Effects of the Protestant Reformation

When Martin Luther exposed the Catholic religion to be corrupt after releasing his Ninety-Five Thesis, people began to demand change in the Catholic church. Before the Protestant reformation, there was a lot of objection to how the church was being run. There was too much preoccupation with the financial side of religion, which led to people believing one could pay their way into heaven through indulgences after sinning and others who wanted to be a part of the church could easily purchase an office position with enough money. All these problems were what Martin Luther tried to get rid of when he initiated the Protestant Reformation.

After Luther voiced his beliefs on how the Catholic church should be, many started to follow his beliefs. They, too, realized that the church had a major problem with ignoring that a church's only goal is to spread the word of Christ and gather people together to learn more about the religion, while the church was only focusing on money before the reformation. The clergy and others in high positions did not care, or in some cases even know, about the religion in itself (Berman, 1987, 180). This sense of immorality in the Catholic church also led to people being more dishonest and corrupt. The followers of the Catholic faith began to believe that it was okay to 'pay their way' into good standing with the Lord (CCEL). This only encouraged the problem to continue, people were sinning without any thought and would just give clergymen a small amount of money, also called an indulgence, then they were considered, in the eyes of the clergy, saved.

Martin Luther was not initially accepted as a savior of religion when he criticized the Catholic church for how they were running things. At first, when Luther posted his Ninety-Five Thesis, the only demographic it appealed to was the peasants and other lower class individual. Nobody in the church actually acknowledged the content of this document, even though this could have easily been the most important document to have ever been written. Many important people in the society wanted to excommunicate Luther, which essentially means that the church kicked Martin Luther out of participating in any Catholic event or mass. This was when Luther was finally fed up with the church and decided to break off and form his own. There were still plenty of followers who wanted to continue with breaking off from the church (CCEL). This inspired these people to break off from the Catholic church to form their own 'Lutheran' church (Dau, 1917, 512). This new religion was formed to keep the religion going, but without all of the corruption and faithlessness. This new church helped revive the entire Christian religion and faith.

The Lutheran religion was basically reproduction of the Catholic religion with a few key changes. It followed the beliefs of Martin Luther exactly, because the followers all agreed with what he stated in his documents and Luther was not looking for power; he was just looking for a new religion that was not corrupt whatsoever. The Lutherans did not accept any kind of indulgence or donation in order to become closer to God (CCEL). This was, for obvious reasons, in order to stay dissociated with the Catholic church in any way at all. They were founded on the idea that the only thing that can get one into heaven is by having faith in the Lord (Berman, 1987, 180). Before this there was a very big problem with churchgoers in that they did not show their faith. People, in general, would sin extensively and come back to the church each week with a handful of money to 'pay' for the sins they commit. Martin Luther had no power over the Lutheran religion; he was just the creator (Dau, 1917, 517). This was an attempt to keep himself from having too much power which could have led to what they wanted to separate their selves in the first place (Dau, 1917, 517). Law had no place in the Lutheran church. This was because Luther thought of a church as a center for the community to gather for prayer, and anyways, the church already had moral laws in which to follow. (Berman, 1917, 517). The Lutheran church was formed solely on the idea of cleansing the church with a new start, and Martin Luther did plenty to achieve this.

The Protestant Reformation and the creating of the Lutheran Church changed the entire culture in the entire continent of Europe. It made society, as a whole, live more wholesome lives by cutting down on sinful acts and criminal offenses. This is attributed to the idea that as the churches began to draw the line on what is acceptable and what is not, people began to live a more holy life in all senses. Since religion had much to do with the government and politics, the respective governments of different countries could no longer rely on paying off the church in order to get their way. After the Reformation, governments have had to address issues in a non-corrupt way, which includes the paying off of churches in order to make the issue they are dealing with socially acceptable. They can no longer say that because the church accepted their ideas that the rest of the community must do the same.

There is always a consequence when it comes to change though. In every sense, even today, change will never fail in causing stress. When done throughout a whole religion, there is bound to be even more stress in the entire society. People base their entire life on their religion and if a significant number of people have to go through this noteworthy of a change, there will always be problems. Another consequence of the Reformation is that with this major change there will be a rebellion to it. Although many people were in favor of cleaning up the church, there were probably just as many who did not want any change in religions. In many ways, change will always significantly affect society both positively and negatively.