Reformation Rising

What is Reform?

A) To put or change into an improved form or condition

B) To amend or improve by change of form or removal of faults or abuses

C) To put an end to (an evil) by enforcing or introducing a better method or course of action

D) To introduce or cause to abandon evil ways

Can You Name any Reforms that have not been “Messy”?

Problems in the Church

Power competition – Pope vs Kings

Nepotism

Growing wealth of clergy

Sale of indulgences

Cult or relics

Disengagement from people

Martin Luther

Father of the Reformation

Personal agony over salvation

Scripture alone, Faith alone, Grace alone

Justification by Faith

“For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemptionthat is in Christ Jesus, whomGod put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”

(Romans 3:23-26)

If you are feeling a little distant from God, guess who moved?

Reformer

Clergy not necessary – each individual could discoverthe meaning of the Bible

No need for clergy to remaincelibate or not to marry

Veneration of saints & pilgrimages to shrines & holy places not prerequisites for salvation

Reformer

Attacked church’s sale of indulgences

Declared the Office of the Papacy the anti-Christ

Luther refuses to recant

Excommunicated from Church

Protected by Frederick,Elector of Saxony

The Spread of Lutheranism

Printing Press

Translated Bible into German

Singing Church (Johann Sebastian Bach)

Offered hope and renewal

Appealed to commoners, poor people, & nobility

A Protestant Reformation

Calvinism/Anglicanism

Predestination/the Elect

Progressive sanctification

Public officials must be “vicars of God”

Spread arguments for opposition to monarchy

A Different World

The Legacy of the Reformation

Shattered the unity of Western world

Questioned authority of Pope/Weakened Church

Strengthened power of monarchs & growth of modern state

Contributed to growth of political liberty & basis for challenging monarchical authority (right to Revolution if not following God’s laws)

The Legacy of the Reformation

Personal faith rather than adherence to Church

Individualistic ethic

Protestant work ethic

Legacy of Reformation

Helps launch modern science & the scientific method

“Thinking God’s Thoughts after Him”

A rational God & Designer created an ordered universe to study, explore, and unpack for human living

The “priesthood of the individual believer”

Legacy of Reformation

“People of the Book” pushed education & literacy foreveryone

Johann Gutenberg: “I know what I want to do: I wish to manifold print the Bible.”

All Hallows’ Eve