How Did John Wycliffe Influence The Medieval Church

3. John Wycliffe attacked papal authority and called for even more radical reform of the

William Tyndale born in 1494, was a leading figure in ‘The Protestant Reformation’ in England. William Tyndale was the first to translate the Bible into english drawing text straight from the Hebrew and Greek text. Like Martin Luther, Tyndale took advantage of the Printing Press using it for the mass production of the newly English bible, this allowed the wide spread of the English Bible throughout the England. William Tyndale’s actions were noticed and seen as a direct challenge to the Roman Catholic Church.

His critiques of the Catholic Church is said to be one of the first things to happen to lead up to the Reformation 2. Lollards- followers of John Wycliffe a. Preached and distributed Bibles in English. Attracted popularity from the people of the working class. Opposed luxurious lives of the Church. Reform put down in the 15c.

Catholic leaders believed they were defending traditional Christian civilization against rebellions and anarchical forces, whilst the latter argued they were restoring pure religion and defending against corruption and superstition. To them, the Pope was anti-Christ, whilst to the Catholics, Luther, Alvin and all other ‘reformers’ were heretics. Consequently, the secular rulers sought to base their political unity upon that of a religious nature, using their authority to compel their subjects into adopting one form of Christianity. In contrast to Pope Leo X, who face the Lutheran revolt, who urged secular leaders to suppress Protestant heretics by force, Luther appealed for this same force to be used against Catholics, and even Calvin, considered to be an apostle of religious tolerance didn’t permit Catholics to reside in Geneva. Meanwhile, Spain, Portugal and Italy all used methods such as the Inquisition and the Index to eliminate religious dissent and persecute Protestant subjects. Therefore, this shows that despite the argument regarding whether England was ‘torn apart’, the rest of Europe was considerably so, which could subsequently have impacted England.

17.Martin Luther- He began the Protestant Reformation in 16th century Europe after nailing his “95 Theses” against corrupt Catholic churches and the purchases of indulgences, to the door of a church

Among the many religious changes that occurred throughout Europe in the sixteenth century, few were as widely influential as the Reformation. There were three streams of the Reformation: the common class, the educated middle class, and the monarchs and princes. All three streams wanted the church to be fixed and hoped it could combine old ideas and new ones. The Reformation was influenced by many different people, yet the most important was John Wyclif, who stated that the church did not need possession in order to be powerful. Different ideologies came from the influences of Wyclif, and many others. Lutheranism began in the mid 1500’s by Martin Luther, and he developed a doctrine of Justification by Faith where he wrote of how people stay in the church and get to heaven from faith

In the early 1500s , approximately around the year 1517, the Protestant Reformation began . The Protestant Reformation was a huge deal in Europe, which resulted in a revolt against abuses and totalitarian control of the Roman Catholic Church . Political powers wanted to reform the churches by extending their control at the churches extents . There were three major principle figures in the Reformation; Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli . Although they were three different men, they all fought for the same cause: reformation .

In the first document, John Wycliffe claims that the Church is contradicting itself. He claims that the Church is engaging in behavior that does not comply with what they preach. John also claims that the pope is wrongly considering himself the head of the Church. Wycliffe speaks out against

“Unless I am convinced by proofs from scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can and will not retract anything I have written, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.” Martin Luther stated these words in 1521 when he was asked whether he still believed what his works taught. The Protestant Reformation was a movement during the 16th century, which aimed to reform some beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. The reformation was led by a German monk named Martin Luther and was further modified by John Calvin, a French theologian and Henry VIII, the king of England. The ideas bought forward by these individuals started the Protestant Reformation, which triggered wars, prosecutions and the Counter-Reformation.

John Calvin of Geneva: religious leader that elaborated Luther’s ideas and founded Calvinism (dominant ideo. of New England Puritans)

During sixteenth century Europe a wave of religious dissatisfaction swept the European continent. There were cries for the restructuring of the Catholic Church. These cries grew into more than just a simple remodeling of the Catholic faith they grew into the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther is credited for the reformation movement against the Catholic Church that began in 1517.

“One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. The difficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as an incentive and example; it paints perfect men and noble nations, but it does not tell the truth.”

Demographic transition is a model based on birth rate and death rate in a populace. As indicated by this theory, each nation progresses through three distinct phases of population development. In the first stage, the birth rate and the death rate are high and the growth rate of population is low. In the second stage, the birth rate remains steady but the death rate decreases swiftly. Therefore, the growth rate of the population rises rapidly. In the last stage, the birth rate begins falling and tends to parallel the death rate. The growth rate of population is lingering.

“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” Napoleon portrayed himself as if he was just like all of the other animals, making them all seem equal. Eventually Napoleon became more less of an animal, and more of HUMAN. In George Orwell’s classic novella Animal Farm, Old Major’s vision of a farm for all animals was oh so quickly changed into an autocratic dictatorship.

The Reformation was perhaps the greatest religious movement in Christ since the early church. It revived the Biblical and New Testament thoeological studies.