Even though Martin Luther was a member of the Catholic Church, he began to question the beliefs and the customs that the church preached. The belief that the individual could not communicate with God was one of his main contentions. The Catholic Church looked to the Pope to find a relationship with God. They had a very ritualistic view of worship, and tended to focus more on the ritual than a personal relationship with God (Tarr 2005). While the church believed that the Pope could grant grace to the people through the sale of indulgences, Martin Luther had a strong belief that grace could only come to one through an individual’s faith. He strongly believed that all people should turn back to their Bibles and find answers for themselves (Sayre 2010). The sale of indulgences, along with the ritualistic pilgrimages and people leaving money to the church on their deaths to speed up their arrival into heaven all worked together to move Martin Luther to rebel against the Catholic Church. …show more content…
One author stated that “community members took it upon themselves to enforce laws” (Kercsmar 2015). They wanted to purify the church. These Puritan communities were very concerned about keeping the family’s reputation free from any type of blemish. They believed strongly that they should have a city that encouraged hard work and strong morals. This made its way into the social structures and the government set up of the time. A godly community was something to strive for and it was important to show that even though human beings were sinful, they could grow in grace through faith in God (Friedman 2001). Not only was this important in government and social structure but also in the educational system. The Puritans placed a high priority on education. In fact, the first American college, Harvard, was founded in 1636 here and was mainly begun to train future ministers (Friedman