Protestant Reformation: what happened?

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What started the Protestant Reformation? Why did so many people leave the Catholic Church? Why was it successful?

and the last question. Do you think God might be mad at the Catholic Church for loosing so many? 😦
 
Well, that’s a pretty complicated question. The Reformation happened for a number of reasons, like …
  • After the Great Schism, when the Pope moved his headquarters from Rome to Avignon, France, eventually resulting in a couple antipopes, the papacy lost some respect
  • Nominalism, spread by William of Occam, helped undermine sound philosophical thinking, and thus sound theological thinking
  • Martin Luther, though mentally disturbed, was an incredibly gifted rhetorician, appealing to people’s emotions, though contradicting himself every step of the way (it’s actually comical when you read some of his writings)
  • The false Protestant idea that temporal leaders had religious authority in their land over the Pope back in Rome inspired them to outlaw Catholicism and promote Protestantism because they liked the idea that no one was above them
  • Henry VIII in England destroyed thousands of monasteries and with his great military force suppressed the outraged peasant uprisings, which eventually and successfully uprooted the Catholic culture (and something similar happened like this in Germany)
  • Some decadence among Catholic clergy (and even some Popes around that time) shook some people’s faith
  • Protestants used the new Printing Press to mass-produce pamphlets aimed at brainwashing populations against the Catholic Church (though the Catholic Church used it to some extent to try to repair the damage)
  • Sadly, I think, too, Christendom had finally become secure in its prosperity and wealth, thanks to the order that the Catholic Church had created, but unfortunately, what came with it, was a false sense of security and then a flirtation with danger without fear of loss, finally resulting in sin and then heresy.
I am not a scholar of this topic at all. But here are some points. Hopefully, they are all true. I am missing quite a bit no doubt

It’s a very good question, though.
 
lookaround said:
What started the Protestant Reformation? Why did so many people leave the Catholic Church? Why was it successful?

and the last question. Do you think God might be mad at the Catholic Church for loosing so many? 😦
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i think there were many reasons for the protestant reformation. there was also a Counter-Reformation within the Church.
you would probably need to read several books to understand everything that took place at that time and after.
i am not sure if the Protestant Reformation was successful. look at how many protestant denominations that exist today. there is still one Roman Catholic church.
he might be more upset at those who did not remain to help reform the Church and those who went against the teachings of the Church.
the Roman Catholic Church admits that corruption existed and there were many legitimate complaints.
you should read a good history book and read how much the Roman Catholic church helped build western civilization. the Church has done much good throughout history.
there has been some dark periods, and there probably will continue to be because the church is made up of humans and we are sinners.
 
lookaround said:
What started the Protestant Reformation? Why did so many people leave the Catholic Church? Why was it successful?

and the last question. Do you think God might be mad at the Catholic Church for loosing so many? 😦
Click to expand...
I often wonder why the pope let it happen!
 
lookaround said:
What started the Protestant Reformation? Why did so many people leave the Catholic Church? Why was it successful?
and the last question. Do you think God might be mad at the Catholic Church for loosing so many? 😦
Click to expand...
Except in America, the Protestant Reformation is all but dead. Protestant Europe is secular and irreligious. Even in America, the mainline denominations are dying on the vine, with mainly older congregations keeping them alive for the time being. What is growing in America are non-denominational churches and mega-churches. But many times these churches are more based on entertainment than on theology.
Is God mad? I believe, if the CC continues in the direction our Pope is leading, there well could be a reverse Reformation, aka conversions.
Remember this. human anger is destructive. God’s anger is CONstructive.
 
I think what really gave the Reformation its traction was that European kings were resentful of the power of Rome and also the power of the Church within their realms. The nobility was finally subjected to the kings by the 15th century, and all that remained was to gain control over the Church. Rebels like Martin Luther and his cohorts seemed unlikely to fit the bill at first, but rather quickly the secular government saw their potential, and backed them unreservedly. It was the government sponsorship of the Reformation that really spread it. Without the government backing, I doubt that it would have ever amounted to anything.
 
lookaround said:
What started the Protestant Reformation? Why did so many people leave the Catholic Church? Why was it successful?

and the last question. Do you think God might be mad at the Catholic Church for loosing so many? 😦
Click to expand...
First of all let’s call it for what it really is - The Protestant Uprising. The Protestants have been controlling the secular history books used in protestant dominated countries & public education systems for centuries and there is a strong element of historical revisionism and “spin” being taught. It is only just now coming out what really happned and they are still not teaching it at grammar school level. One has to do independent reading or take advanced history courses at college level to get even a smidgen of insight into the real texture of what was going on.

Also, your conclusions are completely wrong - It was not “successful” by any measure I can imagine. How can one call the initial bloodshed of 10s of thousands of souls and ultimately millions as it re-verbs throughout history “successful”? How can you call the mass looting of Catholic Churches and properties and malicious destruction of precious art and items deemed “idols” as successful? The Protestants raped the Catholic Church by stealing 1500 years of combined heritage and charity given by poor and wealthy Christians alike in the form of personal sacrifices given to build magnificent cathedrals and religious devotionals to God. They burned precious artifacts, books and writings, destroyed beautiful stained glass window etc. and melted down any gold or silver they could find to convert to cash and feather their own nests as well as the crown’s. It was cultural rape of 1500 years of Christian culture and personal sacrifice. That wealth went directly to the secular states to fund new empires – like the British Empire in particular (who set off on world conquest to colonize, subjugate through gun-boat diplomacy and tax all in their path - not to mention directly profiting from the Muslim expansion by marketing slaves left in the wake of conquered African nations to the Americas). Then of course we have Protestants fleeing in horror from the persecution of fellow Protestants (particularly the head of the Protestant Church - the King of England) to recast Protestantism anew in the USA under a “every-man with a bible his own pope and church” secular model. It too fails to this day as 40,000+ sects fragment out of that legion of babel.

Ever since the Protestant Uprising Europe and The West at large has been on decline socially and spiritually. There was a brief period of so called enlightenment but it was a false enlightenment since reason is dark unless illumined supernaturally by true faith – and protestantism is a fractionalized faith. And this darkening effect reflects in the progressive move of the west at large toward Rationalism, Transcendentalism, pantheism, atheism and nihilism. Look around at modern cities - there is no art, no beauty, no soul. Compare that to the times there was in the times where Catholic principals were universally embraced in the west and we had magnificent cities and culture and harmony, order, charm, congeniality and character. Compare now to then and we see that Protestantism has single handily managed to strip reason from faith in many of the western communities and has been instrumental in secularizing the west.

Worse - the fracturing of Christendom actually aided and abetted the Muslim expansion and we had for the first time in history private arrangements of so called “Christian” leaders paying Muslim Mercenaries to help Christians fight each other (Protestant England vs. Catholic Spain etc.).

No Protestantism has definately not won since Satan was unable to use this error to prevail one whit to corrupt a single text of Catholic dogmatic Teachings. We can be certain though that 10s of thousands of souls or more (then and likely 100s of millions now) were lost to Satan as a result of those falling away from the Catholic Church in disgrace and were not able to get back into good grace without the sacraments. I would not like to imagine the size of the millstone that is around the necks of the reformers who brought down so many and who did not repent and now find themselves in hell.

BTW - The Catholic Church was already in a major reformation of its own (5th Latarin Council) 6 months BEFORE Luther opportunistically nailed his infamous 95 thesis. If anything positive can be said to have come out of Protestantism is that it forced the Catholic Church to accelerate its OWN reforms and to develop over 120 new dogmatic anathemas as to what Christianity was NOT and to purify itself from “Catholics of cultural convenience”. Frankly we probably are due again for another house cleaning here soon…

Is God mad? Well its very likely that some bishops and priests are in hell right now at a deeper level of punishment than they might have been by adding the combined sins of all their displaced flock who lost respect for them in joined the heretics. But no, God is not “mad” per say. He is Just and gives each person ample time to repent and do penance.

James
 
Luther comes off as a cold theologian who appeared to lack humility and spiritual guidance. He is an angry man given to exaggerations, distortions, contradictions, inconsistencies within his own writings. Emotion, not reason, dominated his writings. His chief supporters were the humanists, rebellious, immoral clergy and those with revolutionary tendencies. The Renaissance introduced and greatly fostered the conditions Luther played into at the time. In short, Luther was not reaching back into Church history to recover Biblical Christianity (as what had been told to me), he was instead a product of his time.
 
Well said, so far. I would like to add that people at that time were required to be of the faith of their king. The kings of the northern third of Europe, especially Germany, decided that it would be beneficial to them financially, if this Reformation thing kind of “took off” because they could then grab all the land owned by the monasteries, including the vineyards, etc., for themselves. I’ve never verified this, but I heard once that if you drew a line bewtween Western Germany and Eastern Germany, it would be very close to the line that separated those kingdoms that sided with the Church vs. those kingdoms that sided with Luther during the Reformation. What was to be Eastern Germany after WWII would represent Luther’s group, and what was to be Western Germany would represent those faithful to the Church.

From a violence standpoint, it was brutal in Germany. (Remember in those days there wasn’t a united Germany. What is Germany now was comprised of many small kingdoms/feifdoms, each with its own ruler.) Anyway, in a relatively short period of time, the population of what is now Germany was reduced from about 18 million to about 10 million people.
 
From what History has recorded, I think the only way that Protestantism was allowed to rise was the church corruption.

If the church had kept the moral high ground and it’s members weren’t so corrupt, people would have never latched on to Luther’s ideas so fervently.

Another reason that the reformation happened so well is because the king of England got the idea that he was the leader of all English Christendom. And when the king ordered his subjects to be Protestant, they became protestant. They didn’t dare defy his orders. It’s sad too because the King of England never had a single ounce of authority to speak on church matters. Then in the 1500’s he just got this idea that God had made him Pope # 2.
 
AJTheMan said:
From what History has recorded, I think the only way that Protestantism was allowed to rise was the church corruption.

If the church had kept the moral high ground and it’s members weren’t so corrupt, people would have never latched on to Luther’s ideas so fervently.

Another reason that the reformation happened so well is because the king of England got the idea that he was the leader of all English Christendom. And when the king ordered his subjects to be Protestant, they became protestant. They didn’t dare defy his orders. It’s sad too because the King of England never had a single ounce of authority to speak on church matters. Then in the 1500’s he just got this idea that God had made him Pope # 2.
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Actually, the Reformation would’ve never taken root without the support of the northern European kings and princes who thought they could benefit financially. And in those days, the common man was required to belong to whatever religion his king had. It really wasn’t as much about theology as you seem to think, and certainly not on the level of the common man. Remember, the vast majority of people in those days were illiterate.

Additionally, Martin Luther never intended to separate from the Church. It’s just that he had an incredibly nasty temper and got mad. He began to deconstruct all Catholic theology, piece by piece. He began with the abuse of indulgences, then said there should be no indulgences. And, if there were no indulgences, there was no need for Mass to offer for indulgences. If there was no Mass, then there was no need for priests. If there was no need for priests, there was no need for bishops to ordain priests, especially the Bishop of Rome. He went on and on until all he was left with was two brand new doctrines that he created out of thin air: Sola Scriptura (the Bible Alone is the sole rule of faith) and Sola Fide (we are saved by Faith Alone), neither of which can be supported by Scripture or Tradition. Even before his death, Protestantism had begun to splinter, because by it’s nature, it must splinter, over and over again. By making every man, woman, and child his/her own final authority in interpreting Scripture, we have what we have today, tens of thousands of man-made, doctrinally disunified, disagreeing denominations (and counting). On his deathbed, Luther regretted what he had done, pretty much with horror.
 
The main reason for the Reformation was economic. New technology in weaponry ended up costing more. And then the defences against that weaponry had to be invented and built. So who to tax? Who to tax?

There were roaming princes, lusting for land and power.

Martin Luther was brilliant but of fragile mental health and therefore a dupe for the princes.

Luther and his buddies mounted a propaganda campaign, built on the new technology of the printing press.

Luther tricked the commoners and had them massacred (100 thousand). Property was seized. Churches, synagogues burned. Clergy executed. And therefore the commoners joined Luther in being dupes.

That’s it in a nutshell and I may or may not have time later to post in more depth. In any case, I’ve postedd on this many times before. A search will turn things up.
 
CentralFLJames said:
First of all let’s call it for what it really is - The Protestant Uprising. The Protestants have been controlling the secular history books used in protestant dominated countries & public education systems for centuries and there is a strong element of historical revisionism and “spin” being taught. It is only just now coming out what really happned and they are still not teaching it at grammar school level. One has to do independent reading or take advanced history courses at college level to get even a smidgen of insight into the real texture of what was going on.

Also, your conclusions are completely wrong - It was not “successful” by any measure I can imagine. How can one call the initial bloodshed of 10s of thousands of souls and ultimately millions as it re-verbs throughout history “successful”? How can you call the mass looting of Catholic Churches and properties and malicious destruction of precious art and items deemed “idols” as successful? The Protestants raped the Catholic Church by stealing 1500 years of combined heritage and charity given by poor and wealthy Christians alike in the form of personal sacrifices given to build magnificent cathedrals and religious devotionals to God. They burned precious artifacts, books and writings, destroyed beautiful stained glass window etc. and melted down any gold or silver they could find to convert to cash and feather their own nests as well as the crown’s. It was cultural rape of 1500 years of Christian culture and personal sacrifice. That wealth went directly to the secular states to fund new empires – like the British Empire in particular (who set off on world conquest to colonize, subjugate through gun-boat diplomacy and tax all in their path - not to mention directly profiting from the Muslim expansion by marketing slaves left in the wake of conquered African nations to the Americas). Then of course we have Protestants fleeing in horror from the persecution of fellow Protestants (particularly the head of the Protestant Church - the King of England) to recast Protestantism anew in the USA under a “every-man with a bible his own pope and church” secular model. It too fails to this day as 40,000+ sects fragment out of that legion of babel.

Ever since the Protestant Uprising Europe and The West at large has been on decline socially and spiritually. There was a brief period of so called enlightenment but it was a false enlightenment since reason is dark unless illumined supernaturally by true faith – and protestantism is a fractionalized faith. And this darkening effect reflects in the progressive move of the west at large toward Rationalism, Transcendentalism, pantheism, atheism and nihilism. Look around at modern cities - there is no art, no beauty, no soul. Compare that to the times there was in the times where Catholic principals were universally embraced in the west and we had magnificent cities and culture and harmony, order, charm, congeniality and character. Compare now to then and we see that Protestantism has single handily managed to strip reason from faith in many of the western communities and has been instrumental in secularizing the west.

Worse - the fracturing of Christendom actually aided and abetted the Muslim expansion and we had for the first time in history private arrangements of so called “Christian” leaders paying Muslim Mercenaries to help Christians fight each other (Protestant England vs. Catholic Spain etc.).

No Protestantism has definately not won since Satan was unable to use this error to prevail one whit to corrupt a single text of Catholic dogmatic Teachings. We can be certain though that 10s of thousands of souls or more (then and likely 100s of millions now) were lost to Satan as a result of those falling away from the Catholic Church in disgrace and were not able to get back into good grace without the sacraments. I would not like to imagine the size of the millstone that is around the necks of the reformers who brought down so many and who did not repent and now find themselves in hell.

BTW - The Catholic Church was already in a major reformation of its own (5th Latarin Council) 6 months BEFORE Luther opportunistically nailed his infamous 95 thesis. If anything positive can be said to have come out of Protestantism is that it forced the Catholic Church to accelerate its OWN reforms and to develop over 120 new dogmatic anathemas as to what Christianity was NOT and to purify itself from “Catholics of cultural convenience”. Frankly we probably are due again for another house cleaning here soon…

Is God mad? Well its very likely that some bishops and priests are in hell right now at a deeper level of punishment than they might have been by adding the combined sins of all their displaced flock who lost respect for them in joined the heretics. But no, God is not “mad” per say. He is Just and gives each person ample time to repent and do penance.

James
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wow James
although I don’t agree with everything you said very good, very, very good.
 
lookaround said:
That is what I am interested in.
What was it about “his time” that made everything so right (understand what I am saying) for Protestantism.
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One important thing to think about is that we live in the information age. The reason our society knows so much is because there are so many tools to gain knowledge at a flick of the wrist, so to speak. Back in those days, all that the peasants knew about religion was passed down in the family and from their local priest. That is one of the reasons that there were so many uprisings like Wycliffe, Hus, Bogomil, etc. When one zealous preacher catches fire, he gains the support of his constituency and then gets popular, spreading out like fire. At that point it is just going to grow unless the Church stomps it out. Due to whatever reason, the Church did not sufficiently respond to Luther, and the political conditions made it possible for him to gain so much power.
 
slyOne said:
One important thing to think about is that we live in the information age. The reason our society knows so much is because there are so many tools to gain knowledge at a flick of the wrist, so to speak. Back in those days, all that the peasants knew about religion was passed down in the family and from their local priest. That is one of the reasons that there were so many uprisings like Wycliffe, Hus, Bogomil, etc. When one zealous preacher catches fire, he gains the support of his constituency and then gets popular, spreading out like fire. At that point it is just going to grow unless the Church stomps it out. Due to whatever reason, the Church did not sufficiently respond to Luther, and the political conditions made it possible for him to gain so much power.
Click to expand...
Why did Wycliffe, Hus, Bogomil, and Luther all spring up at the same time?
I know heresies have always (and continue to) happen, but it just took off.
 
lookaround said:
Why did Wycliffe, Hus, Bogomil, and Luther all spring up at the same time?
I know heresies have always (and continue to) happen, but it just took off.
Click to expand...
Easy answer, they didn’t.

Bogomil preached his stuff in the tenth century. Wycliffe and Hus cropped up in the 14th century. Luther, Zwingli, Melancthon, Philip of Hesse and King John XIII authored the Protestant uprising in the 16th century. Bogomil is as far from Luther as we are. But I think this is not addressing your point.

For one, ever since the Avignon controveries arose, the Papacy lost power and confidence from the faithful that was never entirely regained. Germany had mixed feelings about the Papacy since they were in mutual tension over the sovereignty of each entity.

Another huge reason is class struggle. Luther’s primary doctrinal issue with the church was over Hell due to Luther’s mental illness and struggle with scrupulosity. The issue of indulgence abuse was the manner in which to excite the peasants in a righteous rejection of a very new term (indulgence- although the concept was long in place) that was clearly bearing evil fruits. These people engaged in not merely religious uprising, but partly a revolution against oppression.

Third reason, the Uprising is mostly social chance. There is no certain reason why Protestantism of all the heresies managed to flourish, but it definitely seemed to arise from the coincidental state of Europe at the time. A lot of influential heretics rose up in relative temporal proximety, and the political state of Europe was quite unstable.

The question you are asking is similar to “why did Hitler manage to lose WWII”. There were a lot of contributing circumstances, but it just happened. God knows and presides.
 
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