The Purpose Of The Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation is the name given to the religious reform movement that divided the western Christian church into Catholic and Protestant groups. The Reformation was started by Martin Luther in the early sixteenth century, several earlier developments had set the stage for religious change. The purpose of Martin Luther starting the revolution was only to make corrections in what he seen to be a flawed system within the Church, it ended up being so much more. Since this was not the first attempt at a form of developing reformation it was fairly easy and happened very quickly the amount of people that were sharing the Reformation ideas. And in the process of Reformation several other denominations of Reformation were developed such

During that time, late fifteenth early sixteenth century, there was a lot of economic prosperity for the upper and middle class, but it did not reflect to the lower class at all. For the middle and upper classes, they were pretty well off and prospering benefiting from the lower class, and the lower class was extremely impoverished throughout a majority of the lower class. The lower class, a class made up of merchants and peasants, had to pay taxes towards their religions, which was one of the main reasons of the Reformation, and a reason that a lot of the lower class to changed religions that benefited them. And with the Reformation came different denominations of major religion and one denomination that came from Christianity were the Anabaptists. The Anabaptists were a group of lower class laborers and merchants who were unkindly affected by the shift in the economy. Their purpose was to show that religious believers should not have to pay towards their religions and that everyone within the religion should be equal, no matter their social

In order to restore the Church to its once pure state and regain social order the Anabaptists “…refused to swear oaths, including those to civil authorities.” They felt like the church, the people who made a public commitment of faith, and state should be separate. The Anabaptists did not believe that the Reformation was going to go far enough, so they took matters into their own hands. They wanted to ensure that their religion would not return to the state prior to the Reformation. The spread the word on what their religion would consist of like, “They wanted to do away with the tithe, usury, and military service. Further, some of these radicals wanted a totally self-governing church, free of government interference.” Also they believed that the decisions of the church should be solely with the Church and eliminate the hierarchical system, and because of these things and many more helped the spread this religion and why it gained such a following so quickly.

The many reasons that led to the Protestant Reformation. Some of the main reasons were of a political, economic and social. There were a lot of factors that lead to the Reformation and the initial reasons were political, although Martin Luther did not intend for the Thirty Years’ War that was a political repercussion, economic, Martin Luther did not want the lower class to continue to pay for religion, and social, after the Reformation