Transcript 3.2 A History of Christianity

3.2 A HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
The Clamour for Reform:1300-1600 CE
FACTORS LEADING TO THE REFORMATION
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A number of religious, social and environmental factors,
positive and negative, came together in the 14th century which
could only result in a great clamour all over the Christian world
for reform of the Church and society. These included:
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Widespread corruption and ignorance of Scripture in the Church
Superstitious and questionable practices such as extreme devotions to
saints and the trade in relics and pilgrimages.
Un-Christian action by the Church- Crusades and Inquisitions
The establishment of Universities and building of Cathedrals
The Black Death devastates Europe and Asia
The invention of the Printing Press
The Renaissance of knowledge, the arts, science, medicine
The rise of individualism- a new worldview
The rise of the “middle class”
CORRUPTION AND IGNORANCE
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During what was called the Dark Ages
for Europe, much learning was lost to
Europe during invasions by barbarian
forces.
Access to and knowledge of theology
and the Scriptures was limited and
many country priests were untrained
and even illiterate- they merely learned
the Latin mass by rote.
The sale of Indulgences as a corrupt
substitute for penances and to gain
remission for “time in purgatory” after
death was widespread. Such sales
were used to raise money for the
Church.
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freepages.genealogy.rootswe
b.ancestry.com
RELICS AND STATUES
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Denied access to the Eucharist
because of extreme rules regarding
sex and fasting, ordinary people
turned their devotion to saints,
especially the Virgin Mary.
Relics of saints, often bizarre and
unbelievable, were used by many
monasteries and churches to attract
pilgrims who brought money and
sought the miraculous cures
claimed by many centres with relics.
Processions and festivals of objects
and statues became a regular part
of church life, while the Mass
became a private affair of priests
hidden behind rood screens.
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wdtprs.com
CRUSADES AND INQUISITIONS
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As described in the previous section,
the nine Crusades to liberate the Holy
Land were primarily appalling acts of
plunder, pillage, rape murder and
genocide in the name of God.
The church held a trump card over
anyone challenging its power and
authority: eternal damnation by
excommunication. If that failed,
torture to force recanting and then
death, known as the Holy Inquisition,
became the preferred method in the
Middle Ages.
atlantismt2.pl
UNIVERSITIES AND CATHEDRALS
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The first institutions generally
considered to be universities were
established in Italy, France, and
England in the late 11th and the 12th
centuries for the study of arts, law,
medicine, and theology. These
universities evolved from much older
Christian cathedral schools and
monastic schools, and it is difficult to
define the date at which they became
true universities. The first three
universities were in Bologna, Paris and
Oxford.
The building of huge Cathedrals across
Europe from 1000CE onwards required
development of knowledge of
Engineering and Physics and other
sciences, as well as skills in masonry,
glassmaking and metallurgy.
hubpages.com
THE BLACK DEATH
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Bubonic plague, with no known cure,
struck Europe in 1347.
In three years, this “black death” killed
one quarter of Europe’s population.
Spread by rats, between 1334 and 1351
it swept over Russia, Germany, Italy,
France, England, Norway, China, India
and Persia.
Church officials responded in two ways:
some abandoned the people and fled,
seeking safety; many others died caring
for the sick and dying. The populations of
whole monasteries died serving the sick.
Many saw the Black Death as God’s
punishment for corruption in the church
and abandonment of Christian ways.
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thevirtualworld.blogspot.com
THE PRINTING PRESS COMES TO EUROPE
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Despite the existence of printing in
China for at least 500 years
previously, the first printing press in
Europe was invented by Johannes
Gutenburg of Mainz in 1436.
This made learning open to ordinary
people and the end of the “autocracy
of knowledge” of the Church and
nobility.
The Church did not approve of the
printing of bibles, nor the printing of
bibles in languages other than Latin.
In 1536, William Tyndale was
declared a heretic, strangled and
burned for publishing an English
translation of the Bible.
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mindsparke.com
THE RENAISSANCE
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In 1453 the Turkish Sultan invaded
Constantinople.
The strictures of Islam against images
and icons led to many artists and
artisans fleeing to Italy.
At the same time, ironically, knowledge of
Philosophy, science, medicine and
literature flowed West out of Spain where
the Muslim Moors had preserved it from
the destruction of libraries in Europe by
invading armies.
Thus began a flowering or knowledge and
learning and the arts , made widely
available by the printing press, that was
to irrevocably change the social and
religious life of all of Europe.
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discussnotargue.blogspot.com
THE RENAISSANCE “MAN”
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The term renaissance man is largely
based on the various artists and scholars
of the European Renaissance, who
pursued multiple fields of studies.
Perhaps the quintessential renaissance
man of this period was Leonardo Da Vinci,
who was a master of art, an engineer, an
anatomy expert (for the time), and also
pursued many other disciplines with great
success and aplomb.
The second element of the Renaissance
Man was the rise of the sense of the
individual as an important element of
society. One’s rank and niche in society
and automatic membership of the
Christian Church, gave way to the
productive and devout individual whose
individual faith and relationship with God
was more important than salvation
through the Church.
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blass.com.au
MARTIN LUTHER 1483-1546
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In October 1517, German Augustinian
monk Martin Luther made a symbolic
protest at the sale of indulgences and
other corruptions of the church by nailing
95 theses to the door of the Church in
Wittenburg.
Luther published a prolific number of
works critiquing the church and its
theology. He considered the Pope to be
the anti-Christ.
He was condemned by Pope Leo X and
excommunicated.
He was tried for his heresy at the Diet of
Worms (1521) and declared an outlaw
when he refused to recant.
Luther is seen as the Father of the
Reformation of the Western Church.
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Luther translated the
Bible into German and
wrote on Eucharist and
Salvation, which, he
claimed was achieved
“sola scriptura”: through
following the scriptures
alone.
LUTHER’S BELIEFS
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Like other Protestant reformers, Luther
believed these three principles:
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God’s word of Authority: God had spoken to
humanity and that account was in Holy Scripture.
God’s word was a living, speaking Word.
Salvation as Gift: Salvation comes by grace alone,
as a free and undeserved gift of Christ.
All believers are priests: There are not two levels of
Christians- spiritual and lay, but one status before
God: the “priesthood of all believers”.
KING HENRY VIII 1491-1547
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In 1534, King Henry VIII
proclaimed himself head of the
Church in England.
Henry’s dispute with Rome was
more political than religious. He
remained Catholic in most
doctrinal matters.
Henry had been proclaimed
“Defender of the Faith” by the
Pope when he refuted Luther in
1521, but was excommunicated
when he divorced Catharine of
Aragon.
Under Henry, Latin was banned
and the Mass and prayer were to
be in English.
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Henry dissolved the monasteries in
England to acquire their wealth and
to end what he considered corrupt
practices such as use of relics and
sexual aberations.
Henry required all his clerics and
nobles to accept his Act of
Supremacy, beheading those who
refused, such as his chancellor and
friend Thomas More and
Archbishop John Fisher.
JOHN CALVIN 1509-1564
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Calvin was introduced to the teachings of
Luther and rejected Catholicism in 1533.
Moving to Switzerland, he went to Geneva
to help promote the Reformation.
Rejected in Geneva he went to Strasbourg
where he wrote his famous commentary
on the letter to the Romans.
He returned to Geneva in 1541 but still
found it hard to win converts.
Calvin wrote of an ideal society, a city of
God which was both civil and religious.
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He advocated a productive,
devout lifestyle where
gambling, dancing and
drinking were restricted.
He advocated a “middle
class” as the best way of
living rather than nobles
and peasants.
albatrus.org
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 1467-1536
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Born in Rotterdam, Erasmus
was ordained an
Augustinian priest in 1492.
He published the first ever
Greek New Testament in
1516.
A serious scholar of Latin
and Greek, his scholarship
underpinned the
Reformation studies of the
Scriptures.
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Erasmus remained
committed to reforming the
Church from within. He
also held to Catholic
doctrines such as that of
free will, which some
Protestant Reformers
rejected in favor of the
doctrine of predestination.
His middle road approach
disappointed and even
angered many Protestants,
such as Martin Luther, as
well as conservative
Catholics.
HULDRYCH ZWINGLI 1484-1531
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A Swiss Reformer, he was
deeply influenced by Erasmus.
In 1528 he published a
commentary on True and False
religion.
In his publications, he noted
corruption in the ecclesiastical
hierarchy, promoted clerical
marriage, and attacked the
use of images in places of
worship. In 1525, Zwingli
introduced a new communion
liturgy to replace the mass.
Zwingli also clashed with the
Anabaptists, which resulted in
their persecution.
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Zwingli and Luther agreed on
many things, but not on the
presence of Christ in the
Eucharist.
Zwingli was killed in a battle
between Catholic and
protestant groups in Switzerland
in 1531.
Image: Wikipedia
THE ANABAPTISTS
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Their name means “rebaptisers”, was given to them
by their opponents and they
didn’t like or accept it.
The most radical of the
reformers, they wanted not to
reform the church, but restore
it to the model of a family of
brothers and sisters in Christ
of the Acts.
They were regarded as
dangerous heretics who
threatened the religious and
social stability of Europe, by
Catholics and Protestants
alike.
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Hence they were persecuted
and murdered in their
thousands, but still they
flourished.
In 1527, their leader, Michael
Sattler, a former Benedictine
prior, was burned at the stake.
They went about preaching in
twos; rejected infant baptism,
were congregational in
authority, pacifist in nature and
believed in the separation of
church and state.
They survive today as
Mennonites, Brethren and
Huttites.
THOMAS CRANMER 1489-1556
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Cranmer was summoned to
Canterbury as Archbishop by Henry
VIII in 1532. He supported the Act of
Supremacy.
During Cranmer's tenure as
Archbishop of Canterbury, he was
responsible for establishing the first
doctrinal and liturgical structures of
the reformed Church of England.
Under Henry's rule, Cranmer did not
make many radical changes in the
Church, due to power struggles
between religious conservatives and
reformers.
When Edward came to the throne,
Cranmer was able to promote major
reforms. He wrote and compiled the
first two editions of the Book of
Common Prayer, a complete liturgy
for the English Church.
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He developed new doctrinal standards
in areas such as the Eucharist, clerical
celibacy, the role of images in places of
worship, and the veneration of saints.
Cranmer was tried for treason and
heresy after Mary I came to the throne.
Imprisoned for over two years and
under pressure from the Church
authorities, he made several
recantations and apparently reconciled
himself with the Roman Catholic faith.
However, on the day of his execution,
he dramatically withdrew his
recantations, to die a heretic to
Catholics and a martyr to Protestants.
MARTIN BUCER 1491-1551
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Excommunicated Dominican and
reformer at Strazbourg, Bucer
was seen as one of the chief
statesmen of the Reformers.
He tried to mediate between
Zwingli and Luther on the Lord’s
supper differences.
He attempted to unite German
and Swiss reformed churches.
He worked hard to reconcile
various protestant religious
parties.
In 1549 he travelled to
Cambridge where he advised
Thomas Cranmer on the Book of
Common Prayer.
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Bucer had great impact on the
Church of England, pointing the
way towards Puritanism.
During the reign of Queen Mary, a
Catholic, his body was exhumed
and burned as a heretic.
PHILIP MELANCTHON 1497-1560
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Professor of Greek at
Wittenburg, he was
Luther's colleague at
Wittenburg.
He attempted
reconciliation with
Reformed Groups and
Catholics.
He systematized
Luther's theology for the
Lutheran tradition.
WILLIAM TYNDALE 1494-1536
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Tyndale was a translator
of languages at Oxford
and Cambridge.
Living while Henry was
still loyal to Rome, he
lived in exile on the
Continent, where he
published English New
Testament.
He was strangled and
burned at the stake for
heresy in 1536.