What Are We Protesting About? Martin Luther and the Reformation

Transcription

1 What Are We Protesting About? Martin Luther and the Reformation

2 What are We Protesting About?: Martin Luther and the Reformation 4/26/2009: The Medieval Church and the Seeds of Reformation 5/3/2009: Martin Luther s Problems with the Church 5/10/2009: Luther s Bible and the Spread of Lutheranism 5/17/2009: Other Reformations and the

3 The Medieval Church and the Seeds of Reformation Three weeks ago A.D : Pope Zachary and Pope Stephen II conspired with Pepin the Short, making Pepin King of the Franks in exchange for the eliminating the threat of the Lombards and creating the Papal States, a kingdom ruled by the Popes : The Avignon Papacy; : The Western Schism. St. Peter s Basilica fell into disrepair. 1513: Giovanni di Lorenzo de Medici becomes Pope Leo X, bankrupting the papacy and necessitating increased fundraising, including indulgences.

4 Martin Luther s Problems with the Church Two weeks ago : Martin Luther entered a monastery and was later ordained a priest. He was obsessed with his own sinfulness and couldn t understand how God could accept him. His reading of Romans 1:17 gave him an understanding that our faith alone justifies us before God : Preached against sale of indulgences (and other perceived problems with the Church) which conflicted with this theology. 1521: Luther was excommunicated by the Pope and declared a heretic by the Holy Roman Emperor at the Diet of Worms, but was abducted on his way home

5 Luther s Bible and the Spread of Lutheranism Last week : Luther spent 11 months in Wartburg Castle, under Frederick III s protection, writing and translating the New Testament. He returned to Wittenberg in March : Peasant s War, a populist uprising in the Holy Roman Empire, used Luther s writings as propaganda : Luther and Zwingli failed to reach an agreement and unify Protestantism. The Diet of Augsburg failed to reconcile Catholicism and Lutheranism, though it did create the Augsburg Confession, the Lutheran statement of faith. 1546: Martin Luther died at age 62.

6 John Wycliffe (c ) and Jan Hus (c ) predated Martin Luther by over a century, but are often considered the first reformers of the church. Wycliffe was a professor at Oxford, and was concerned about the temporal powers of the Popes and the Church. He insisted that the Church should be poor, like it was in the days of the apostles, and so therefore the Church should not rule nations (e.g., the Papal States) or collect tribute from other nations. Image: Wycliffe Giving The Poor Priests His Translation of the Bible, by William Frederick Yearnes ( ). Via Wikimedia Commons.

7 Image: Beginning of the Gospel of John from a Wycliffe Bible. Via Wikimedia commons. Wycliffe had a powerful defender in John of Gaunt, the eldest surviving son of the dying King Edward III and uncle and soon-to-be regent of the next king, Richard II. England wasn t interested in paying the 33 years worth of back tribute England owed at the time. Wycliffe also produced the first English vernacular translation of the bible (based on the Vulgate). His theology was that the Church is not found in the Pope and the hierarchy, but rather consists of all believers who are predestined for heaven. Those who are not predestined for heaven have no part in it. The head of the church is Christ, not the Pope, against whom Wycliffe wrote several tracts. Followers of Wycliffe in England became known as Lollards, which remained underground for a century or so until the English reformation took hold.

8 Jan Hus was a priest in Bohemia (part of the Holy Roman Empire at the time, now the western half of the Czech Republic) and Rector of Charles University in Prague. He learned of Wycliffe when Richard II and his queen, Anne of Bohemia, went to visit her family. Like Luther, Hus was concerned about the sale of indulgences, which were being pushed by all three Popes (this was during the height of the Papal Schism). Antipope Alexander V excommunicated Hus for his teachings, but the Bohemian government took the side of Hus, knowing they had two other popes they could choose. Hus was eventually imprisoned, tried, and burned at the stake for his beliefs. Image: Jan Hus burned at the stake. Via Wikimedia Commons.

9 While the Peasant s War raged in the HRE, the English King Henry VIII had a problem. Long before he became king, his older brother, Arthur, had died only a week after marrying Catherine of Aragon (aunt of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V), and she had instead been betrothed to Henry. By 1525, Catherine was 40 years old and they had only one surviving child, a daughter. Up to this point, no woman had ever succeeded in claiming the English throne, which meant the next person in line would likely be James V, King of Scots, and Henry s nephew and England and Scotland were at war. He felt he needed a male heir, and so he pursued one Anne Boleyn and tried to figure out how to annul his marriage to Catherine. Image: Henry VIII after Hans Holbein the Younger. Painting in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Via Wikimedia Commons.

10 The question turned on two conflicting pieces of scripture: First, that when a man dies, his younger brother should marry his widow (Deuteronomy 25:5-6); second, that a man should not lie with his brother s wife (Leviticus 20:21). Henry wanted the Pope to rule on this and hopefully grant him an annulment but Rome had been sacked the year before by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, since Clement VII had sided against Charles in a war with France. Charles wasn t about to allow Clement to divorce his mother s sister. Image: Queen Catherine of Aragon s official portrait, 16 th century. Via Wikimedia Commons.

11 Image: Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canturbury. Portrait by Gerlach Flicke, Painting in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Via Wikimedia Commons. Nevertheless, Henry continued to look for ways to annul his marriage. When the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Wareham, died in 1532, he arranged that Thomas Cranmer, the Boleyn family chaplain, should get the post. Cranmer had been involved in a secret group called Little Germany, that met in a tavern at Cambridge to discuss Lutheran ideas. Also in 1532, Parliament passed several acts which increased the King s power over the Church. Finally, in 1533, Henry got Anne pregnant and married her, and Cranmer declared Henry s marriage to Catherine annulled. By 1536, the break with Rome was final and Cranmer began writing the first Book of Common Prayer (completed 1548).

12 Next, we turn to John Calvin (originally Jean Cauvin) ( ). Calvin s early years were mirror images of Luther s. Whereas Hans Luther wanted his son to be a lawyer and wound up with a priest instead, Calvin s father expected him to become a priest and wound up with a lawyer instead! While in law school, he apparently had a religious conversion. Image: Portrait of Young John Calvin, from the Society of the Historical Museum of the Reformation, Geneva. 16 th Century. Via Wikimedia Commons.

13 In 1533, a close friend of Calvin s, Nicholas Cop, who was rector of the Collège Royal in Paris, gave his inaugural address on the need for reform in the Roman Catholic Church. The faculty denounced him as a heretic, and he was forced to flee the country. Calvin also fled and wound up in Basel (part of the HRE at the time, now in Switzerland). There, he published Institutio Christianae Religio, his explanation and defense of his reformist ideas. Image: Courtyard of the College de France, formerly the College Royal, Paris. Photo by Roy Boshi, Via Wikimedia Commons.

14 This theology, now frequently known as Calvinism, differs from Lutheranism or Catholicism in several ways. First, Calvin denied that human beings have free will. We are all sinful and have fallen from grace, and there is nothing we can do to change that. Whether we are saved is therefore entirely up to God, who has mercifully chosen to save some humans. This is the principle of sovereign grace. The Roman Catholic Church insisted that we have free will (so, the blame for sin is entirely on the sinner) and Luther insisted that free will is restricted for sinners. Calvin also espoused the regulative principle of worship, which requires that any form of worship be instituted in the Bible.

15 The following year Calvin was on his way to Strasbourg (then an Imperial Free City in the HRE, now part of France) when he was forced to detour to Geneva to avoid the French army. He intended to stay one night, but his host, William Farel, convinced him to stay and help reform the church there. Within a few months, he was made Pastor and started leading services, weddings, baptisms, and so on, though he was not consecrated. Image; William Farel, portrait by Theodore Beza ( ). Via Wikimedia Commons.

16 In 1537/1538, a disagreement arose between reformers in Bern and Geneva as to the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist. Calvin was ordered by the city council to use unleavened bread, and he instead refused to offer Eucharist at all that Easter. The city rioted, and Calvin was forced to leave. At the invitation of Martin Bucer, he wound up in Strasbourg where he continued reforming and leading church services (and married), and intended to remain permanently, but stayed only three years before Geneva invited him back. Image: Martin Bucer, portrait by Jean Jacques Boissart ( ). Via Wikimedia Commons.

17 Image: Session of the Council of Trent, Rennaisance print. Via Wikimedia Commons. Back in Rome in 1545, the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church finally understood that the reformers had a point, and decided that the Church needed to make some changes. Pope Paul III, who had succeeded Clement VII, called the Council of Trent, a commission of Cardinals who were tasked with reforming the institutions of the Church and addressing concerns with clerical abuses, including indulgences. This is also known as the Catholic. They met over an 18-year period, eventually developing the Roman Catechism (which is still in use today). Appointment of Bishops for political reasons was forbidden, and discipline and administration within the church was improved.

18 Back in England, Henry VIII died in 1547, and his nine-year-old son (via Jane Seymour) became King Edward VI. The English Reformation continued during his short reign, but he died just six years later, and it was now clear that a woman would succeed to the throne of England, since all the descendants of Henry VII still alive were women. Mary, Edward s half sister via Catherine of Aragon, won out, but she restored England to Catholic rule. She married Philip, son of Charles V, but died childless in Philip would later become the King of Spain. Image: Queen Mary I, portrait by Antonio Moro, In the Museo del Prado. Via Wikimedia Commons.

19 In 1555, Charles V offered the Peace of Augsburg, which finally legalized the Lutheran religion in the Empire. It allowed each of the 225 states in the Empire to choose which religion to follow, Lutheranism or Catholicism (Calvinism was still forbidden). But this did not resolve any religious differences. Image: Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Portrait traditionally attributed to Titian, but now thought to be by Lambert Sustris, Via Wikimedia Commons.

20 Back in Geneva, Calvin s esteem increased over the next several years, especially in 1553 when he denounced and had arrested one Michael Servitus, a Spanish heretic on the run from the Spanish Inquisition. Starting in 1555, Calvin sheltered several English Protestants who were fleeing Bloody Mary. He died in 1564 and was buried in an unmarked grave, due to concerns about his followers canonizing him as a saint. Image: John Calvin, anonymous 16 th century portrait. In the Geneva Library. Via Wikimedia Commons.

21 When Mary I died, her half-sister Elizabeth took the throne and returned England to Protestantism. Parliament s Act of Supremacy that year made the sovereign of England the supreme head of the Church of England. Elizabeth s 40+ year reign brought stability to the country and its new Church. Like her two half-sibling monarchs, she died childless, but England and Scotland had been at peace for some time and her first cousin twice removed, James VI of Scotland, became James I of England. He commissioned a new English translation of the bible, the King James Image: Title page to a 1611 edition of the King James Version. Via Wikimedia Commons. Version, in 1608.

22 In 1617, it was clear that Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, would die childless, and he selected the fiercely Catholic Archduke Ferdinand of Austria as his heir. The Bohemians, who still celebrated Jan Hus and the Protestant Reformers, revolted and threw Ferdinand s councilors out a castle window, in the second Defenestration of Prague. Soon, much of the Empire was consumed in what became known as the Thirty Years War, which pitted Protestant states against Catholic. Danish, Swedish, and French forces were also heavily involved, with Spain and England, and even the Ottoman Empire taking some part in the war, but the majority of the war was fought within the confines of the Empire. Image: Defenestration of Prague, contemporary woodcut. Via Wikimedia Commons.

23 Image: The Holy Roman Empire following the Peace of Westphalia. Created by Wikipedia user Roke. Via Wikimedia Commons. Peace negotiations began in 1643, and were concluded in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. These treaties affirmed the Peace of Augsburg, with the addition of Calvinism as a valid choice. The Westphalian System of state sovereignty, which required that nations not interfere with the internal politics of other nations, was established. This is generally regarded as the end of the Protestant Reformation.

24 Where are they now? Calvinism: Now found in Reformed Churches, including the various Presbyterian denominations. Anabaptists: The Anabaptist movement evolved into modern-day Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, Brethren in Christ, and other German Baptist traditions.

25 Where are they now? Holy Roman Empire: Devastated by Thirty Years War, it never regained anything close to its former glory. The Empire was defeated by Napoleon in 1806 and partitioned into several states. The majority of the land became the Confederation of the Rhine (essentially, modern-day Germany). Remnants of the many tiny states in the Empire include Lichtenstein and Luxembourg. Image; Emperor Napoleon I, portrait by Jacques-Louis David, In the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Via Wikimedia Commons.

26 Image: Giuseppe Garibaldi, c Photograph from the Library of Congress. Via Wikimedia Commons. Where are they now? Papal States: Italian nationalism was on the rise through the first half of the 19th century beginning when Napoleon established an Italian Republic. Most of the Papal States were conquered and/or annexed by the Kingdom of Sardinia in Giuseppe Garibaldi and his Red Shirts, among others, succeeded in unifying the various kingdoms into a single kingdom of Italy. In 1861, Rome was declared capital of the new kingdom, but Napoleon III kept a French garrison in Rome which prevented Italy from exercising control over the city.

27 Where are they now? In 1870, Napoleon III had to recall the garrison to fight in the Franco- Prussian War. On September 10 of that year, Italy declared war on the Papal States, and captured Rome 11 days later. The Pope, Pius IX, and his four successors (Leo XIII, Pius X, Benedict XV, and Pius XI) remained in the Vatican palace throughout their papacies as prisoners of the Vatican. In 1929, Pius XI and Benito Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty, creating the tiny state of the Vatican City, the last remnant of the Pope s temporal rule. Image; Pope Pius IX in front of his Papal Tiara. Via Wikimedia Commons.