Religion in Europe: Protestantism

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Importance of Faith. Protestantism developed in response to perceptions that the Catholic Church was departing from matters of faith and spirituality in favor of material concerns. Protestants placed great emphasis on the importance of faith and belief, achieved through a transformation of one’s heart. The way to know God was through reading the Bible and listening to sermons. Preaching would assist one in the quest for finding God. Thus the spread of Protestantism led to a rise in literacy as believers took it upon themselves to learn God’s word. In contrast to Catholicism, Protestant theology did not find good works, such as the paying of indulgences or the building of lavish altars, a sign of salvation. Good works were “correlatives of faith, not preludes,” as the historian Huston Smith has argued. When one possessed faith, good works would naturally flow. Despite their downplaying of good works, Protestants nonetheless stressed the importance of self-discipline. And Protestants believed in only two sacraments, baptism and communion, of the seven the Catholics revered.

History. Calls for reform are as old as Christianity itself. Sometimes heeded and sometimes not, reforms came in waves, but the basic structure of the Catholic Church remained in place until the Reformation. The Reformation was the most massive and permanent set of reforms. Indeed some historians have argued that Martin Luther, one of the primary architects of the Reformation, did not mean to rend the Church. Luther, Calvin, and their intellectual heirs succeeded because they gained the support of monarchs, nobles, local leaders, and the laity. In some cases rulers joined the Protestant movement because it was politically or economically advantageous; in other cases their faith was genuine. Harbingers of the Reformation were present in the late fourteenth century. John Wyclif, an English theologian, criticized the Church’s abuses and late in his life called for appeals to Scripture as the most sound authority. He denied the dogma of transubstantiation as being unscriptural. He called for the stripping of all temporal (and therefore extraneous) possessions held by both Church and king. While the monarchy regarded him as a threat and his ideas as heretical, he gained much popular support and went on to train lay preachers known as the Lollards. In their efforts at purifying the Church the Lollards have been called precursors to the Puritans. From the beginning, several varieties of Protestantism existed. Luther and Calvin advocated different theologies. Some sects, such as the Puritans, argued that the Church of England variety of Protestantism was not pure enough; some groups of Puritans further advocated separating from the Church of England.

Expansion. Protestantism was able to spread in some locales because of political support and its popularity among the people and because of the Church’s inability to suppress it. Calvinism, supported by Genevan princes, caught on in Switzerland. Though popular in France, Calvinism was resisted by the monarchies, and only a series of religious wars ensured that Catholicism would prevail. In England, Henry VIII cut the ties between himself and the Pope, but for personal reasons (the Pope refused to grant him a divorce). His children did not agree on religious issues: while Mary persecuted Protestants, Elizabeth, pushed by Parliament, moved England in a more Protestant direction. Other countries, such as Spain, remained firmly Catholic.

Source

Sidney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972).