The two people who stand out during this time period are Martin Luther and John Calvin. They both took a stand against what they believed was wrong. Luther did not agree with the idea of indulgences, or the paid remission of temporal punishment, and Calvin wanted to be independent of the Church. The Church was not pleased with these outcries, and persecuted these men as heretics. The Church was criticized for a large number of things by the Protestants.
They had used several immoral practices such as simony, the buying and selling of church offices. And as author Dan Petty put it, “pluralism (holding multiple offices simultaneously) and absenteeism (failure to reside in the parish where they were supposed to minister),”(Petty). Several situations in which the church displayed its power included taxations and practicing celibacy (Petty). Due to the church’s immense power, many expressed fear and became discouraged to contest its actions. One of the main leaders in the act to resist the Roman Catholic Church’s authority and change the ideas of Christianity in the Protestant Reformation was Martin Luther.
Luther spoke out against clerical celibacy, papal abuses, salvation by works, and other Catholic doctrines. Luther proves to be the better reformer because of his full commitment to reformation. He did not involve himself with the teachings and rituals of the Catholics, within his writings and words he tore down what he found corrupt. Erasmus on the other hand was a Catholic priest, even though he wanted to reform, there was still a part that did not want to fight the church upfront because of his role. Erasmus tried to find a middle road approach, but this only disappointed scholars from both sides.
Russia was a religious orthodox country in the 1900s and the church greatly impacted the beliefs of followers. The church also represented the Tsars views. The Tsars reliance on the church caused a lot more discontentment towards him. As Tsars were seem as ‘God’s representatives’ on Earth, it led to people losing faith in the Tsar as they disagreed with this view. The church had some positive impact on the Tsars reign – it played a great role in the reinforcement of Tsardom by threatening to ‘curse’ the people who didn’t put full belief into the Tsar.
learning to read and write in Latin and his native German. This was before the widespread availability of books, therefore peasants could not actually read the Bible, so the clergy were their only source of Scripture. Luther saw firsthand the corruption of the Church, and came to believe it was his restlessly duty to protest. Luther was prosecuted for his stance, however he famously used Scripture to defend himself, and this started the revolution now known as the Reformation. As the ideas spread, peasants began to see for themselves just how corrupt the Church was, and how they were being oppressed from their own religion.
Most Romans had considered their emperor to be a god, but the Romans who had converted to Christianity only believed in their own one god, and no longer respected, or even listened to their emperor. Another reason for the fall of Rome was simply that the empire had grown to be quite large, which had made it not only difficult to manage, but also made it harder to communicate quickly enough to stop outside tribes from coming in and attacking parts of the empire. In an attempt to keep up with all of the attacks and raids, Rome tried to allocate all of their money to getting troops for their army, as well as any resources they might need. Because all of the money was going to the military, everything else began to fall to the wayside, aiding in the downfall of Rome. As the Empire was attempting to recruit more soldiers to bolster their defenses, they were forced to get help from outside tribes.
The common masses were also unhappy with the Pope and church. They were not only unhappy with the prevailing corrupt practices in church and the flimsy grounds on which the church collected funds from innocent people but also disliked its interference in the secular affairs. Even the rulers were quite unhappy with the Pope and strongly protested against Papal interference in the affairs of their states. Perhaps the greatest religious leader the world has ever seen, Martin Luther is seen as the spark to the Protestant Reformation. Some viewed him as a heretic while others saw him as an advocate for religious freedom and truth.
The Catholic Church went through a change to its very core when Martin Luther voiced what was wrong, mainly how far the church had moved from the actual words in the Bible. The Christians in the Lutheran faith believed that the decline of the church is related directly to the word of God shared through man. With this relationship, the word of God can be misconstrued to feed the egos and desires of man, rather than God’s will. Martin Luther was interested in reforming the church, and in particular, man’s belief of what is true about God’s word. During this same time, the Catholic Church was moving further from the theology of the Protestants.
Eventually, many people were ostracized by the tribe for being Christian and tensions flared. The normal society that the Ibo people had known was no more. “The center cannot hold” shows how the tribe became weaker as more and more converted, because “the church had come and led many away” (174). “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” means that the Ibo people have no certain government, but instead they had chaos, because of their split opinions on religion. The main character, Okonkwo, fought hard for his beliefs against those of the Christians, and he said to his sons, “If any one of you
He and the Cardinal helped protest against the Communist government. At the time, the government outlawed new churches being built, but Wojtyla knew the church is actually the people, not the building. He was elected bishop at the age of 38, since the government thought he thought he could be convinced easily due to his age. But to their dismay, he kept his contrary thoughts, publicly protesting. To prevent people from figuring out he’s a priest outside the church, people of the church called him “Uncle”.