Lesson 3: The Protestant Reformation

The Reformation did not happen overnight. Long before Luther, critics attacked the Church's immense wealth and corruption. John Wycliffe in England and Jan Hus in Bohemia argued that the Bible, not the Pope, was the ultimate authority. Hus was burned at the stake for his views, becoming a martyr.

Later, Christian Humanists like Desiderius Erasmus used satire (in The Praise of Folly) to mock greedy priests and call for a return to simple Christian goodness. These early dissenters prepared the soil for the explosion of protest that would occur in the 16th century.

In 1517, a German monk named Martin Luther sparked the Reformation. He was outraged by the sale of Indulgences—documents sold by the Church that promised to forgive sins. Luther posted his 95 Theses on a church door in Wittenberg to debate this practice.

Luther went further, rejecting the Catholic teaching that "good works" were needed for salvation. Instead, he proposed Justification by Faith: the idea that salvation comes from faith in God alone. He also declared that the Bible was the only source of religious truth. This led to the founding of the first Protestant church, Lutheranism.

The Reformation splintered into many groups. In Geneva, John Calvin established a strict society based on Predestination—the belief that God has already chosen who will be saved ("the Elect"). Despite its strictness, Calvinism had a unique structure.

Calvinist churches were governed by groups of elders elected by the congregation, rather than by a hierarchy of bishops appointed from above. This idea of Self-Governing Congregations spread to Scotland (Presbyterians) and England (Puritans). Later, Puritans brought this concept to America, where it influenced the development of Federalism—a system where power is shared and leaders are chosen by the people.