Hey guys! So in the last episode, we covered Christianity in the Middle Ages
ending with the fall of Constantinople. In this episode, we're gonna dive into
the Reformation. Ready, go!
So before we talk about Martin Luther, there are a
couple of people and events that really paved the way for Martin's success. One
of those guys was John Wycliffe. Wycliffe went to school at Oxford, eventually
became a Doctor of Divinity, and facilitated the first English Bible
translation but he had a bone to pick with the Catholic Church. He thought the
church had no business meddling in non religious matters. He disagreed with the
doctrine of transubstantiation and the selling of indulgences.
Despite his disagreements, he died a catholic. It wasn't until a few decades
after his death that he was declared heretic.
His remains were dug up, burned and thrown into a river of rudeness. Wycliffe
was very influential though over a bohemian reformer named Jan Hus. Jan
had a significant following and shared a lot of the same beliefs as Wycliffe
which got him burned at the stake in 1415. But for most of Jan's life, the
church hadn't been doing itself any favors either so a little backstory. "I
believe the answers are best expressed in backstory form." Between 1309 to 1377,
papal headquarters was located at Avignon France instead of Rome . Son
after the papacy finally returned to Rome, the Pope died and the locals wanted
to make sure the next pope was Italian. Urban the sixth was chosen but a group
of French Cardinals didn't like him so they got together and elected a new Pope,
Clement the seventh, who set up camp in, as you know, so there were two popes at
the same time and different European countries supported the claims of
different papal lines of succession. Eventually, a council got together
deposed both of the then-current rival popes and elected a new one. Of course,
neither of those two popes recognized the election as legitimate and thus
there were three popes at the same time. Three. So the schism began in 1378 and
finally ended in 1417, when all three popes were forced to resign and Martin V
was elected as the one and only pope but the Western schism had irreparably
damaged the reputation of the papacy and provided fertile soil for reformist
ideas to flourish. Martin Luther was born in 1483 in Germany.
Soon after deciding to study law, he suddenly changed his mind became a monk
and eventually became a professor of theology in Wittenberg Germany. He taught
some unique ideas such as salvation by faith alone but what really put him in
the spotlight were his views on indulgences. Essentially an indulgence
was the idea that you could do certain things such as giving money to the
church in exchange for reduced temporal punishment for your sins or the sins of
deceased loved ones. People like friar Johann Tetzel took this to a
particularly manipulative level, allegedly advertising these indulgences
by saying, "When a penny in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs." If
you want to know more about indulgences, check out the notes in the description
or talk to a Catholic but like Wycliffe, Hus, and others before him, Luther
thought that selling indulgences was wrong. He wanted to hold a debate on the
subject so he wrote up his famous 95 theses and as the story goes, in 1517 he
posted them to where most public notices would go in that time, the door of the
church. Luther's views contradicted one of the most powerful organizations on
the planet at this time but the printing press allowed his views to spread like
the plague but a good plague, depending on your point of view. "A certain point of
view." Luther was not looking to divide the church. He was looking for reform.
Nonetheless, in 1519, the Pope issued a decree that Luther was teaching heresy
and would be excommunicated if he refused to recant. Luther burned the
decree and in 1521 he was excommunicated and put on trial at the diet of worms.
But things didn't go too well. No, Luther became an outlaw and went into hiding in
a castle whose name gets funnier the longer you look at it, during which time
he translated the New Testament into German. With or without Luther's
involvement Protestant groups started to emerge then groups would splinter
of those groups and off of those groups until you find yourself in our day with
thousands of options to choose from. But a particular note is the year 1534.
The Pope wouldn't let the English King Henry the eighth's get a divorce so
Henry broke away from the Pope formed the Church of England put himself in
charge and got his divorce anyway. Over time, some people believed
the Church of England had strayed from true Christianity and needed to be
purified. These people came to be known as Puritans. In the 1700s, as Catholics
and Protestants clashed in Europe fighting the 30 Years War, tens of
thousands of Puritans settled in the new world establishing 13 colonies. In 1776
those colonies declared independence from England marking the start of the
Revolutionary War. Now this is a Latter-day Saint channel so I'm bringing
it back around full circle. One of those men who fought in the Revolutionary War
was named Solomon Mac. After the war, Solomon bought farmland in Vermont and
rented it out to his son-in-law. It was on this farm that Solomon's grandson was
born in 1805, Joseph Smith Jr. Now there's a lot of great stuff I skipped over in
this episode so check out the links and notes in the description to fill in some
of the blanks and have a great day.