Martin Luther and Other Leaders of the Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation, started in 1517 with Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, was largely dominated by the theologies of Luther and the Genevan reformer John Calvin. Luther threw out Catholic dogma, such as purgatory and the selling of indulgences, in favor of his new interpretation of the Bible. Calvin accepted most of Luther’s teaching, mainly adding his own doctrine of double predestination. From these two traditions, Protestant Christianity spread across much of Europe. Martin Luther’s writing of the 95 Theses was inspired by a traveling indulgence seller who visited the University of Wittenberg in 1517. Luther, by studying a Greek New Testament in preparation for his university classes, had rejected the Catholic belief, spawned by St. Jerome’s Vulgate translation of the Bible, that man was judged by his faith. Luther instead claimed that man was justified by his faith. He rejected the Catholic teaching that good works were necessary for salvation and that sins were punished by a stint in purgatory, God’s spiritual torture chamber. In place of this doctrine, Luther accepted the principle of solafidianism- that man is saved only through faith, and that good works were merely a product of faith in God, and not themselves a necessity for salvation.
The 95 Theses, intended by Luther only to start a scholarly debate among the faculty at Wittenberg, instead split the church in
Europe. Martin Luther was thrust into a leadership role, a position he made full use of, publishing many books that spread his views. Luther’s theology replaced Catholic theology throughout Protestantism- his belief that Christianity was God’s direct relationship to man through the Bible destroyed the need for a priesthood for his followers. In the place of the old Catholic priests, Protestants believed in a “priesthood of the believer,” with each congregation choosing representatives to serve the Eucharist and be teachers. In, John Calvin expanded upon Luther’s ideas. Calvin firmly believed in solafidianism, but he tempered it with his doctrine of double predestination. He believed that God viewed time as a snapshot, and therefore knew who would be saved and who would be damned even before they were born. In this model, only those who were elected by God would be saved and everyone else would go to hell. Those who were not elect could not do anything to save themselves- as Calvin wrote, “God opens the eyes of the elect alone.” Despite this, Calvin and his followers were obsessed with helping people discover their election to God’s grace. Those unfortunate souls that God had before time condemned to hell were forced by the Calvinists to conform to the laws of the City of God. In 1553, Calvin went so far in his relentless pursuit of the combination of the City of Man with the City of
God that he had one of his enemies burned at the stake for heresy.
These two leaders were largely responsible for the split between Catholics and Protestants and the spread of Protestantism throughout much of Europe. Even, from which John Calvin had fled after his conversion to Lutheranism, soon had large Calvinist congregations. The theology of Luther and Calvin and their successors would come to dominate Protestant Europe for years to come.
