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Early Renaissance: Christian Influence On Society

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The Early Renaissance was being defined as striving towards a more “humanistic” viewpoint of the world. However, Europe was still having a power struggle with the religion and it was still being largely influenced by the Church. Despite this struggle, a lot of innovations were still able to shape this time period – people were able to actively form questions about the world and seek out the truth while Church was slowly losing grip on its power, not so much that it could be noticed but it was happening 1. While other parts of Europe took a distinct Catholic influence, the Northern Renaissance was clearly Christian. It started when the Northern Renaissance schools were founded on the goal of biblical scholarship through Christianity. Thomas More’s “Utopia” was an example of this to show the exploration of a perfect world developed by the Christian ideology 1. …show more content…

It made the church particularly nervous because it implied that a mystic would neglect the priesthood, sacraments and rituals which were put into place to lead the people seeking a relationship with God through the Church. They worried that the mystics would engage in sinful activity in order to attribute it to the Almighty and (sully) the Church’s reputation 4. But the practice of mysticism changed one man’s life forever. In the Netherlands, Gerard Groote established The Brethern of Common Life after being introduced to mysticism by a friend and living in solitude. Once he returned to society, he preached that life should be in the devotion of Jesus Christ and established a community where the people who joined were to give up their worldly possessions in order to lead productive lives serving others and reading the Scripture. Unlike other similar communities that were being established at the time, Groote did not implement irrevocable vows in order for one to join

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