Church history overview and key developments

Church History

The birth of Protestantism, often traced to Luther's nailing of his ninety-five theses on a church door, is more accurately attributed to Luther's refusal to recant a host of his writings without evidence from scripture and reason being used to explain to him why his conscience was wrong. Luther's statements during his questioning and recantation refusals embodied many of the sentiments of Protestantism in addition to being an outright defiance of the Church, and its occurrence in April before Charles V and the Diet of Worms truly signaled the start of the Reformation. Luther's theology had been quite counter to much of Church doctrine for many years prior to the Diet of Worms and the start of the controversy a few years earlier, but had been limited to academic and scholarly debates, none of which "caused a ripple on the ecclesiastical seas" until he began to criticize Church practices, specifically the acceptance of indulgences, in 1517. Once the effects of his actions became practical, the Church began to take notice. His theology persisted well past his excommunication, and ultimately Luther proved to be, in addition to a brilliant and passionate theologian, a sinner by his own standards, a blunt and sometimes counter-productive proponent of his causes, and perhaps even somewhat unstable.

The rush to the English separation from the Catholic Church was in large part due to the untimely pregnancy of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's intended bride after an annulment of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon. In order for the hoped-for-male child to be considered a legitimate heir, the marriage had to happen before the birth, and the pope continued to delay. With the approval of Parliament, the archbishop of Canterbury ratified Henry's divorce from Catherine and performed a marriage to Anne. More parliamentary action concluded the nation's complete split with the Catholic Church, and began directing church taxes to the monarchy. Growing nationalism in the period leading up to and during the Reformation, both in England and elsewhere, helped leaders and individuals to begin to think independently of Rome, and was aided in the simple collective consciousness of the time by Protestantism. This also led the Church to increase freedoms for nations and leaders remaining papist, in order to retain come control. Much of this can also be traced to the resolution reached in the matter of the split papacy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when local bishop were granted more authority within the Church itself. The rise of Protestantism, then, must be understood as the culminating period of a long trend within the Church's political progression.