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• The Reformation Spreads

Luther at the Diet of Worms (1521) given the
chance to recant, he said I cannot and I will
not recant anything, for to go against conscience
is neither right nor safe.
Edict of Worms Luther was judged to be a menace
to political authority and was placed under the
ban of the Empire (meaning that he risked arrest
and execution), but was given forty days in which
to return home. On the way, he was kidnapped by
agents of Frederick the Wise and hidden in The
Wartburg.
During his exile in The Wartburg, Luther
translated the New Testament from Greek into
German (with the Old Testament to follow later).
His associates pressed ahead in Luthers absence.
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Luthers professor Andreas Carlstadt (Karlstadt)
celebrated a reformed Mass in German in
Wittenberg on Christmas Day, 1521, in which
references to sacrifice were removed, laity
were given both bread and wine, and Carlstadt
wore plain clothing.
Events began to get out of hand. Old believers
were intimidated, priests were mocked, and
dragged by their hair from the altars. (Bainton,
p. 65)

• Other changes under Carlstadt
• destruction of images
• elimination of music
• denial of a physical presence in the communion
• strict social egalitarianism
• Introduction of strict sabbatarianism

Luther invited to return to Wittenberg Carlstadt
was banished.
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Thomas Muentzer (Müntzer) called a Lutheran
already in 1519, appointed with Luthers
intervention to fill a vacant post in the church
in Zwickau (south of Wittenberg) in 1520 (Snyder,
p.54)
Muentzer moved away from Luthers positions. He
developed a position that humanity was divided
between the righteous and the unrighteous, and
that the elect should rule the ungodly.
Muentzer became convinced that the end of history
was imminent and saw apocalyptic significance in
the Peasants War of 1524-5. He was captured
after a battle at Frankenhausen and, despite
recantation, was executed in May, 1525.

• Luther opposed the peasants and Meuntzers
  participation in violence
• The sword was to be wielded only by legitimate
  authorities, not by individuals
• The sword was not to be used in the service of
  religion nor wielded by a minister.

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• Ulrich Zwingli a priest and a humanist scholar
  who began reformatory preaching in 1519 in Zurich
  in Switzerland. He shared many reform ideas with
  Luther
• Rejection of the authority of the papacy and
  church councils
• Rejection of priestly celibacy and monasticism
• Justification by faith
• Reliance upon scriptures
• Revision of the sacraments
• Liturgy in the vernacular.

Zwingli rejected any presence in the communion
(differing from Luther)

• Reforms introduced into Zurich under Zwingli with
  the backing of the Zurich Rath (town council)
• Removal of images
• Destruction of the organ in the cathedral
• Permission to eat meat during Lent
• Permission for priests to marry
• Mandatory attendance at church services.

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Swiss reformers met with Lutheran reformers to
discuss common interests in Marburg in 1529, but
failed to reach agreement over the nature of the
communion.
Civil war broke out between the Swiss cantons
adhering to the reformed faith and those
remaining loyal to Catholicism. Zwingli was
killed at the battle of Kappel in 1531.
Zwinglis body was treated as that of a traitor
and a heretic.
The peace treaty that ended the civil war allowed
the Reform to remain in the areas where it was
already established with Catholic minorities
tolerated Reform minorities, however, were not
to be tolerated in Catholic lands.
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John Calvin (1509-1564) schooled in France in
the humanist and Renaissance traditions declared
himself to be a reformer in 1533. Fled France to
Basel in Switzerland in 1534 during a time of
suppression of reformers.
Calvin brought out his Institutes of the
Christian Religion in 1536. This major
theological work sets forth the tenets of
Calvinism.
Calvin expounded a doctrine of predestination and
posited three tests to know who were the elect
profession of faith, upright life, participation
in the sacraments.
Geneva was an independent city, having secured
its independence with the help of the Protestant
city of Bern. Calvin heard the preaching of
William Farel (a French refugee) in Geneva and
decided to stay to help build his dream of a Holy
Commonwealth erected on earth by the elect. This
was to be a community in which the glory of God
was the sole goal of every member.
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City regulations were enacted to regulate private
behavior and expunge the traces of Catholic
practice. Some elements within Geneva were
restive under this regime, and Calvin and Farel
were banned for two years. Calvin returned to
Geneva in 1541 after two years in Strasbourg.
Calvin set about refining his Holy Commonwealth
on a more-selective basis. Catholics were
permitted to stay if they remained quiet
heretics were subject to harsh punishments.
Denial of predestination meant banishment from
the city denial of the Trinity was punished by
death. All open opponents of the Reform were
excluded from both the city of Geneva and from
the church. (Bainton, pp. 120-121).
Calvins ideas spread to France, Holland,
England, Scotland, and New England. The Puritans
of England and New England are descendants of
Calvin and Geneva.
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An important legacy of Calvins Holy Commonwealth
is found in Bainton (p. 122) Tangible
successes in setting up Holy Commonwealths were
not lacking in the Scotland of the General
Assembly, the England of Cromwells protectorate,
and the New England of towns named Goshen, Dan,
Canaan, and Gilead. The holy commonwealths have
come and gone but they have left their residue in
the still-surviving faith that a nation can be
Christian if the tone of its public life and
policy can be set by a convinced, determined, and
upright minority of the elect.
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• The struggle for the legitimization of
  Lutheranism
• Diet of Nurnberg (1524) said that the Edict of
  Worms should be enforced in so far as might be
  possible. This meant nothing in areas with
  reformist majorities.
• Diet of Speyer (1529) endorsed territorialism
  with a balance in favor of the Catholics.
  Lutheranism was to be tolerated in those regions
  where it could not be suppressed without chaos,
  but Catholic minorities were to be given
  religious liberties in Lutheran areas. Lutheran
  minorities were not to be tolerated in Catholic
  areas. The reformers protested this arrangement
  and were labeled protestants.
• Diet of Augsburg (1530) Phillip Melanchthon, an
  associate of Luther, drafted Augsburg Confession
  which stressed the elements common to Lutheranism
  and Catholicism. Attempts to bridge the gap
  between the two camps failed over
  transubstantiation.
• Peace of Augsburg (1555) recognition of the
  principle of territoriality.

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• The struggle for the legitimization of Calvinism
• After decades of sectarian violence, the Edict of
  Nantes (1598) gave Calvinists in France the same
  sort of recognized status as Lutheranism had
  earned in Germany. The Edict was later revoked
  by Louis XIV (1685) who returned to une loi, un
  roi, une foi (one law, one king, one faith).
• The Low Countries split along religious lines
  with Holland becoming Calvinist and Belgium
  remaining Catholic. Holland in particular,
  however, had long had a de facto policy of
  religious tolerance.
• John Knox imbibed Calvinist teachings at Geneva
  and Zurich and brought them back to Scotland.
  Scotland under Knox became thoroughly Calvinist
  without expelling dissidents or bringing in
  foreign assistance (Bainton, p. 182).

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• The other ways
• The middle way of Anglicanism supplanted the
  Catholic church in England with the immediate
  cause of the rupture being the refusal of Pope
  Clement VII to agree to annul the marriage of
  Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.
• Scandinavian countries converted to Lutheranism.
• Various mystical and spiritualistic sects
  flourished, particularly in places like Bohemia
  and Poland.
• Arising as a grass-roots movement in Switzerland,
  south Germany and Austria, and northern Germany
  and Holland, came the Anabaptists. They trace
  the name to their practice of baptizing only
  willing adults, most of whom had been baptized as
  infants. Hence they were re-baptizers.
• The Anabaptist movement dates its origin to
  Zurich in 1525. They ran into legal suppression
  from the outset (the Diet of Speyer of 1529, for
  example, decreed the death penalty for
  Anabaptists).