When why and how did protestantism come about

They argued for a religious and political redistribution of power into the hands of Bible- and pamphlet-reading pastors and princes. The key ideas of the Reformation—a call to purify the church and a belief that the Bible, not tradition, should be the sole source of spiritual authority—were not themselves novel.

However, Luther and the other reformers became the first to skillfully use the power of the printing press to give their ideas a wide audience. Although he had hoped to spur renewal from within the church, in he was summoned before the Diet of Worms and excommunicated.

Sheltered by Friedrich, elector of Saxony, Luther translated the Bible into German and continued his output of vernacular pamphlets. The result was a theocratic regime of enforced, austere morality. Beginning in , every parish was required to have a copy. The Catholic Church was slow to respond systematically to the theological and publicity innovations of Luther and the other reformers. The Catholic Church of the Counter-Reformation era grew more spiritual, more literate and more educated.

New religious orders, notably the Jesuits, combined rigorous spirituality with a globally minded intellectualism, while mystics such as Teresa of Avila injected new passion into the older orders. Inquisitions, both in Spain and in Rome, were reorganized to fight the threat of Protestant heresy.

Along with the religious consequences of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation came deep and lasting political changes. Bach, the baroque altarpieces of Pieter Paul Rubens and even the capitalism of Dutch Calvinist merchants.

But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Each denomination of Protestantism had its own specific theology and approach. But not all Protestant reformations were entirely idealistic in nature: King Henry VIII famously established the Church of England, still the state church in that country today, in order to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.

The most important of these is the idea that salvation happens through faith alone. For Protestants, salvation happens through divine grace received through faith in Jesus Christ. This is in stark contrast with the Catholic Church, in which a wider body of church teaching and church authority play a major role. Other differences between Catholic and Protestant theology and practice involve the clergy and church. Protestant priests, likewise, are not bound by priestly celibacy, and can marry.

That said, for many Christians today, differences are cultural, not theological. Earlier this fall, a study carried out by the Pew Research Center found that average Protestants more often than not assert traditionally Catholic teachings about, among other things, the nature of salvation or the role of church teaching.

Today, about million people — 40 percent of Christians — identify as Protestant around the world. Of these, 72 million people — just 8 percent — are Lutherans. But Lutheranism has still come to define much of the Protestant ethos.

Over the centuries, more forms of Protestantism have taken shape. Several of them have had cataclysmic effects on world history. Puritanism, another reform movement within the Church of England, inspired its members to seek a new life in the New World and helped shape America as we know it today. Of these reform and revivalist movements, perhaps none is so visible today in America as the loose umbrella known as evangelical Christianity.

Many of the historic Protestant churches — Lutheranism, Calvinism, Presbyterianism, the Church of England — are now classified as mainline Protestant churches, which tend to be more socially and politically liberal. Evangelical Christianity, though, arose out of similar revivalist tendencies within those churches, in various waves dating back to the 18th century. Because of the fragmented and decentralized way many of these churches operate, anybody can conceivably set up a church or church community in any building.

The history of Christianity worldwide has, largely, followed the Luther cycle. As each church or church community becomes set in its ways, a group of idealistic reformers seeks to revitalize its spiritual life. They found new movements, only for reformers to splinter off from them in turn. In America, where mainline Protestantism has been in decline for decades, various forms of evangelical Protestantism seemed to flourish for many years. Now evangelicals — particularly white evangelicals — are finding themselves in decline for a variety of reasons, including demographic change and increasingly socially liberal attitudes on the part of younger Christians.

But if the history of Lutheranism is anything to go by, we may be due for another wave of reformation before too long. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding.

Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all. They did not seek to leave the Church of England; they wanted only to reform it by eliminating the remnants of Catholicism that remained.

In terms of theology, most of them were Calvinists. Although they did not desire to separate from the Church of England, some Puritans saw emigrating to New England as their best chance at true reform of the church and freedom to worship as they chose.

In , a decade after the Pilgrims embarked on a similar journey for similar reasons, the first Puritans traveled to the New World and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Boston, Massachusetts. Though the separatists and nonseparatists disagreed about whether to sever ties to the Church of England, both groups of early North American colonists shared a dissatisfaction with the church and a mindset that they were free to establish a church more in alignment with their spiritual views.

Perhaps predictably, this freedom to practice religion according to one's beliefs led to the creation of countless different churches, denominations, and doctrines in the colonies. Equally predictable, throughout history this diversity has led to disagreements. However, this diversity of religious thought has also become a core part of the identity of the United States: The Bill of Rights explicitly forbids "establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

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