Church History: The Reformation
The Reformer is always right about what’s wrong. However, he’s often wrong about what is right.
G.K. Chesterton (in Illustrated London News)
There are a few periods in human history when huge change affecting very large areas and very many people occurs in a very short period of time. An obvious example in the West is the change in the central Americas which occurred in the fifty years following the arrival of Europeans. The previously existing social structures and foundations of daily living were completely changed and never returned to the previous state. Less well known in the West, although affecting an even larger area and more people, was the conquest of much of the ‘East’ from China to the borders of Western Europe by the Mongols from about 1210 to 1260. The (Protestant) Reformation of the Sixteenth Century was another such event which upended the social structures and personal assumptions of the population of Western Europe. In 50 years it transformed a society which had existed for over 1000 years since the fall of the Western Roman Empire.[1]
In the common cultural view in Europe, the Reformation is seen as a period of progress, as Europe emerged from the medieval into the beginnings of the “modern world”. It would be followed by the Enlightenment, and many subsequent reform movements, in what became thought of as “the march of history”. The perception of what constitutes progress can however be very dependent on perspective, and periods of massive change obviously create both winners and losers. Whether regarded as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, the characterization of the religious and political upheaval of the Sixteenth Century as “reform” fails to capture both the scale and the nature of the transformation that occurred.
Conflict within the Christian community was present from the very beginning. Beginning with disagreement between the disciples even during the lifetime of Christ, it is clearly recorded in the writings of Paul. The early centuries of church life were marked with wars and suppression of “heretical” movements. The conflation of secular power and church ideals which occurred after the adoption of Christianity as the State religion by the Roman Empire, and was then further developed during the post Roman period by European kings and authorities, led to religious conflicts becoming political conflicts with frequent religious violence.
So the religious conflict and violence of the 16th Century was in no way exceptional in itself. We may also note that calls for reform in the church long predated that time. Many of these calls came from within the established church structures and continued into the period of the Reformation. Many had been successful in overturning abuses and revitalizing the people of God (as had been the experience during the many years of Jewish history prior to the time of Christ).
Before we turn to look at the specific causes and events of the Reformation, we need to appreciate the nature of the outcome – since it was in the outcome that it differed from the long prior period. The Reformation marks the fragmentation of the church in the West into distinct groups which became identified with persistent political structures. Despite the disputes and prior conflicts, until that time one could speak in Europe of a single structure “Christendom” which shared a large set of common beliefs and practices (maybe because disagreements had been successfully resolved or suppressed)[2]. After the Reformation, the Western church was broken in a way which persists to the present. This break was not into two parts (Catholic and Protestant) but into many factions, as we will discuss later. Disputes and even wars between groups that would all be labelled ‘Protestant’ were as vicious as those between Catholics and non-Catholics. The violence continued even to the end of the 20th Century (for example in Ireland).
Luther and the “start” of the reformation
One of the challenges of history is that you have to start somewhere (or some time), but the reality of life is not divided neatly into periods. The Reformation is commonly described as starting with Luther’s pinning of his 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1517.
Like many such events taken as a “turning point” in history there is uncertainty amongst scholars as to the exact circumstances. There is no doubt Luther produced 95 Theses; some doubt as to whether they were in fact pinned to the church door; and complete clarity that Luther himself at that point was not engaged in any sort of rebellious act as he saw it (he later said as much himself). Also the issues which came to a head as Luther pursued his thoughts were not new. The Lollards following the ideas of John Wycliffe in England (1350-1532), Jan Hus in Czechoslovakia (1369-1415), and others had already broken from the Roman Church. Reformers were also to be found within the Roman church, notable examples being St Francis and St Dominic!
So Luther didn’t really start anything, but his impact at that particular moment was enormous. Why? Historians can of course provide many responses, but it is clear that both changes in society at large and the extent of the abuses in the Catholic Church were contributors.
Taking the Church first, the control exercised by the Church hierarchy, from local priests to the Pope was not new – it had been growing ever since the Emperor Constantine. But the ignorance and corruption at the local and monastic level was extreme. Coupled with factors such as the Black Death (1340’s), causing something like 20 million deaths in Europe (one fifth of population), and the deprivation of the general population (leading to various “Peasants Revolts” in the early 16th Century), led to major challenges from concerned clergy to ecclesiastical and civil powers. Papal politics, which reached its extreme in the period of the “Western schism” (1378-1417) – when one set of Popes established themselves in Avignon France – undermined Church authority.
More directly, the activities of Pope Julius II (pope from 1503-1513) can be considered a major cause of the conflagration of the Reformation. Julius considered himself more the successor of Julius Caesar than St Peter. He led armies into battle and engaged in the extensive politicking that was the hallmark of kings of that time. He also rebuilt St Peter’s Basilica, which was falling down, supported Michelangelo in painting the roof of the Sistine Chapel, Raphael, and many other artists whose work remains the glory of Rome. Whatever one may make of his conception of the proper role of a pope, all this was incredibly expensive. His successor Leo X continued his wars and extravagance, but also came up with a better way to pay for them – indulgences – a currency that the church could mint without restriction.
Indulgences had evolved from the idea of doing penance for one’s sins – an idea going back to Old Testament practices. As the Middle Ages progressed and the Church became increasing entwined with legal practices, penance became more proscriptive. Indulgences became a way to ameliorate penances (initially for others), money became involved, and soon a whole industry was created. In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council attempted to clamp down on some of the excesses, but by the time of Luther and with the active support of Leo X the sale of indulgences was a widely recognized scandal.[3]
The theology underpinning indulgences was complicated, and the initial approach of Luther (and others) was to seek clarification of these issues. The 95 Theses were first directed to his local bishop (not the act of a radical zealot). However Luther very quickly became embroiled in a debate about the power of the papacy. If the authority of the papacy to issue indulgences was questioned, where might that end. In an environment where the papacy was directly involved in wars and major political issues affecting the distribution of power across Europe, such questions were suppressed as quickly as possible.
The difficulty in suppression was that the wider political structures of the Middle Ages, evolved from the Roman Empire, were also now collapsing under the pressure of a growing middle class, printing, evolving nationalism, changes in armaments and warfare. The nominal successor to the emperors of classical Rome was the “Holy Roman Emperor”, and he allied with the Pope. In theory they could control Luther, or anyone else. But they were under huge pressure from competing forces – whether the King of France or multitudes of German princedoms. In this environment, religious dissent coupled with popular uprisings was a potent political weapon. Thus Luther’s theological debate rapidly became fodder for full scale political upheaval. With the intolerance and expectation of violence which characterized those times, the rapid collapse into political and religious factions was perhaps inevitable.
The progress of the reformation
So how did this sorry story play out?
Luther was excommunicated in 1521 (and declared “outlaw” by the Holy Roman Emperor). From 1524 to 1525 a revolt of peasants in German speaking areas (Germany as a country did not exist at that time) led to widespread chaos and the deaths of as many as 100,000 people. Luther called for the suppression of this rebellion in the most extreme terms. Reformers were rarely in favor of popular uprisings, they were as concerned as any other powerful forces to maintain social order and control.
‘Reformers’ in other places promulgated their own ideas, which agreed in their anti-papacy but often little else. Zwingli in Zürich and Calvin in Geneva had theological objectives in mind, albeit they were linked to emerging social movements in their areas. King Henry in England was transparently opportunistic in his personal objectives of remarriage. Many German princes were similarly driven far more by political motives than religious arguments. By 1529 “reform” was chaotic and widespread across Europe.
Attempts were made from 1530-1550 at reconciliation between the various reform movements and reformers, but these were largely unsuccessful. In 1530 a document was produced, primarily by Philip Melanchthon, for a conference called by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. In this Charles was following in the role taken by Roman Emperors after Constantine of adjudicating in religious controversies, although his primary concern at that time was the invasion by the Ottoman Turks, who had reached as far as Vienna. The ‘Augsburg Confession’ was item 3 on his agenda and although it became a founding document within the Lutheran tradition, it was never seriously addressed by the Roman authorities. Despite attempts to bring other reformers on board (Calvin signed on to a later version) Melanchthon’s efforts at conciliation were unsuccessful.
The ‘Thirty Years War’ started in 1618 as a war driven by religious differences but became a more generalized conflict between European powers, with Catholic France allied with Protestant forces against the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor. At its conclusion some 8 million people had died and the division of Christendom and Europe into units which are still easily visible today was complete. Of course there have been further modifications since, although those are mainly political and territorial rather than religious. The larger religious changes have probably been within Protestantism in the USA, and have not interacted with Roman Catholicism to any significant degree.
The outcome of the Reformation
As we noted initially, the result of the Reformation was not a simple split between Catholics and Protestants. Given the divisions between Protestants and the wide range of church structures which emerged from this period (and subsequently) it is not straightforward to describe the pieces that emerged.
One fairly widely shared classification which at least illustrates the issues in religious and theological terms gives a four way division:
- Roman Catholic
- Lutheran (sometime described as Magisterial Protestantism)
- Reform
- Anabaptist
This can be viewed as something of a spectrum with each category diverging further from the precepts of the Roman Catholic Church and from the others. This is illustrated in the table below.
| Roman Catholic | Lutheran | Reformed | Anabaptist |
| Differ over | Differ over | Differ over |
| Papal authority | Source of church authority | Baptism |
| Sacraments | Eucharist | Nature of church |
| Faith vs Works |
The distinction between Lutheranism and Catholicism is summarized in three areas. Lutherans reject papal authority, but do retain bishops, and thus a view of church hierarchy and ‘top-down’ control (hence ‘magisterial’). This hierarchical view is rejected by protestants in the Reform category, who typically elect their leaders via some sort of community process. Lutherans also reject some of the sacraments recognized within the Catholic Church, but have a broadly similar idea of what a sacrament is. The Reform churches go further in rejecting a Catholic view of sacraments and have a different understanding of the Eucharist and Ordination, which for them have more social than sacred significance. Anabaptist churches reject all sacraments other than Baptism, and this is regarded as an adult choice of commitment, rather than a divine action. The Anabaptists also differ from others in seeing Christians as a group set apart from the rest of the world, and defined often in opposition to others. In this they have much in common with the early church, and consciously reject the catholicity (inclusiveness) which Augustine considered as definitional of the church.
Of all these differences, the dispute between Luther and Catholics over the significance of faith vs ‘works’ in salvation is perhaps one of the best known polemical debates. Given that the issue was clearly a live one in the time when St James wrote his letters[4] it’s not obvious that the battle between Lutherans and the Counter-Reformation provided much additional light on the subject. In 1999 Lutherans and Catholics agreed a common position on this topic. This has proven true of many of the theological disputes of the Reformation. With diligent work between all parties since the mid 20th Century, recent efforts have focused more on seeking to narrow differences rather than increase them.[5]
The Protestants were clearly triumphant with regard to many of the abuses of the late medieval church and rightly so. This leaves us with a legacy of division supported now in large part by structural and institutional impediments, plus those on either end of the spectrum for whom the reconciliation of differences remains inconceivable.
Pope Francis set out his view of the situation in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, one of his first letters to the church[6]:
In October 2016 Pope Francis attended a service commemorating the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation in the presence of the Lutheran Swedish king and queen. He prayed that “the Holy Spirit help us to rejoice in the gifts that have come to the church through the Reformation, prepare us to repent for the dividing walls that we, and our forebears, have built, and equip us for common witness and service in the world.” The idea of a celebration of the Reformation including the Pope would have seemed preposterous to previous generations of both Catholics and Protestants.
Unlikely as it might seem to us, we should always remember that nothing is impossible for God, and the unity for which Christ prayed[7] must be a possibility – one which we should earnestly desire, even if the path is obscure.
Questions for Consideration
Footnotes (Click footnote number to return to text.)
[1] That transition took more like 200 years.
[2] The division between the Roman church and the “Orthodox” church in the East had occurred earlier, so the Reformation did not mark the first persistent division of the church. However in that case the religious divide followed a long period of social and political divergence, and may be regarded more as a case of drifting apart rather than dramatic rupture.
This is not to say the split did not also contribute to violence and wars – right through to the conflict between Serbia and Croatia in 1990s.
[3] In 1567, Pope Pius V finally removed any payment in relation to indulgences
[4] James 2:14-26
[5] The World Council of Churches produced Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry in 1982, the aim of which was to seek common ground between the various traditions. The Catholic Church is not a member of the WCC but some Catholic theologians participated in this effort.
The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) started in 1967 and completed its Phase One in 1981 with the report, Elucidations on Authority in the Church. Phase Two ran from 1983 to 2011. One agreed statement dealt with Marian theology, and was published in 2004. The ongoing process has continued although there have been challenges particularly stemming from the evolving views within the Anglican Communion on ordination of women and homosexuals.
A similar process of dialog with the Lutheran Church led in 1999 to the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, probably the most divisive theological issue to emerge from the Reformation. This process also continues to examine areas of agreement and disagreement.
[6] 2013
[7] John 17:20-23