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The Radical Reformation and the Restoration of the Gospel

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The Radical Reformation and the Restoration of the Gospel Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel Volume 7 Number 2 Article 6 7-1-2006 The Radical Reformation and the Restoration of the Gospel Stephen J. Fleming Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/re BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Fleming, Stephen J. "The Radical Reformation and the Restoration of the Gospel." Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel 7, no. 2 (2006). https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/re/vol7/iss2/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. The Radical Reformation and the Restoration of the Gospel Stephen J. Fleming Stephen J. Fleming is a PhD student in religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Reformation is not only a major event in world history but also one of the most important events leading up to the Restoration. Elder M. Russell Ballard declared, “I believe these reformers were inspired to create a religious climate in which God could restore lost truths and priesthood authority.”1 We commonly hear such Reformers as Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Huss, and Wycliffe praised by the Brethren and lay members alike. However, the way many members of the Church often view the Reformation is commonly influenced by the larger American society with its historically Protestant worldview. Protestants naturally see their predecessors as heroes who resisted Catholic tyranny, but this Protestant view is a somewhat simplistic and even warped construction of the actual events. More importantly, the Protestant version often leaves out important parts of the story that I believe were essential to the cre- ation of “a religious climate in which God could restore lost truths and priesthood authority.” This article summarizes the major events of the Reformation but focuses on the often-overlooked Radical Reformers, who I believe anticipated the Restoration to a greater extent than the Protestant Reformers. Catholicism had always struggled with corruption, but by the time of the Renaissance, the church’s problems seemed particularly acute. Renaissance Catholicism had corruption at all levels, but the Renaissance popes became the embodiment of Catholicism’s problems. At this time, the papacy had become very wealthy; and, in many ways, the Renais- sance popes acted more like ruling princes than ecclesiastical leaders. 66 The Religious Educator • Vol 7 No 2 • 2006 Pope Leo X’s famous statement “God has given us the papacy—let us enjoy it” embodies the attitude. The Renaissance popes became preoccupied with running their papal states and funding extravagant projects. Some of these popes were also patrons of Renaissance artists, including Michelangelo and Raphael. To finance projects, the church became more and more dependent on fund-raising procedures, such as the sale of indulgences (buying out of purgatory) and simony (buying church offices). Furthermore, neglect of spirituality for worldly pur- suits was rampant throughout Catholicism. Pluralism, or the practice of simultaneously holding several ecclesiastical offices, was common. In pluralism, the clergyman received compensation for various offices without having to attend to the related duties. Many felt that spiritual- ity in the church had been overshadowed by worldly ambition. In addition to increased corruption, the Renaissance also bred the new learning of humanism. The humanist desire was to learn wisdom from the classics. Many humanists were devout Christians—called Christian humanists—who focused their learning in a religious direc- tion. Chief among the Christian humanists was Desiderius Erasmus, who made great efforts to translate early Christian writings, particu- larly the Bible. Erasmus wanted to get away from the philosophies of the day and return to those of the Gospels. Erasmus wrote, “I could wish that those frigid sophistries could either be quite cut out or at least were not the theologians’ only concern, and that Christ pure and simple might be planted deep into the minds of men; and this I think could best be brought about if . we drew our philosophy from the true sources.”2 Erasmus and many of his colleagues hurled criticism at the contemporary church with hope of reform. It has frequently been said that “Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched.” The Magisterial Reformation It was Martin Luther who made the bold move of breaking with Catholicism. Luther began his protest by nailing his ninety-five theses to the door of the Wittenberg Chapel in 1517, and the Reformation was under way. Luther criticized the abuses in the Catholic Church, particularly indulgences, simony, and pluralism. The recent invention of the printing press enabled Luther’s ideas to be disseminated through- out Germany. Soon, the pope excommunicated Luther, but Luther’s ideas continued to gain ground. Many German princes flocked to his cause. Luther began reforming the church in Wittenburg, doing away with the mass, cutting the sacraments from seven to two (baptism and the Lord’s Supper), and doing away with celibacy in the clergy. The Radical Reformation and the Restoration of the Gospel 67 But for Luther, it was the doctrines of Catholicism even more than its abuses that he opposed. Luther opposed Catholicism’s go-betweens of saints, sacraments, priests, and popes and sought a direct relationship with God and Christ. Luther taught that faith in Christ was ultimately important and that man was, therefore, saved by grace and not by works. Furthermore, God was absolute and sovereign in the saving relationship. Luther soon denied man’s free will and advocated predestination.3 Close to the same time, Ulrich Zwingli advocated reform of the Catholic Church in Zurich, Switzerland. Working closely with the Zur- ich city council, Zwingli introduced a number of changes similar to those of Luther. Attempts were made to unite the Zwinglian and Lutheran movements, but the two clashed over their interpretation of the Lord’s Supper. Both rejected the mass and the notion of the reenactment of the sacrifice of Christ’s body, but Luther maintained that the bread and wine still contained Christ’s real presence, whereas Zwingli argued that the presence was symbolic. The two denominations found their differences irreconcilable, and thus two Protestant traditions were formed. Zwingli was killed in battle in 1531; however, he started what became known as the Reformed tradition, which was furthered by the theologians Martin Bucer, Heinrich Bulinger, and, most well known, John Calvin. With the Anglicans, the Lutheran and Reformed traditions are collectively known as the Magisterial Reformation. The common link between them is that all the denominations were strongly linked to the state. Luther received support from a number of German princes and Scandanavian kings. Zwingli always worked through the civil authorities in Zurich, and Calvin did the same in Geneva. The English Reformation was initiated by Henry VIII, who broke away from the Catholic Church and had Parliament declare him the head of the church in England. Thus, the Magisterial Reformation continued the practice of the state church and denied religious freedom to religious dissenters. The Catholic Reformation What is often left out of the conventional narrative is that the Magisterial Reformation was just one of many reformations in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Protestants were not the only ones who wanted to see the Catholic Church reformed. Many leading Catholics, particularly Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, worked hard to eradicate the abuses in the church. However, many popes resisted calling a council on the issue because the popes had often lost power to cardinals and bishops when councils were held. Pope Paul III, however, was determined to see reform and became a major force 68 The Religious Educator • Vol 7 No 2 • 2006 behind what is called the Catholic Reformation. Paul began by calling an investigation into the state of the church and found that abuses were common. With this information, Paul called the Council of Trent in 1545, which lasted several sessions until 1563. At Trent, Catholic leaders instituted a system for improving the clergy through better edu- cation, monitoring, and eliminating pluralism and simony. At the same time, Trent reaffirmed basic Catholic doctrines, including the authority of the pope and the legitimacy of the sacraments. With the Catholics at Trent addressing clerical corruption but reasserting their doctrines, what ultimately divided the Catholic Refor- mation from the Magisterial Reformation were doctrines, not abuses. The divide concerned the nature of man’s role in his salvation. The Catholics adopted St. Thomas Aquinas’s view that salvation was a life- long process, which came through righteous living and the church’s sacraments, and that man was not totally depraved but had the ability to choose good and affect his own salvation thereby. The Protestants, Luther and Calvin, adopted the Augustinian view that salvation came by faith through grace alone and that man, who was totally depraved and lacking in free will, played no part in his salvation. I argue that the Magisterial Reformation made few improvements over Catholicism on essential doctrines, as the Catholic Thomist view appears closer to Mormonism than the Protestant Augustinian view. For example, here is Luther’s attempt to explain predestination: “This is the acme of faith, to believe that God who saves so few and con- demns so many is merciful; that He is just who at His own pleasure has made us necessarily doomed to damnation, so that . He seems to delight in the tortures of the wretched and to be more deserving of hatred than of love. If by any effort of reason I could conceive how God, who shows so much anger and harshness, could be merciful and just, there would be no need of faith.”4 Calvin was an even stronger advocate of predestination and thus created a more complex and arcane theology.
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