Protestant Reformation Research Paper

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The Protestant Reformation was a direct result of the moral and the authoritative decline of the Catholic Church. The reformation was initiated by early reformists such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Henry VIII, who questioned the religious decrees of the Pope and the Vatican. The term ‘Protestant’is used to describe all groups protesting Catholic beliefs. The Catholic Church had built its power up over centuries and relied in superstition on the part of the populace; its doctrine stated that people could only get into heaven via the church, to go against it was to condemn your soul to hell. The church was extremely wealthy due to payments made by the populace who were told that keeping the priests happy would guarantee them salvation after death. This was the accepted way of life in the 1400s and few…show more content…
Some of the manyissues that incited the need for reformation was thechurch’s superstition of relics and the scandal of large scale selling of indulgences by catholic priests in exchange for money to fund religious buildings. Those,who like Martin Luther, were against the selling of indulgences, began to question the right of the religious supremacy of the church. In so doing, sparking a debate that quickly grew until it touched upon many of the doctrines and devotional practices of the church. Thus making way for other Christian sects such as the Protestants and Calvinist to question the roots of the Catholic Church. Although the primary motivation behind the reformation was theological, many other causes played a part, including the rise of national consciousness in Europe, the various Christian sects that eroded the people’s faith in the papacy, the corruption of the church, several economic causes and the new Renaissance which questioned traditional

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