THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

1. What is?

   • 1- The Protestant Reformation was a religious reform movement in Europe in the 1500s. This reform movement helped create a new Christian religion called Protestantism. The Protestant Reformation also includes many religious groups that broke away from the Roman Catholic Church as there were many differences in their beliefs.

2. Origin

   • 1- The Protestant Reformation began in Wittenberg, Germany, on Halloween, October 31, 1517. Martin Luther, a teacher and monk, was the person who started the movement. He published a document that he called the Dispute over the Power of Indulgences, or 95 Theses. This document contained a series of 95 ideas about Christianity, this invited people to debate with him. The ideas created a great debate because they went against the teachings of the Catholic Church.
   • 3- The Protestant Reformation spread throughout Europe, for example, John Calvin in France, and Huldrych Zwingli, in Switzerland, proposed his own new ideas. A group called Anabaptists rejected the idea that children should be baptized. They favored the idea that baptism was reserved for adult Christians.
   • 2- What Luther said questioned the role of the Catholic Church as an intermediary between the people and God, since it challenged the indulgence system which allowed people to buy a certificate of forgiveness for their sins, but Luther demanded that instead of paying for their sins with money, the believer had to show inner repentance.

3. Cutting Out the Middleman

   • 1- It was the idea that individual believers should be less dependent on Catholics like the Pope and priests. In contrast, the Protestants thought that each person should have an independent relationship with God.
   • 2- In England, the Protestant Reformation began with Henry VIII in 1534, as the Pope did not want to allow him to cancel his marriage. So that caused King Henry to reject the authority of the Pope, creating and taking authority over the Church of England. He created a church where beliefs were mixed, combining some Catholic beliefs and some Protestant ideals.
   • 3- Some time later, Queen Mary arrived, who lived from 1516 to 1558, she reestablished Catholicism in the country and drove out the Protestants. Later Queen Elizabeth I tried to lead the country to Protestantism during her reign from 1558 to 1603, but many citizens did not believe that she would be able to return England to Protestantism, so they were divided into 2 groups and their opponents labeled them as Puritans. The first group, called separatists, believed that the English church was being very dishonest and believed their only option was to leave England, break away from the English church and start a new church. So they created it and called it the English Separatist Church.

4. Separatists and Puritans

   • 1- Between 1607 or 1609, some of the separatists, leaving England, tried to start a new life as they imagined it in some countries like Holland, the Netherlands. Some time later, all his plans failed. They faced poverty and felt that their children were becoming part of Dutch culture rather than English, so many of the Separatists returned to England.
   • 2- The other group of English citizens who did not believe in Queen Elizabeth's reform efforts were called Non-Separatists and in time, would be called Puritans. This group did not seek to leave the Church of England. They only wanted to reform it by getting rid of the parts of Catholicism that remained within it.
   • 3- Some Puritans did not want to separate from the English church, but saw an opportunity to move to New England seeking true church reform and freedom to worship as they pleased. In 1630, a decade after the Pilgrims embarked on a similar journey for similar reasons, the first Puritans traveled to the New World, establishing the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Boston, Massachusetts.
   • 4- Although the two separatist groups did not know if they should cut ties with the English church, since they were dissatisfied with it. Both felt they were free to start a church more in line with their beliefs. They decided the freedom to practice any religion, taking into account their own beliefs, this led to the creation of different churches and beliefs, but this also created disagreements.

5. Core American Value

   • This variety of religious thought has also become a core value of the United States. The first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution are called the Bill of Rights. That specifically speaks that the United States government cannot have an official religion and also it cannot prevent people from following their preferred religious practices.