THE REASONS BEHIND TO THE REFORMATION OF THE WORLD HISTORY DURING THE 16TH CENTURY
INTRODUCTION
The reformation , was a 16th –century movement in
western Europe that aimed at
reforming some doctrines and
practice of the Roman catholic church
and resulted in the
establishment of the protestant churches .There were many Christians in western Europe who believed that malpractices carried out by the
church were not in keeping with what
they believed . Two examples of these practices were the sale of
indulgences, or relief of punishment due to sins that have been committed, and
the appointment to position of authority in the church to those who made
contributions. In1517 martin Luther published 95 these, which criticized the
practice of selling indulgences. He also posted his writings on the door of the
castle church in Wittenberg, Germany. Luther began as a monk in a life of
prayer and examination of his thought and feelings also reform movements began
in Switzerland, Scotland and Hungary at the same time as those of Luther and
Calvin. The separation of the Church of England under the rule of Henry VIII in
1529 brought England into the reform movement as well.
THE REASONS BEHIND TO THE REFORMATION OF THE WORLD HISTORY DURING
THE 16TH CENTURY
In
the beginning of the 16th century, many events led to the protestant
reformation. Clergy abuse caused people to begin critising the catholic church,
the greed and scandalous lives of the clergy had created a spilt between and
the peasants. Furthermore the clergy did not respond to the populations needs,
often because they did not speak the local language or live in the own diocese
The Bible was only printed in Latin, and not
in the local language such as English, Italian and France and what enough the
the printing was controlled by the church by a system of censorship also the
church chief religious service was provided in Latin language This meant that
the people could not check whether what the priest said was actually correct
Religious posts were often sold to whoever
was willing to pay the most money for them which meant that many priest did not
know enough about Christianity, so they told the people many different things
although some things had little to do with what was written in the Bible
The
church sold tickets of forgiveness from sins for money. This suggests thatthe
rich could buy their way into heaven while the poor could not which is opposite
of what Bible says (see Gospel of Mathew19:24)
Church
leaders enjoyed lives o f wealth and ease, Erasmus wrote the praise of Folly
which poked fun at the errors of Christian Europe. He reminded his readers that
the peter said to Jesus" we have left everything for you” (Matthew19:27,
Mark10:28) ", there is scarcely any kind of people who live more at their
ease "than the successors of the apostles
The
church Latin translation of the Bible contained errors, Jerome finished
translating the old and New Testaments
into Latin by 405 A.D. his translation was called the Vulgate and it was the
the Bible of the church for centuries .However Jerome trans translation had
deficiencies.
THE REFORMATION OF THE WORLD
HISTORY DURING THE 16 CENTURY
The
invention of the printing press in the middles of the 16th (Luther
and other reformers), turned to the Bible as the only reliable source of
instruction together with the translation of the Bible into the common
languages of French, Italian, German, and English meant that it was possible
for those who could read to learn directly from Bible without having to rely on
a priest or other officials. Before this time the Bible was available in Latin,
the ancient language of Rome spoken chiefly by the clergy.
It
is also during this period that the Scientific Revolution gained momentum and
observation of natural world replaced religious doctrine as the source of our
understanding of the universe and our place in it. It Copernicus up-ended the
ancient Greek model of the heavens by suggesting that the sun was at the center
of the solar system and that that planets or orbited around it
The same time ,exploration, colonization and the often forced Christianization of what
Europe called the new world continued by the end of the century ,the world of the Europeans was a lot bigger and
opinions about that word were more varied and more uncertain that they had been
for centuries
It brought challenges on how persons gained
right standing with God, Luther , Ulrich,Zwing and others, drawing especially
on Augustine, began to see grace as the doctrine by which all others should be
tested. Every dimension of salvation depended exclusively on" Gods grace”.
Penitential needs that could be performed in order to absolve a person from sin
or shorten their time spent in purgatory. This distortion of Christian
teaching, popularly called salvation by work s , culminated in jingles that
could be heard on town streets intended to stir lay people to action .
It
affirmed the immediacy of God’s presence through the mediation of Christ, For
centuries poor people were taught that the holiness of Christ made him
unapproachable betweenJesus and everyday people, therefore, must stand a host
of other mediators, including intercessory saints and priests .This led to
several unhealthy practices, including, penitential pilgrimages the use of
relics as talisman and the cult of saint against this , the reformers also
affirmed the biblical teaching of the"
priesthood of all believers"
It
influenced the woman leadership in the church, The A baptismtradition, also
known as the radical reformation,emphasized, the role and calling of the Holly
spirit on the life of the believer, andtherefore welcomed women as ministers
including in preaching roles
It
made the Bible to be accessible tothe poor
people , Until the reformation , the only Bible readily available to the
western church was the Latin vulgate. Not only was this restricting, but this
version included several translation errors that perpetuated unhealthy beliefs
for example in Matthew 4:17, Jesus is translated as saying "do penance
instead "of represent. The implications are obvious, that begun to change
when Wycliffe translated the Bible into the common languages
It
helped to propel the spread of literacy across the continent, The protestant
reformation helped propel the spread of literacy, since one of its primary
emphases was personal piety based on the appropriation of Scripture.
Furthermore, Protestants made use of catechisms for children, which encouraged
reading, for stance in Germany before the reformation the literacy rates ranged
only 5-30%
It
reconfigured the church-state relationship away from Christendom, in 1534,
English Act of Supremacy which made King Henry VIII head of the English church.
On the surface this solidified the church-state relationship.IN reality it
broke England s ties to Rome as a religious –political power and moved to
secularize the state once protestant prices throughout Germany broke with Rome,
they also felt empowered to carve their own paths to power independent of
religious authorities
CONLUSION
Generally,
reformationled to the modern democracy, capitalism, individualism, civil
rights, and many of the modern values we cherish today. The protestant
reformation impacted nearly every academic discipline, notably the social
science like economics, philosophy, and history.
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