THE REASONS BEHIND TO THE REFORMATION OF THE WORLD HISTORY DURING THE 16TH CENTURY

                                              INTRODUCTION

The  reformation , was a  16^th –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 16^th (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.