state of peace with god.
2. There is a strong belief in baptizing infants so that they may be in grace with god.
3. Music is a very important and integral part of Lutheran worship.
4. The taking of Communion (eating of the bread and taking of the wine) is a means of
achieving grace.
5. The mass is not a remembrance meal, it is like the Catholics believed, and act where if you
are truly faithful, you actually partake in the eating and drinking of the blood and blood of
Christ.
6. Luther"s theology is "of Humanity Redeemed" where Faith Alone, Word Alone, and Grace
Alone will save you from purgatory or hell.
The Anabaptists
Anabaptists believe infant baptism is not valid, because a child cannot commit to a religious faith,
and they instead support what is called believer's baptism.
The word anabaptism is used in this article to describe any of the 16th century "radical"
dissenters, and the denominations descending from the followers of Menno Simons. Today the
descendants of the 16th century European movement (particularly the Amish, Hutterites,
Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, and Brethren in Christ) are the most common bodies
referred to as Anabaptist.
Menno Simons
Around 1526 or 1527, questions surrounding the doctrine of transubstantiation caused Menno to
begin a serious and in-depth search of the scriptures, which he confessed he had not previously
studied, even being a priest. At this time he arrived at what some have termed an "evangelical
humanist" position.
Menno's first knowledge of the concept of "rebaptism", which he said "sounded very strange to
me", came in 1531. This came through the means of hearing of the beheading of Sicke Freerks
Snijder at Leeuwarden for being "rebaptized". A renewed search of the scriptures left Menno
Simons believing that infant baptism is not in the Bible. He discussed the issue with his pastor,
searched the Church Fathers, and read the works of Martin Luther and Heinrich Bullinger. While
still pondering the issue, he was transferred to Witmarsum. Here he came into direct contact with
Anabaptists, preaching and practicing credo baptism.
1. Anabaptism literally means “over again baptism”
2. The Anabaptists rejected infant baptism
3. These religious people practiced adult baptism upon confession of faith to god and usually like
to have this adult baptism happen in a river with much festivity and celebration.
4. The Anabaptists believed that once they were baptized they should become Disciples of their
god and renounce all worldly property in favor of communal living where all property is shared.
5. The Anabaptists had a "Congregational" view of church authority, where the elders of the
society led the congregation forward.
6. The Anabaptists believed strongly in a separation of church and state.
Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England from April
22, 1509 until his death. Henry VIII is famous for having been married six times.
He wielded perhaps the most unfettered power of any English monarch, and
brought about the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the rise of a new religion
called Anglicanism.
When Henry broke ties with Rome, he did so for religious, political and family
reasons. He was a very religious king who believed that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the
wife of his dead brother, was a horrible sin which Pope Leo X should never have allowed.
Interestingly, Henry had written in favor of Pope Leo X when he was attacked by Luther from
1517-1521 in a piece entitled “The Defense of the Seven Sacraments”. For his writings he
was proclaimed the Popes great defender. So, one would think that the Pope would have granted
the faithful Henry a religious divorce (called an annulment). But the Pope Henry asked was not
Pope Leo (who had died by the time Henry wished to be annulled) the New pope was the medici
brother of Pope Leo and at the time Henry asked for a divorce, was under house arrest by the
brother of Catherine of Aragon, Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. So Henry’s situation was not
a good one.
To make matter’s worth the religious Henry was also worried that Catherine would never produce
him a male heir to the throne and had become convinced that this was God’s way of punishing
him for marrying his brother’s wife. If Henry could not produce a male Heir, his family’s right to
rule would come under question. Thus in January 1533 he secretly married a young lady who he
had fallen in love with named Ann Boleyn, an avid reader of reformers like Luther and Zwingli.
Soon after his marriage to Ann they had a child named Elizabeth, who would later become the
Great Queen of England. The Pope responded by issuing a Papal Bull that officially
excommunicated Henry VIII from the Roman Catholic Church for his sins against the religious
teachings of the church. This set into motion, Henry’s eventual break with Rome which was
actually performed, not by Henry but by the English Parliament.
It’s important to note that Henry was the quintessential Renaissance man, and his court was a
centre of scholarly and artistic innovation. The discovery of America or “The New World” set the
stage for Henry’s innovative attitude. His court jester was named Will Somers. Henry was among
the first European rulers to learn about the true geography of the world, a revolutionary
discovery. In 1507, the cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann published
the first “modern” map of the world, the first map to accurately depict the American Continent
and a separate Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, a radical thought for the time. This discovery
developed an atmosphere of exploration and discovery in the arts and sciences of which Henry
took full advantage in his court and daily life.
Henry VIII began the English Reformation which was the process by which the Primacy of the
Roman Pontiff in England was eliminated and replaced with Royal Supremacy and the institution
of a Church of England outside of the Roman Catholic Church and under the power of the
Supreme Governance of the English monarch. The English Reformation was more of a political
than a theological dispute which was at the root of it. The breakup between Rome and England
started in the reign of Henry VIII and is therefore sometimes called the Henrician Reformation.
Henry didn’t really establish new ideas about religion, he just wanted England’s church to be
independent. (In an intriguing parallel during that same century, the Safavid rulers of Iran
broke away from the majority doctrine, Sunniism, of their region, and converted their
people to the minority doctrine of Shi’a.)
ANGLICANISM
The start of the Anglican Church is interesting – for in many respects, there are no differences
between the Roman Catholic Church and the religion we call Anglicanism, started by Henry VIII.
Anglicans and Roman Catholics read the Bible with not only the two Testaments but also the
Apocrypha, those books of the Hebrew Bible written in Greek. Both churches recite the Nicene
and Apostles Creeds. Both administer Baptism and Confirmation, and celebrate the Holy
Communion, as well as the four other sacramental rites of Penance (reconciliation), Matrimony,
Anointing of the Sick (last rights), and Holy Orders. Their clergy are ordained deacon first, then
priest, unless they are called to be perpetual deacons. From the priests bishops are chosen and
consecrated by no fewer than three bishops belonging to a scrupulously conserved line of bishops
that reaches back to the earliest churches.
There are Roman Catholic and Anglican shrines to Mary. Some Anglicans pray the rosary. Both
churches maintain calendars of saints, with special prayers and readings for their feast days. Both
churches have orders of men and women religious, vowed celibates who live in monasteries and
convents.
The differences are in the details, for the most part. These differences flow from one central issue:
who is in authority? The Roman Catholic Church has over the centuries steadily increased the
power and prestige of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome. In our day, the combination of an
extraordinarily gifted pope, John Paul II, with the mass media and globalization, has raised the
office of pope to its highest level. The peripatetic pontiff has traveled far more than any of his
predecessors. When he visits a country, it is to speak, not to listen, however. His bishops around
the world act more as his prefects than as overseers of the regional Christian community. St
Augustine's famous saying, Roma locuta causa finita est (Rome has spoken and that settles the
matter) has never been more true than today.
John Calvin
John Calvin (July 10, 1509 – May 27, 1564) was a French Protestant
theologian during the Protestant Reformation and was a central developer of
the system of Christian theology called Calvinism or Reformed theology. In
Geneva, he rejected Papal authority, established a new scheme of civic and
ecclesiastical governance, and created a central hub from which Reformed
theology was propagated. He is renowned for his teachings and writings, in particular for his
Institutes of the Christian Religion.
The Institutes of the Christian Religion was written as an introductory textbook on the
Protestant faith for those with some learning already and covered a broad range of theological
topics from the doctrines of church and sacraments to justification by faith alone and Christian
liberty, and it vigorously attacked the teachings of those Calvin considered unorthodox,
particularly Roman Catholicism to which Calvin says he had been "strongly devoted" before his
conversion to Protestantism. The over-arching theme of the book – and Calvin's greatest
theological legacy – is the idea of God's total sovereignty, particularly in salvation and election.
CALVINISM
Calvinism is a theological system and an approach to the Christian life that emphasizes the rule
of God over all things.[1] Named after John Calvin, this variety of Protestant Christianity is
sometimes called the Reformed tradition, the Reformed faith, or Reformed theology.
The Reformed tradition was advanced by theologians such as Huldrych Zwingli and also
influenced English reformers such as Thomas Cranmer and John Jewel. Yet due to John Calvin's
great influence the tradition generally became known as Calvinism. Today, this term also refers to
the doctrines and practices of the Reformed churches, of which Calvin was an early leader, and
the system is best known for its doctrines of predestination and total depravity.
Calvinistic predestination is sometimes referred to as "double predestination". This is the view
that God chose who would go to heaven, and who to hell, and that his decision is infallibly to
come to pass. The difference between “the elect” (those who will go to heaven) and the dammed
(those who will go to purgatory or hell) is not up to men and women for men and women are all
equally unworthy of god’s love. Calvin believes that it was God's sovereign decision to show
mercy to some, to save some and not others. It is called double predestination because it holds
that God chose both whom to save and whom to damn, as opposed to single predestination which
contends that though he chose whom to save, he did not choose whom to damn.
Total depravity is the fallen state of man as a result of original sin. The doctrine of total
depravity teaches that people are by nature not inclined to love God wholly with heart, mind, and
strength, as God requires, but rather all are inclined to serve their own interests over those of their
neighbor and to reject the rule of God. Even religion and philanthropy are destructive to the
extent that these originate from a human imagination, passions, and will.
"Man, by his fall into a state of sin, has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good
accompanying salvation: so as, a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and
dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself
thereunto."
Therefore, in Reformed Theology, God must predestine individuals into salvation since man is
incapable of choosing God.
Total depravity does not mean, however, that people are as evil as possible. Rather, it means that
even the good which a person may intend is faulty in its premise, false in its motive, and weak in
its implementation; and there is no mere refinement of natural capacities that can correct this
condition. Although total depravity is easily confused with philosophical cynicism, the doctrine
teaches optimism concerning God's love for what he has made and God's ability to accomplish
the ultimate good that he intends for his creation. In particular, in the process of salvation, it is
argued that God overcomes man's inability with his divine grace and enables men and women to
choose to follow him.
POST REFORMATION ROMAN CATHOLICISM
The Counter-Reformation denotes the period of Catholic revival from the pontificate of Pope
Pius IV in 1560 to the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648.
The Counter Reformation is generally seen in relation to the protestant movement in Europe but
is often portrayed by Catholics as an extension of reforming movements that predate the protests
that began with Martin Luther in 1517.
There are three main parts to this reformation which changed the church from what it was before
Luther.
1. The Council of Trent
2. The Inquisition and banning of books in the Index
3. The creation of the holy orders, especially those of St. Ignatius Loyola
Pope Paul III (1534-1549) initiated the Council of Trent (1545-1563), a commission of cardinals
tasked with institutional reform,and to address contentious issues such as corrupt bishops and
priests, indulgences, and other financial abuses. The Council clearly rejected specific Protestant
positions and upheld the basic structure of the Medieval Church, its sacramental system, religious
orders, and doctrine. It rejected all compromise with the Protestants, restating basic tenets of the
Catholic faith. The Council clearly upheld salvation appropriated by grace through faith and
works (not just by faith, as the Protestants insisted). Transubstantiation, during which the
consecrated bread and wine were held to be transformed wholly and substantially into the body,
blood, humanity and divinity of Christ, was upheld, along with the other six Sacraments. Other
practices that drew the ire of Protestant reformers, such as indulgences, pilgrimages, the
veneration of saints and relics, and the veneration of the Virgin Mary were strongly reaffirmed as
spiritually vital. The Council also commissioned the Roman Catechism, which would serve as
authoritative Church teaching until it was replaced by the Catechism of the Catholic Church in
1992.
Inquisition is broadly used in reference to the judgment of heresy by the Roman Catholic
Church. It can mean an ecclesiastical tribunal or institution of the Roman Catholic Church for
combating or suppressing heresy, a number of historical expurgation movements against heresy
(orchestrated by the Roman Catholic Church) or the trial of an individual accused of heresy.
In 1542, Pope Paul III established a permanent inquisition staffed with cardinals and other
officials, whose task was to maintain and defend the integrity of the faith and to examine and
proscribe errors and false doctrines This body, the Congregation of the Holy Office, now called
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith became the supervisory body of local Inquisitions.
Arguably the most famous case tried by the Roman Inquisition was that of Galileo Galilei in
1633. Because of Rome's power over the Papal States, Roman Inquisition activity continued until
the mid-1800s.
The Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("List of Prohibited Books") is a list of publications
prohibited by the Catholic Church. The avowed aim of the list was to protect the faith and morals
of the faithful by preventing the reading of immoral books or works containing theological errors.
The various editions also contain the rules of the Church relating to the reading, selling and
censorship of books. Books that passed inspection were printed with nihil obstat ("nothing
forbids") or Imprimatur ("let it be printed") on the title page.
The Society of Jesus, is a Christian religious order of the Roman Catholic Church in service to
the universal Church, whose members are called Jesuits, Soldiers of Christ, and Foot soldiers of
the Pope, because the founder, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, was a knight before becoming a priest.
Today, Jesuits are the largest male religious order of the Roman Catholic Church. Jesuit priests
and brothers are engaged in ministries in 112 nations on six continents. No work, if it has an
evangelical perspective, is closed to them, but they are best known in the fields of education
(schools, colleges, universities, seminaries, theological faculties), intellectual research, and
cultural pursuits. They are also known in missionary work and direct evangelization, social
justice and human rights activities, inter religious dialogue, and other 'frontier' ministry.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola was the principal founder and first Superior General of the Society of
Jesus, a religious order of the Catholic Church professing direct service to the Pope in terms of
mission. Members of the order are called Jesuits.
The compiler of the Spiritual Exercises and a gifted spiritual director, Ignatius has been described
by Pope Benedict XVI as being "above all a man of God, who gave the first place of his life to
God...a man of profound prayer." He was very active in fighting the Protestant Reformation and
promoting the subsequent Counter-Reformation.
Ignatius Loyola wrote Spiritual Exercises from 1522-1524, the publication is a simple set of
meditations, prayers, and various other mental exercises. The exercises of the book were designed
to be carried out over a period of 28-30 days. The book was 200 pages and was designed to
enhance and strengthen a person's faith experience in Roman Catholic Church manners.