Who started the Protestant Revolt In Europe? And why isn't this obvious?

[valient_Lucy]

I agree with Lief Erikson, this is a bad question. Or rather, this is one of those, “Which answer is MOST true?” (I always HATED those questions. They expect you to be a mind reader!) Anyway, I picked Martin Luther, because his movement in the Protestant Reformation was really the first movement with any real staying power. There were other people who anticipated the Protestant Reformation (ie Erasmus) but none of their movements had the lasting impact of Martin Luther.

Now, John Calvin, if memory serves me correctly, was a contemporary of Martin Luther, but he did not achieve his status as a reformer until somewhat later. HOWEVER, John Calvin’s movement was ultimately more influential than Martin Luther’s movement, and eventually became more widespread. So, your professor is right that John Calvin is more influential (especially for American History, since the Puritans had strong ties to Calvinism) but he was preceded by Martin Luther. (This is assuming that I have my facts and dates correct.)

Anyway, stupid question. You’ll see more of them in college. If you want, you can look up the dates to see if John Calvin did precede the 95 theses, but I’m pretty sure he did not.

 

[churchcamefirst]

I agree with Lief Erikson, this is a bad question. Or rather, this is one of those, “Which answer is MOST true?” (I always HATED those questions. They expect you to be a mind reader!) Anyway, I picked Martin Luther, because his movement in the Protestant Reformation was really the first movement with any real staying power. There were other people who anticipated the Protestant Reformation (ie Erasmus) but none of their movements had the lasting impact of Martin Luther.

Now, John Calvin, if memory serves me correctly, was a contemporary of Martin Luther, but he did not achieve his status as a reformer until somewhat later. HOWEVER, John Calvin’s movement was ultimately more influential than Martin Luther’s movement, and eventually became more widespread. So, your professor is right that John Calvin is more influential (especially for American History, since the Puritans had strong ties to Calvinism) but he was preceded by Martin Luther. (This is assuming that I have my facts and dates correct.)

Anyway, stupid question. You’ll see more of them in college. If you want, you can look up the dates to see if John Calvin did precede the 95 theses, but I’m pretty sure he did not.

Please read post #20

 

[Thing]

So, your professor is right …(especially for American History, since the Puritans had strong ties to Calvinism).

America is’nt in Europe…

 

[LutheranDK]

This was a question on a recent exam in my college level American History Class. It was multiple choice and I picked, what I thought was the obvious answer: Martin Luther. My teacher marked it wrong & said the correct answer was John Calvin.

What say you?

In a way, you’re both right.
Yes, Luther did come first, but I guess the veracity of that answer must depend on what one means by “the protestant revolt”. Because Luther never intended a revolution, but a reformation of the RC-church. And Luther stayed much closer to the RC church theologically than any of the later reformers (except maybe Melanchton who, for political reasons probably, were willing to go quite a long way in the strife to achieve a compromise with the Emperor’s theologians).
And Luther SEVERELY rejected the peasant revolts in Germany, in a very, very harsh tone.
Luther intended to REFORM the church, although the RC-church would see it as a revolts.

Calvin, on the other hand, is a very different ballgame.
He was a lot more “political” than Luther ever was, demanding that reforms within the church should also lead to reforms within society at large. It’s no coincidence that the countries where the Calvinist tradition are strongest (the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the English colonies that later became the US and Canada, etc) are also countries based much more on the distribution of power, whereas the countries where the Lutheran tradition is strongest (Scandinavia and Germany) had very powerful, even absolute, monarchs until the beginning of the 20th century.

A major theological difference between Luther and Calvin can, very briefly!, be described as follows:

Luther: Anything that CONTRADICTS Scripture must be renounced.
Calvin: Anything that is not DIRECTLY ordered in Scripture must be renounced.

Hence, Lutheran areas did not have the same iconoclastic issues (because having images of saints, biblical tales, etc, is not in contradiction with Scripture) as the Calvinist areas did (because those images are not directly ordered in Scripture).

Similarly, the celebration of Christmas was actually banned in some Calvinist areas (can’t remember exactly where), because it was not directly ordered.

Summa summarum:

Both you, and your teacher, are correct. But if forced to choose, I’d say that your teacher is right.

 

[KingAlfred]

Luther. Everyone else followed suit, with their compounding arguments and initiatives. It began with Luther for many reasons --printing, German nationalism, Catholic Church corruption, lust for property on the part of the German nobility, capitalism, urbanization, class struggle against the priesthood, etc., etc., etc. Tons of books have been written on this. There had been previous attempts to change Christendom – Jan Huss, Wycliffe, and some others. Their rebellions didn’t coincide with propitious circumstances, as did that of Martin Luther. Luther simply got lucky, historically speaking. Once he launched his revolt, it spread like wildfire, and changed into other kinds of theological rebellions.

 

[mcs7474]

Luther may have been the brightest match to light the fire of the Protestant movement in Europe, but he certainly wasn’t the only one or even the first. One should also mention that there can’t be a fire unless there is fuel to burn, and the years of abuse in the Church, as well as intolerance of those who raised legitimate questions about Church policy and theology, served that purpose very well.

Perfect

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

And as a Reformation scholar, I totally agree with you! (I wouldn’t word the question this way anyway, but of the choices Luther is certainly the best–it’s false to say that his influence was only in Germany, although internationally the Reformed–not just Calvin but other figures as well such as Bullinger–very quickly eclipsed the Lutherans.)

As a teacher, I try not to do this sort of thing–I try to word questions carefully, and if students can give me a sound rationale for picking the “wrong” answer, I sometimes reconsider (obviously in that case I have to give the point to everyone who picked that particular answer, so I try to avoid this by wording questions carefully in the first place!).

Edwin

Edwin

Henri Daniel-Rops (d. 1965) starts his volume on the Reformation round about 1350… Very neat, IMHO ​

Maybe the question should allow for movements & ideas, such as the secularisation of the Church, the lay movements in the 12th/13th centuries; Marsilius of Padua, with or without conciliarism as well, surely ought to get a mention. How can it be right to blame or praise any one person ?

Perhaps it could be argued that without Calvin’s work, Luther’s would have remained purely German. Or is that hopelessly insupportable ?