Reformation Its Religious And Educational Impact Essays

Reformation: Its Religious And Educational Impact Alvarez 1 Carlos A. Alvarez Veroy Mr. and Mrs. Alvarez 10th Grade Research Project 6 June 2001 Reformation: Its Religious and Educational Impact Throughout the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries a movement called the Reformation took place in Europe. But merely being more than just another religious movement, the Reformation was the moment in history in which God showed His great power and Salvation to the world through the lives of men like John Wycliffe, John Huss, William Tyndale, Martin Luther and John Calvinmen which were determined to die if it was necessary for the Lords causea moment in which two distinct forcesthe desire of learning and the rebirth of the Word of Godmade it possible for people to believe in the Bible as the only absolute source of wisdom and truth, putting it as the final authority over man and church. As stated in World History and Cultures by George Thompson and Jerry Combee, the story of how the Protestant Reformation began is a story of how brave men in a world dominated by the Holy Roman Empire desperately searched for the truth about salvation and found it in the Bible and how they were willing to step out on the sole authority of Gods Word, even if it meant to stand alone for what is right(246). I think that Martin Luther clearly expressed this thought when he said, Alvarez 2 Unless I am refuted and convicted by testimonies of Scripture, my conscience is bound in the word of God: I cannot and will not recant anything. I cannot do otherwise. Here I stand. God help me, Amen. Before the printing press was invented, books and Bibles were very rare, and people thought that the Roman Catholic Church held the final authority concerning religion and God. The Catholic Church not only possessed the few Bibles available, moreover they were the only ones who could interpret them since they were written only in Latin and Hebrew and only monks and highly educated people could read those languages. They even set a law which prohibited to everyone but the church to have Bibles, and if anyone else wanted to translate it, he had to translate it from the Catholic manuscripts and not from the original Hebrew or Latin texts. As I said before, books were not very abundant and making one was not an easy task. Edith Simon writes, The making of a book was a slow, expensive process that had improved but little in a thousand years. The professional scribe might spend four or five months copying out a 200-page text; even more costly than his labors were the 25 sheepskins needed t o make enough parchment for a book of that length(134). Therefore, if you wanted to have a Bible of your own, you did not only had to pay a lot for it but had to know how to read Latin or Hebrew and since in those days education levels were so poor and Alvarez 3 expensive, only a small number of people could afford it, making it for anyone a great privilege to read and write. However, in 1450, Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press and by 1501, there were printing presses in 110 European towns and cities. This made literature available to all class levels, opening peoples minds and encouraging them to study and educate themselves in any field of education that they wanted. This invention became later one of the key tools God used to carry the Gospel to all parts of the world. Throughout all this time the Roman Catholic Church dominated almost every social aspect of the European life, including politics, economy, religion and education, but once men realized the great teachings the Bible possessed, there was nothing that could stop the truth from coming out. Some might say that the Reformation began many decades before Martin Luther lived but the thing is that none of them had so permanently influenced the world as he did. He was born in Eisleben in 1483 to a middle-class family. All through his life, he tried to live according to the churchs teachings but it seemed like nothing was sufficient to save him from eternal judgment. He tried to do everything in his