The Great Reform: The Reformation By Harry Russell

The Reformation – Harry Russell

The great reformation was a time when the Presbyterian and other religious churches split off from the Catholic Church because they did not believe in the Catholic Churches teachings. This happened in the sixteenth century, mostly because of one very important person martin Luther. Martin Luther started out wanting to be a lawyer, but one day was caught in a lightning storm and thought he was going to die. He then swore that if he lived he would swear his life to god and became a monk. from then on this lead martin on his incredible journey to eventually uncover the all of the scoundrel and massive money-making scheme of the Catholic Church. Causing great debate between Luther and the people of god against
all of the officials of the church. This happened in mainly in Germany then spread all over the Europe. I am going to talk about social causes of the reformation, political causes of the reformation, religious causes of the reformation and the effects on the world the reformation had.

Firstly I am going to talk about the social causes of the reformation.
One of the reasons social effects were such a great influence towards the reformation was the invention of the printing press. This meant that many more books and posters were able to be printed and distributed across the lands, this in turn meant that the information of the Catholic Churches massive scoundrel spread through out the lands of many different places much more efficiently. Which made people able to get behind Luther and his teachings to help him spread the word even wider across the country. This only made Luther even stronger in his protest against the churches teachings that he did not agree with. Without the printing press it would not have been possible to spread word of Martin Luther’s teachings as quickly. This would have in turn given the church a chance to stomp out Luther’s fire before it had even started, stopping the reformation in its
tracks.

Secondly I am going to talk about political causes of the reformation. I think that one of the main reasons that politically caused the reformation was simply greed of royalty, lords, priest and the church. They did this by making peasants pay to see the ascent relics of the past, they also made the people pay for pieces of paper that granted them strait into heaven instead of going to purgatory. This played a key part in the film when Martin Luther climbed to the top of these steps to escape purgatory, and realized just how wrong and corrupt the teachings of the church and the scoundrel really was. This in turn lead to further frustration from the people because they realized that the church was just playing them the hole time by using priest’s to make the people of the church interpret the bible the way the Catholic Church wanted them to, so they could manipulate ways of using there disadvantage of being uneducated to there advantage too make more money. When the people learnt this it made them angry and egger to get behind Luther and support him in his fight against the church.

Thirdly I am going to talk about religious causes of the reformation.
I think the religious reasons the reformation happened because Martin Luther disagreed with the teachings of : indulgences, relics and how the church made the people of god interpret the bend and corrupt versions of the bible. This was because most people were not taught how to read and write. This meant that the church could manipulate the people of go by using high priest’s to teach the bible to work to the churches advantage. Martin Luther soon discovered this when he went to Rome. This made Martin very disgusted and angry, This anger was the fire that started the reformation and lead Martin Luther to eventually crushing the Catholic Church and cause the other churches to disperse from the Catholic Church. This Great uncovering lead to thousands being slaughtered due to the high powers of the church thinking the only way to stop the reformation was to kill anybody who did not agree with the churches teachings and was backing up
Luther.

Fourthly without the reformation the world would not be the same because The world would still be working under the influence of the catholic teachings. This would mean different beliefs, different rules regarding who runs countries and governments and everyday life in general. The reformation has effected me massively because without it my religion of Presbyterian would not exist because the opportunity created by martin Luther to stop the corruption of the church would not have arose, making it Impossible for pieces of the catholic church to split off and become Presbyterian and other religious groups. This would mean a lot more people being catholic even if they did not agree with the catholic teachings because that would be the only choice if they wanted to be accepted into heaven.

In conclusion the reformation occurred because of social causes, political causes and religious causes. The reformation was an extremely important piece of history, because it gave the people the choice of what they wanted to believe and what rules and morals they were going to abide by. This would not have been possible without the will power and intelligence of Martin Luther and the support of the people around him. Without him I think that the world we live in would not be the same. I think that without the reformation the world would not have as much variation of people due to everybody believing in the same corrupt and manipulated teachings of the Catholic Church this would mean overall a less developed country.