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DR. BETH HARRIS: So this is the first video
in a short series introducing some
of the major ideas of the Protestant Reformation.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: And in this video,
we just want to lay the groundwork.
What was it like to live in Europe before the Protestant
Reformation?
DR. BETH HARRIS: That is, before 1517,
when Martin Luther, a German monk and professor of theology,
nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the castle church
in Wittenberg.
And we'll get back to that.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: I was driving around my neighborhood
about a week ago, and I took photographs
of some of the churches that were there.
And within only 15 or 20 minutes,
I had photographed the signs in front
of six different kinds of churches.
DR. BETH HARRIS: And this is a really good place to start,
because it's at the time of the Reformation
that we get this explosion of different kinds
of Christianity.
So tell us what you took pictures of.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: I took pictures of a Lutheran church,
of a Baptist church, of a United Methodist church,
there was a Catholic church there,
there was a Congregationalist church,
there was a Presbyterian church.
And so five of those six churches
were created as a result of the Protestant Reformation.
So let's go back to a time when there
was only one kind of Christianity in Western Europe.
DR. BETH HARRIS: And that's the religion, we today call,
Roman Catholicism.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Now we didn't need
to use that phrase, Roman Catholicism, because there
was nothing to differentiate it from.
The term Catholic really means universal.
And so that makes the point that this was the universal Church.
DR. BETH HARRIS: Or that was their ambition,
to be the Universalist Church.
And we use the term Roman Catholic,
because the head of the Church is in Rome.
And that's the pope.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: And that man was enormously important,
because he would lead the way to salvation, to Heaven, according
to the Catholic tradition.
That is, one found one's way to salvation,
which was tremendously important,
because the alternative was hell.
DR. BETH HARRIS: And it's important to remember,
I think, that back then, the concern for most people
was salvation-- was how to get to Heaven.
And the path was one path.
It was through the teachings of the church,
through the sacraments.
In a way, it was a simpler time to live,
because you had one choice.
You didn't have to say, what religion should I be?
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Except for those very few people
in Europe, for instance, very few Jews
and even fewer Muslims.
So the church really infused everybody's life--
it was the vehicle to salvation.
And just for the average person in a small town,
the church's spire would tower over the other buildings,
the bells in the tower would ring on the hour,
the church would celebrate the saint's feast days-- what
we call holidays, that is, holy days--
and it was, in a sense, the church
that marked the days of your life,
and the major events in your life, as well.
DR. BETH HARRIS: And through the sacraments,
you hoped to earn God's grace, you
hoped to secure yourself a place in Heaven.
And the sacraments included baptism, confirmation,
communion-- which you might know as the Eucharist--
penance-- also known as confession--
marriage, last rites, and ordination for priests.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: And so it's just
a good reminder of how important the Church was
in the lives of everyday people.
And those everyday people, although they
might look to their local priests,
would look to the pope in Rome as the ultimate authority
on earth.
And the pope, at this point in 1517, was Pope Leo X.
DR. BETH HARRIS: So Pope Leo X was
intent on rebuilding the Church of Saint Peter's, and the plans
for Saint Peter's were very ambitious.
In fact, Pope Julius II, who commissioned the rebuilding
of Saint Peter's-- the pope before Leo X--
said he wanted to create the most grandiose church in all
of Christendom.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: And they did.
The church itself, Saint Peter's Basilica,
was tremendously important to the authority of the pope.
By tradition, Saint Peter is buried under that church.
And Saint Peter was charged by Christ
himself to lead to church, and so Saint Peter is
understood to be the first pope.
And so every succeeding pope is taking
on the job of Saint Peter from Christ himself.
And so the very authority of this office
is vested in this building.
The problem is, the building was really expensive to construct.
And the question was, where were they going to get the money?
DR. BETH HARRIS: Well, there was a pretty common way
to get money, and that was selling indulgences.
Now an indulgence was a piece of paper
that made it possible for you to get to Heaven more quickly.
Most people when they died-- you had, throughout your life,
confessed your sins, you had atoned for your sins,
but there would probably be something
that you hadn't quite atoned for.
And so for most people, you wouldn't go straight to Heaven.
You would go, instead, to this place
in between-- a kind of way station
before you got to Heaven.
A place called Purgatory.
And it was indulgences that bought
you time off from Purgatory.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: So this is a little tricky,
because indulgences were actually a very old tradition.
Where if you did a good work, you
could, in fact, receive an indulgence.
That is, a kind of certificate that would speed your soul out
of Purgatory, to Heaven.
Even in certain extraordinary cases,
it might allow you to circumvent Purgatory entirely, and go
directly to Heaven.
The problems began not so much in the actual indulgences,
but in the perception of the selling of indulgences.
And here's what happened, Leo X granted indulgences
to his representatives to raise money for the building of Saint
Peter's, but this was misunderstood
to mean that one could simply pay money and then
gain access to Heaven directly.
DR. BETH HARRIS: But keep in mind,
that money was for the rebuilding of Saint Peter's.
And say you were doing a good work,
and according to the Catholic church,
doing a good work is one of the ways
you can assist in the process of gaining yourself
a place in Heaven.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: And it does make sense
that even a monetary donation to doing good Christian work
would be itself a kind of holy act.
DR. BETH HARRIS: But it did come to be seen as a money exchange
for getting to Heaven.
And the one example that really got under Martin Luther's craw,
so to speak, was a man named Tetzel,
who was selling indulgences not far from Wittenburg where
Luther was professor of theology.
Tetzel said, "as soon as the coin in the coffer
rings, the soul from purgatory springs."
So you can see right there, money is going in
and a soul is going up to Heaven.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: It sounds so crass,
and you're absolutely right.
Martin Luther, who was a monk and was a very devout professor
of theology, was really rubbed the wrong way
by people saying that they had bought these indulgences
and therefore, they were freed of their sins.
DR. BETH HARRIS: And as a monk, Luther
felt oppressed by the sinfulness of human nature,
or his own nature, and so the idea
that you could pay money to erase those sins
and get quicker entry to Heaven was really an issue for him.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: He took these issues very seriously
and really struggled with them.
And then he did what any good doctor of theology would do,
he wrote out a series of arguments.
But in his case, he posted them, at least
according to tradition, to the doors
of the castle church in Wittenberg.
95 Theses, 95 arguments, that took issue primarily
with the selling of indulgences.
DR. BETH HARRIS: Luther sent them to the local archbishop,
and they made their way to Rome.
And so we have the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: In fact, if you
think about those words, Protestant Reformation,
for just a moment, I think it's interesting to note
that the word Protestant is formed out of the work protest,
and reformation out of the work reform.
So this was a kind of protest against the church,
and it was an attempt to reform it.
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