Protestant Reformation

Christianity

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The Protestant Reformation was the 16th century movement which led to the Protestant churches separating from the Roman Catholic Church. It is usually said to have started when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of a church in Wittenburg Germany. Protestants rejected what they perceived as false doctrines and malpractices within the Roman Catholic Church. These included the teaching and sale of indulgences, the buying and selling of church positions and the systemic corruption, which even reached to the position of the Pope, devotion to Mary and the saints rather than true Christianity which they saw as a matter of inward devotion to faith and God rather than outward symbols of ceremony and ritual, rejection of the authority of the Pope because they believed the only true authority to be the Bible which Protestants made available to all by publication of the Bible in the common language and universal education. The mandatory celibacy of the clergy, (as well as monasticism) were also rejected. During the reformation many martyrs to the Protestant Faith were killed by Roman Catholics.

Reformation Terms

• Iconoclasm
• Indulgences
• John Calvin
• Martin Luther
• Protestant
• Huguenots
• Church of England

Further reading

• Bainton, Roland H. Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (reprint 1995) excerpt and text search
• Beard, Charles. Martin Luther and the Reformation in Germany Until the Close of the Diet of Worms (1896) 468 pages; complete text online this Charles Beard is not the American historian
• Brauer, Jerald C. The Westminster Dictionary of Church History (1971), 880pp
• Chadwick, Owen. The Reformation (1990) excerpt and text search
• Collinson, Patrick. The Reformation: A History (2006) excerpt and text search
• Hillerbrand, Hans J., et al. eds. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation (1996) vol. 1:296 pp., vol. 2:506 pp., vol. 3: 491 pp., vol. 4:484 pp., ISBN 0-19-506493-3
• MacCulloch, Diarmaid. The Reformation (2005), influential recent survey excerpt and text search
• McGonigle, Thomas D., and James F. Quigley. A history of the Christian Tradition: vol. 2: From the Reformation to the Present (1996) excerpt and text search vol 2
• Smith, Preserved. The Age of the Reformation (1920) 861 pages; complete text online free
• New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (1911), ), major sources of older scholarly articles; mainline Protestant perspective
  • Vol. 1: Aachen - Basilians
  • Vol. 2: Basilica - Chambers
  • Vol. 3: Chamier - Draendorf
  • Vol. 4: Draeseke - Goa
  • Vol. 5: Goar - Innocent
  • Vol. 6: Innocents - Liudger
  • Vol. 7: Liutprand - Moralities
  • Vol. 8: Morality - Petersen
  • Vol. 9: Petri - Reuchlin
  • Vol. 10: Reutsch - Son
  • Vol. 11: Son of Man - Tremellius
  • Vol. 12: Trench - Zwingli
  • Vol. 13: Index