The Reformation Essay Research Paper The Reformation

The Reformation Essay, Research Paper

The Reformation In the year 1517 AD, a revolution started that would not mean the taking up of arms, nor the deaths of thousands. The Reformation started a tidal wave of welcome changes in the Roman Catholic Church, most of which, were not expected but helpful to the initial cause. It happened with the nailing of a single man s ideas to a church door. Martin Luther, a man of intelligence and wisdom, had serious disagreements with the church s position on salvation. Until this time, the Roman Catholic Church controlled the people. The pope, was supposedly the man closest to God. No one questioned the church for fear of excommunication, or exile from the church. Mortality plays brought fear to the minds of the masses and gave false impressions of the true meaning of Christ s death on the cross. Luther had written the 95 theses, which were to become the basis of all attacks on the Roman Catholic Church from this moment. He wrote the 95 theses in an attempt to show people the truth. The changes in the Roman Catholic Church brought forth by this document were more than Luther expected.After the posting of the 95 theses, The Reformation took an unexpected turn. Luther was invited to defend his writings in front of the diet at Worms. The true purpose of the diet was to make Luther recant his works, not to prove himself in the right. Sensing this, Luther had prepared himself and written another document that is to become doctrine to most Protestant faiths. At this moment the Augsburg Confession was written. The Augsburg Confession is a doctrine of salvation by grace through faith in Christ as the center of the Christian faith, and the importance of the Bible and Christian doctrines in Christian Religions. It also testifies against the abuses of the medieval church which Luther sought to correct (LCMS, 7). Luther became the focus of criticism of the Roman Catholic Church. The sacraments of the Catholic Church deviated little over time. During the time before the reformation the Church added sacraments for alternative purposes. The sale of indulgences was one of these new sacraments. The sales of these papers of guaranteed salvation were to raise money to build churches in Italy. Luther as a child saw the sale of these papers and the mortality plays used to persuade the public and saw through them. In Luther s 95 theses he states, On the way to eternal damnation are they are their teachers, who believe that they are sure of their salvation through indulgences. This means that indulgences do not grant salvation or absolution. Luther retorted,The revenues of all Christiandom are being sucked into this insatiable basilica. The Germans laugh at the calling this, the common treasure of Christiandom. Before long all the churches, palaces, walls, and bridges of Rome will be built out of our money. First of all, we should rear living temples, next local churches, and only last of all St. Peter s. Better than it should never be built than that our parochial churches should be despoiled. The pope would do better to appoint one good pastor to a church than to confer indulgences to them all. Why doesn t the pope build the basilica of St. Peter out of his own money. He is richer than Croesus. He would do better to sell St. Peter s and give the money to the poor folk who are being fleeced by the hawkers of indulgences. If the pope knew the exactions of these vendors, he would rather that St. Peters should lie in ashes than it should be built out of the blood and hide of it s sheep (Bainton, 80)Therefore the sale of indulgences is in vain and for the work of man. They (church officials) are no better than the tax collectors of biblical times. In turn makes the Roman Catholic Church a group of hypocrites (Spaeth, 55). Indulgences were a creation of man, not a commandment of God. They (indulgences) were not intended to be evil, but the repercussions of these papers were enormous. The question that Luther asked is, did the pope have the power to grant pardons and relieve ones soul from purgatory. Or is this an abuse of the pope s power. Luther had now been excommunicated from the church and been declared an outlaw. After the reformation had ended, all sales of indulgences had stopped and most fund-raising procedures had been halted. The Catholic Church was now to rely on tithes. This had ended a reign of the power of the church. After this though, the church started to fall apart, break into pieces. In other parts of Europe, indulgences were not the only new sacrament installed under the Roman Catholic Church. Certain items of religious value were placed in a church. These items could be a strand of hair from Jesus, pieces of Jesus cloak, a piece of wood from the cross, or even a scroll said to be one of the gospels. Seeing or touching one of these items were supposed to relieve you or a member of your family of the burden of purgatory. To see one of these items, a person was to pay money to the church. Many people could not afford the high prices set on these privileges. Such items at that time realistically could not have existed. Human hair and clothing break down over time. For these items to be genuine, they had to be over fifteen hundred years old. Luther used these items of worship in his attacks sparingly because he could not prove at that time whether or not the items were genuine. He (Luther) decided to focus his attention to other church policies instead, but his