The Protestant Reformation was a crucial act of God done by pious men such as Luther, Tyndale, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, and many others. For twelve hundred years the Romanite Church held control of Europe and dictated to the masses what Christian religion looked like. In addition to piling towers of canon law, and papal bulls on top of the Bible, the Roman Church crossed the line on conscious with the selling of indulgences, papers that offered pardon of sins and or salvation of the living and dead for money. Religion fastly shifted from erroneous penance, acts of piety and self affliction to receive pardon from a priest and God to the erroneous purchase of salvation for the quick and the dead with money; one false gospel (Galatians 1:8-9) of works (penance, see Ephesians 2:8-10) exchanged for a false gospel of paying for salvation; in fact indulgences might very well be the origin of the prosperity gospel and doctrine that plagues our churches today.
The Romanite Church had made two errors, they undermined their original control system of penance with the pay to pray indulgence, priests promising to offer masses for money. The paradox of these two systems would reach fever pitch as people began to wonder, “why did we have to do hard penance such as wearing a hair shirt or crawling on knees on cobble stones if we can just pay for a blanket indulgence?” In fact, if was this paradox of penance versus indulgence that incensed Martin Luther in Germany to write and nail his 95 Thesis on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg. Luther’s arguments against indulgences were shared by the masses as his writings spread thanks to the Gutenberg Press. Soon all of Europe began to see the paradox of penance and indulgence, and other voices along side Luther started to question the authority of the Catholic See, and began to ask where to search for authority for Christian living. The answer became obvious to Luther when he read Romans, the Scriptures were where the answers lie. At the same time a major humanist movement was overtaking Europe that called for a return to the sources of great philosophy, and thinking, the slogan being Ad Fontes, “back to the sources.” Luther co-opted this for the school of theology, and encouraged a return to Scripture. Another reformer, William Tyndale was even bolder in his response to the paradoxes of the Roman Church, he began work on a New Testament in English so that as he decried “a plowboy would know the Bible better than a bishop.” Luther would join Tyndale by composing his own translation of the New Testament in German. The Romanite Church responded to all this with threats, the Inquisition, and flaming pyres, but it was too late, the world had seen behind the red curtain to find a corrupt aristocracy posing as priests who changed doctrine, from penance to indulgence on the whims of wealth. Quickly Rome received the title of Babylon The Harlot (Revelation 17 and 18), a very nuanced title that on one hand denoted how the Roman Church was offering itself as prostitute via indulgences and an allusion to it being the eschatological harlot herself in the Apocalypse of St. John. The combination of the paradox of penance and indulgence, the persecution of reformers, and the Scriptures getting leaked via pamphlets hidden in cargo containers circulating Europe turned the tide against Rome. Rome could neither answer the paradox nor deny it, there was a pride, a certainty that the Papacy was above the temporal kingdoms and could not be questioned (Infallibi, Infallibility), and that soon this frenzy of reform would snuff out like the smoke of heretical pyres. How wrong Rome was. The aristocrats and the common man had come into one equality since the dawn of the 16th century, literacy. Unlike the middle ages when literacy was rare and reserved for the aristocratic and ecclesiastical few, the Renaissance saw the middle class and common people learning to read and write and reason. The result is that Rome could no longer use the conventional accusations, and manipulate illiterate people into believing the reformers were liars with hyperbole, this time the masses had read the Scriptures for themselves and the leaders of the charge against the Harlot had other grievances against the Roman Church that were shared by the nobles and commoners alike. Rome could not put the the genie back in the bottle, it was too late.
Distrust in the Papacy and the authority of the Roman Church reached fever pitch as Scripture and commentaries from Luther, Wycliffe, Calvin, and Zwingli circulated. The paradox Rome had created between harsh penances and easy indulgences had been exasperated by the revelation of Scripture that condemned the practices and doctrines of the Roman Church, for example forbidding marriage for priests when The apostles were married, “Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas (Simon Peter)?” (1 Corinthians 9:5), and Paul speaks of the evil of forbidding marriage, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.” (1 Timothy 4:1-3). The teaching that Catholics must merit salvation by doing good deeds and accessing the Treasury of Merits when Scripture claimed, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast. ” (Ephesians 2:8-9), “Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith.” (Philippians 3:8-9), “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved,” (Romans 10:9-10), “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son,” (John 3:16-18), and “All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God.” (1 John 4:15). Indulgences were easily rent asunder by the Scriptural passages, ““No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money,” (Matthew 6:24), “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” (Matthew 6:19-21), “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift (of money) that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it,” (Matthew 23:16-21), and “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’” (John 15:18-25). Clearly Christ did not advocate serving money which the Roman Church did while claiming apostolic authority, and the Papacy which had become worldly, even acting as a rich aristocracy, when Jesus says we must come out of the world; and worse indulgences echoed the Pharisees and their gifts (Matthew 23:16-21). Seeing for themselves how the Church of Rome had deviated drastically from the teaching of Christ and his apostles only confirmed to the common man that Rome not only could not be trusted but that its authority was baseless and void. The fires of reform began to burn what already was a institute of dry rot, to quote Scripture, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte (convert), you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves,” (Matthew 23:13-15), and
”Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!,” (Matthew 23:23-24), “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness,” (Matthew 23:27-28), and ““Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah,whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.” (Matthew 23:29-36). Summed up in these words of Christ Jesus our Lord is a true critique and rebuke of Catholic Church which was and is in every way like the Pharisees, they even built tombs and churches over the dead prophets and saints like Jesus said and are “whitewashed tombs which appear beautiful outwardly (wearing red and elaborate robes and gold pectoral crosses) but inside are full of lawlessness and every wickedness.” (Matthew 23).
The Paradox of penance and indulgences, the Inquisition, persecuting the reformers, and waging war on Bible translations made Rome’s popularity decline into deep shadow as people opened their minds and saw through the lies peddled through the Papacy. Centuries of superstitious fog had blinded the illiterate masses in the Middle Ages, but now the fog had lifted and the light of Christ shone forth through the Scriptures. The Romanite Church responded with The Counter-Reformation, but it reached a major stumbling block, England. Henry VIII, King of England, had joined Germany in embracing Protestantism by breaking with Rome and making the King of England the Supreme Head of the newly minted Church of England (Anglican Church, Episcopal Church). The Romanite Church had lost two of the most powerful kingdoms in Europe, Germany and England, with Geneva Switzerland, Scotland, and others joining The Reformation. The Catholic Church had to rely on its dutiful son Spain, and diligent daughter France, who remained loyal to Rome. In Spain the Inquisition purged all non-Catholics, sending Jews via The Diaspora away, crushing the Moors (Muslims) via religious wars (crusades), and spreading Catholicism into the New World. France did the same, starting a Thirty Year’s War, where Catholics massacred the Huguenots (Protestants) on St. Bartholomew Day. Rome held control of France and Spain via repression and bloodshed, and tried to take back England with King Philip II of Spain’s Spanish Armada in 1588. The religious wars would tear Europe apart, until most settled on the people adopting the religion of their rulers; Rome held territories of Catholic kings and rulers, while Protestants held territories under Reformed kings and rulers. As the Reformation began to spread in Europe, The Counter-Reformation strangled Spain, France, and the New World tell the much later arrival of Protestant Puritans, Anglicans, Anabaptists, Mennonites, Lutherans, and other reformed denominations into the Americas.
The Romanite Church had lost much of Europe to the Reformation save for its duo-bastions of Spain and France. The Catholic Church in an effort to hedge its bets, turned its attention on the New World of North America and South America. The Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church prostelzed the Mexican, Portuguese, and Native tribes with their religion, and hoped to counter the loss of numbers to the Reformation in Europe, by supplementing them with Mexicans, Incas, Potecs, Apaches, Yopis, and etc. the same methods used in the Middle Ages to control the European tribes of Franks, Visigoths, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Picts, Normans, and more were employed on the tribes of Native Americans of both Northern and Southern America, those methods were propaganda, and superstition. The Church of Rome kept the peoples of the New World relatively ignorant of the Scriptures and The Reformation. When the time came that the Roman Church did educate the masses of the New World it was via the Dominican Friars and the Society of Jesus, better known as the Jesuites, and the schools helped reinforce blind allegiance to the Catholic Church rather than the Reformation’s call that each individual soul should check the Scriptures for the Truth. The hold the Roman Church has had on these peoples of North and South America, Portugal, Cuba, and Philippines is beginning to shake under the pressure of the sexual abuse scandals. However, it will take quite a quake to break the power of tradition and superstition in South America.
In Asia the Romanite religion made major gains in China via Francis Xavier and the dedication of Dominican monks who braved the Orient, and those Jesuites who would come later. However, the gains were short lived because Xavier and his pupils confused the Chinese populace by combining the Holy Trinity with the local god Shangdi, which prompted infighting among the diverse group of Catholic monks and led to the Emperor of China banning Catholicism and Christianity.
As for the islands of Japan, the Church of Rome was unable to make major conversions, for there persecution took new forms of crucifixions on beach at high tide where the crucified drowned. Asia has always been difficult to reach for Catholicism, but for us Protestants, in 21st century, China has become predominately Christian despite crack downs from the government and Singapore is almost a hundred percent Christian.
Today Rome faces the final blow to their authority, scandal. If the paradoxes, the history of the Inquisition, crusades, persecution of reformers, resistance of the Bible translations had not already harpooned the Papal whale, the sex scandals of pedophile priests which are turning out to be as far as France to all of America will. A mass exodus started in the 16th century during the Reformation, now a larger exodus is taking place in 21st century, with Catholics abandoning their church over the cover up by bishops of the sexual abuse of minors. The Reformation is nailing the last nail into Rome here in 21 Century. Parents on Catholic radio share “I have sent my children from Catholic school to Methodist (Protestant) school,” and many disillusioned Catholics decry that “the whole Catholic church needs to crumble, the papacy, all of it needs to go away and start over.” Even Pope Francis I said “its time to start over, to end the Roman Church and start anew.” (Catholic Channel, Serious XM 129).
The Reformation is completing its course. Rome is falling under the weight of scandal and now those who resisted the Reformation are now discovering they are behind the curve. It is time to as Luther would have said, “Abandon the Harlot, and Ad fontes, get back to the sources (Scriptures)” and as the Apostle Paul would say get back to “a pure and simple devotion to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11:3). Amen.
Sources
- Church History in Plain Language, Fourth Edition, Bruce Shelley
- Christian History Made Easy, Timothy Paul Jones
- The Reformation, Diamand McCulloch
- Marvin M., Historian, China and the Catholic Church
- A Man Named Martin, Parts 1 and 2, Amazon Video
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