Lecture One: The Protestant Reformation—the Catholic Context and response/reaction.

hello Heroes before I begin the formal part of this lecture I want to say what a joy the imperson visits were in December of last year now as I prepare the lectures of for Church History 2 I have many of your faces in front of me so many of you came up to me with smiles asking to have your pictures taken with me you came up to me before I even gave my talk I guess recognizing me from my lectures you asked to have my pictures taken with me which was such a blessing to me

those requests continued after my talk and one of you jokingly reminded me that I did not begin with hello Heroes I will try to remember that next time I also asked you what you like the most about the course your answers were substantive and meant a lot to me and I would encourage you to be thinking that through the same for when I Lord willing see you in April and I thank you again my heroes so now as I am blessed to teach church history too I do not only see my books and my computer

screen but I see your Smiling Faces in front of me because that's what it's all about I see myself as a force multiplier for a new Young Generation motivated to reach the world to reach Brazil to reach the United States and Beyond with the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah it is so humbling to have a small role in your lives but it is so much more fun now to prepare and share the lectures I don't know how many of you are in the class this semester I don't care for were oneon-one that would be great

but I know it's going to be more than that and so let's get ready to jump in and again I say thank you let's review the syllabus now for Church History 2 which looks at ad500 to the present do you remember what ad stands for anodin that's Latin for in the year of Our Lord the purpose of this course is to examine the work of the Holy Spirit during the church age in this case from the Reformation to the present and Beyond emphasis will be placed on world missions discipleship and missions as found in Matthew

28 and going forth in Acts 1 vers verse 8 while learning key dates is important understanding the broad themes of church history is even more important students will identify with some aspects of this period and learn from others they will thrillingly realize that they are living in Acts 29 and are making history themselves and that was one of the fun parts of the in-person conferences it took somebody a while to figure out what Acts 20 9 was all about they looked up Acts and acts ends with chapter 28 then they realize what I've been pounding

home you are living Acts 29 you are the church you are making history let's consider the reading assignments except for the first lecture students are expected to read as best they can the assigned Pages prior to the lecture involved and I will remind you that the required reading is really suggested reading I understand that you have other classes that you have Ministry that you have a life that things come up so the two books that are listed for require reading are volume two of Lett a history of Christianity we used volume one of for church

history one and the same book by Mark null turning points decisive moments in the history of Christianity you're going to have a whole lot more opportunities for supplemental or optional reading because so much more has been written about the last 500 600 years the lectures as always the students are expected to watch each lecture and attend the April one of the one of the Gathering in Tacoma the lectures are divided into various parts that we'll see in a bit series one looks at the reformation and Counter Reformation the excitement uh and the toml of the

period of the reformation and as always we're going to see action reaction action reaction then there's the history of world missions lecture five is going to be jam-packed we're going to look at two revivals the two great Awakenings we're going to contrast two revolutions the American and the French revolutions we're going to look at colonialism and how it tied in with the worldwide spread of the Gospel uh lecture six we will look at the enlightenment in the church we will not be able to look at every philosophical or scientific development that has occurred in the

last 5 or 600 years we'd be here for a pretty long time but uh the Enlightenment and the church are two pretty important ones to look at then there's the history of and current activity in Bible translation which I am very excited to share with you about there's the history of Christianity in Asia and then series three the majority World Church uh case studies and the future it's also called the global South perhaps with the exception of South Korea and a few other areas so we'll look at how the majority World churches have taken the

lead we'll do a case study on South Korea we'll also do a case study on Brazil and we'll talk about that under assignments and then lecture 12 we'll kind of wrap up and look at this and that that to uh conclude the uh semester but take a look at um what I have in mind for the case study on Brazil uh it's actually going to be due earlier so the Tas can look over what you have written and with your permission perhaps um uh use some of them for that case study discussion because you know

your country much better than I do I mean I've looked it up online and I'm thrilled to see the many years of uh Revival that have gone on in and through Brazil also the papers have been shortened to two to three pages each and there will be no more than three uh papers do as far as the dates by the time you are seeing and hearing me you will have the dates for the uploads and the class sessions and the personal conferences now to the best of my knowledge the personal conferences are going to take

place in April do you want to know a secret I hope no other Professor still steals this from me I've shared it a little bit with Pastor John but uh because I'm allowed to share whatever I want to in the in-person conferences I have decided in and because they're as of now going to be in April or close to that I'm going to talk about the Bible and the chosen I hear the chosen pretty popular in Brazil and among Brazilian Christians with their goal of reaching a billion people around the world so I want to

hook up the Bible and the chosen in what I talk about in April so if you'd be praying for me that God would be guiding me with that and with my videographer who helped me uh so much in making me look good with Nick as he continues to do okay so let's jump into lecture one of the Protestant Reformation the Catholic context and the response and the reaction here's a brief review of church history 1 much of what we covered in church history 1 led up to the Reformation and Beyond during this semester we will

learn examine and be inspired by many things we will see God work everything together for good for those who love him who were called according to his purpose near the beginning of church history one the church spread north south east and west at the beginning of Church History 2 Christianity is confined primarily to the continent of Europe while there were some Churches in Egypt and Ethiopia and Africa and Southwestern India started by Thomas that we know of Christianity was found mostly in the northern continent of Europe there would be Wars of religion in Europe and

also the spread of Christian Christianity around the world through conquest and colonization coming out of Europe while Western civilation civilization spread around the world many missionaries did not take from the people they stayed and they gave and they love they translated the Bible into languages of the people this is church history too now the spread of culture was inevitable Christianity mitigated some of the worst excesses of the western peoples and I will share some of that as I go along eventually the majority world people made the Christian faith their own countries such as South Korea

and Brazil began to send out missionaries Europe and the United States became in need of missionaries themselves as we embark on this historical Journey from 1500 to the present we will witness the development in thoughts such as with the Enlightenment and contrast the American and French revolutions we will rejoice in at least two great Awakenings as well as one in Hawaii so much to learn so much to grow in in church history too while there will be identified sections or series each lectured will be numbered 1- 12 so you can look at the required or

suggested reading and the supplemental reading which is primarily Walton chart number 32 so here's the devotional it's based on Romans 8:28 The New International Version and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose and it's really important that you notice the the active verb and it is God doing the initiating some translations talk about things somehow working together no God works for the good God works everything together for the good of those who love him with this lecture we come

to the beginning of the Reformation yes by this time much of the Roman Catholic Church is dead but God is able to work this together for good God does a new thing throughout this course we will see God do more and more to spread the good news we will see the good news spread around the world for his glory ultimately moving to the southern part of the globe reaching so many people and God continues to do so did I say it before in Korea Brazil in Africa in so many places probably probably more than you

know about did you know there's an ongoing Revival in the Paul but I need to hunker down now to this first part of the Reformation uh lecture and I apologize for occasionally wiping my nose I'm a week out uh from having had covid I am not contagious don't worry but uh need to wipe my nose every once in a while also have allergies but enough about me as as we approach the first years of Church History 2 we are mindful of the Protestant Reformation connection with the renissance and the Middle Ages so we see the

connection with church history 1 and two the 16th century is a pivotal time turning from the past and looking to the future in this lecture we will see at the beginning how the bondages of Latin and bureaucracy brought about a reaction in some countries remembering Wickliffe tindel Rogers we will look at zwingley and Boer as the two first Swiss reformers that will give more room in lecture two uh to examine people places and actions and events well actually lecture two will be only Martin Luther and lecture three will be only John Calvin because they had

such amazing lives and they've influenced so many people down to the present day from these these reformers will flow much of what follows in history like I said up to the present day but first come what I call the bondages it is a dangerous thing when a human group goes from a living organism to being a dead organization despite some reformers such as Francis of aisi and reforms the Roman Catholic Church regrettably had become such an organization at the beginning of the 16th century first is the bondage of Latin the church was still using a

1,000-year old Bible translation called The Vulgate you will remember that Jerome translated the Bible between AD 382 and 405 when he made the translation it was helpful to people because it was written in the common or vulgar h the word Vulgate language of the time the Greek of the new testament which was the common language in the first century a first century had given way to the Latin language of the Romans who had been in charge of the Holy Land for 400 years languages develop sometimes people are not able to read what had originally been

understandable an example would be the Middle English of ch ERS Canterbury Tales between 1387 and 1400 a little over 200 years later the King James version was published while it was more understandable than Cher's English nobody speaks that way anymore either as a matter of fact the English language had already moved beyond the King James version when that Bible was put out to the people but this Bible Froze that kind of English in time one example is the word peculiar as in you are a peculiar people 1 Peter 2:9 look it up in your more

modern or contemporary translations and you even have some churches that proudly call themselves King James only churches their reasoning is that the cover page said it was the authorized version somehow they viewed it as it was authorized by sent down from God like Muhammad claimed for the Quran or Mormon's claim for the Book of Mormon but that was not the case it turns out it was authorized by King James for use in the American that is English churches over which King James was the temporal head head Christ was the Heavenly head King James set himself

up thanks to the work of Henry VII that will learn about in a later lecture as the temporal head in time the pilgrims and Puritans didn't want to have anything to do with the King James version instead they use the Geneva Bible about which you will eventually hear in a later lecture my point is that if people try to use Middle English or even the King James version if they use that they are in bondage to a wrong View and are limited in reaching others for Christ I turn now to the Vulgate and the bondage

of people who read and spoke it not all priests understood Latin by the time of the Reformation except for professors in universities very few lay people understood let alone spoke Latin and yet the mass the Roman Catholic Worship service is in Latin and was frozen in the Latin of Jerome's Vulgate not doing a worship service in one's mother tongue involved bondage to the past and difficulty in growing in the faith along with this was the bondage of bureaucracy it had built up over the centuries in the Vatican with much of the official business being done

in Latin also corruption had permeated much of the bureaucracy what was the response to bondage National or at least language identity grew throughout Europe the Roman cathol Catholic Church persecutes efforts to break away at this time you might remember last semester how Catholics opposed translation of the Bible into the mother tongues and persecuted groups that were pers percussors or forerunners to the Reformation before looking at the two primary reformers Luther and Calvin at a later time we will look today at two important early reformers zwingley and Boer first let's look at zwingley here's his picture

or it's pronounced in German zingi the following is from Wikipedia HRI or Urich zingle was born in 1484 and lived until the age of 47 in 1531 he was a Swiss Christian Theologian musician and leader of the Reformation in Switzerland he was born during a time of emerging Swiss patriotism remember what I said about national identity and increasing criticism of the Swiss mercenary system he attended the University of Vienna in nearby Austria and the University of Basil in Switzerland which was a scholarly Center of Renaissance humanism he continued his studies while he served as a

pastor in glaris and later in Eisen where he was influenced by the writings of arasmus about whom I speak at the end of this lecture in 1519 zingle continuing with Wikipedia became the ly pra that is the people's priest of the gross Min in zurk in Switzerland where he began to preach ideas on reform of the Catholic church in his first public controversy in 1522 he attacked the custom of fasting during Lent in his public in his Publications he noted corruption in the ecclesiastical hierarchy remember the bondage I talked about promoted clerical marriage and that

attack the use of images in places of worship among his most notable contributions to the Reformation was his expository preaching in other words preaching based on the Bible starting in 1519 preaching through the gospel of Matthew before eventually using biblical ex of Jesus to go through the entire new testament which was a radical departure from the Catholic mass in 1525 he introduced a new communion liturgy to replace the mass he also clashed with the anabaptists which who were on the other end of the Spectrum in the reformation and again I will look at them at

a later uh lecture it resulted in their persecution historians have deated whether or not he turned Zurich into a theocracy meaning he uh basically ran it from the church Church the Reformation spread to other parts of the Swiss Confederation but several cantons which are different groups within Switzerland resisted preferring to remain Catholic zwingley formed an alliance of reformed cantons which divided the Confederation along religious lines in 1529 a war was averted at the last moment between the two sides meanwhile zwingley ideas came to the intention of Martin Luther and other reformers they met at the

marberg colloquy and agreed on many points of Doctrine but they could not reach an accord on the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist Wikipedia continues in 1531 zwing ley's Alliance applied an unsuccessful food blockade on the Catholic cantons would they we call that a food fight I guess not the cantons responded with an attack at a mo because it was very serious at a moment when Zurich was Ill prepared and zwingley regrettably died I added regrettably on the battlefield his legacy lives on in the confessions liturgy and church orders of the

reformed churches of today britannica.com has the following about zwingli's teachings the later preoccupation of zwingley with ecclesiastical politics should not obscure his true contribution to Faith and Order he accepted the supreme authority of the scripture although he applied it rigorously to all doctrines and practices he laid influential stress on the Divine sovereignty meaning God's sovereignty though this was tempered by a milder view of original sin and a wide hope of Salvation his rejection of the sacraments as a means of obtaining Grace and as forms of intervention between the soul and God underlay the deepened conception

of other Reformation leaders such as Binger Petro Marti vermigli and John Calvin if he accepted lay Authority in church government as exerted through the council his personal influence averted both the subservient erastianism the supremacy of lay Authority and ecclesiast iCal matters of Lutheranism and exhausting conflict as at Geneva obvious defects of disjointedness and intellectualism marked his writings behind them however lay an open warm and friendly disposition and they embody a boldly striking attempt to rethink all Christian doctrine in consistently biblical terms here is what Wikipedia shares about single's view of the Lord's Supper near the

end of his life zingle summarized his understanding of the Eucharist in a confession set to King first king Francis I first of France and before I share this you need to know that all of these aspects of Faith were very important at its time and they were very much gone over and as you'll hear were biblically based whatever Direction they came from so here is what he wrote We believe that Christ is truly present in the Lord's Supper yes we believe that there is no communion without the presence of Christ this is the proof where

two or three are gathered in my name there I am in the midst of them Matthew 18:20 how much more is he present where the whole congregation is assembled to his honor but that is body body is literally eaten is far from the truth and the nature of faith it is contrary to the truth because he himself says I am no more in the world John 17:11 and the flesh profiteth nothing John 663 and I might add near the end of chapter 6 he talks about my words are spirit so zingle continues that is to

eat as the Jews then believed and the papa still believed it is contrary to the nature of faith I mean the holy and true Faith because Faith Embraces love fear of God and reverence which abhor such carnal and gross eating as much as any would shrink from eating his beloved Son we believe that the True Body of Christ is eaten in the communion in a sacramental and spiritual manner by the religious believing and Pious heart and he refers to St christum from long before saying that is what he taught and this in brief the substance

of what we maintain in this controversy and what not we but the truth itself teaches and Calvin which is what I hold to Dr Phil core holds to is the real spiritual presence of Christ as brought by the Holy Spirit during communion or the Lord's Supper but anyway this is not a Bible or theology class but I will let you know as I just did that I agree with the basics found in each Protestant reformer maybe not as much Luther but with vingle I believe in the real spiritual presence of Jesus in communion in other

words the Holy Spirit ministers God the sent to us in a special way during communion and again I base this on John 663 history learning.com has the following about Zing's beliefs he believed in the necessity of Reform the beliefs of Singley can be found in his 67 articles published in 1523 which you can look up they include Faith demanded an active commitment to God the practices of the Roman Catholic Church took one's mind away from what Christ taught there was no justification for these practices in the Bible whatever could not be justified by the Bible

was to be abolished continuing religion was was a personal experience which did not require sacraments or ceremonies to sustain it the it was no trace of God in the consecrated sacraments the service of communion was simply an act of commemoration the belief that there was a communion there was a presence was mere Superstition and this Sly differed from Martin Luther the Bible is the law of God but I press on now for the interests of time I encourage you to look over uh the entire lecture notes about zingle um as we move along now uh

and you can read about Lutheranism but I turn to Martin Boer he started while booer was still influential here is what Wikipedia said says about him he was a German Protestant reformer based in strawberg which was uh in a area of a lot of intersecting places Calvin would Pastor a church there for a while boer's efforts to reform the Church in the place called venburg resulted in his excommunication from from the Catholic church and he was forced to flee to strawberg there he joined a team of reformers which included a number of people he acted

as a mediator between Luther and Singley on the doctrine of the Eucharist he helped with h various confessions and Concords Concords the vitberg Concord he worked closely with Philip mangon who also worked with Martin Luther Boer believed that the Catholics and the Holy Roman Empire could be convinced to join the reformation and again Martin Luther never thought he would leave the Catholic church but he was forced to but through a series of conferences organized by Charles I he tried to unite Protestants and Catholics to create a German National Church separate from Rome he did not

achieve this as political events led to yet another War and the retreat of protestantism within the empire in 1548 Boer was persuaded under duress to sign the Augsburg interim which imposed certain forms of Catholic Worship however he continued to promote reforms until the city of strawberg accepted the interor and forced him to leave in 1549 buser was exiled to England where were under the guidance of Thomas cramner who was the Archbishop of Canterbury and involved in Reformation in England he was able to influence um the Christian faith under King Edward who sadly did not live

very long uh to bring about his reforms for a long time but he did assist in the second revision of the book of common prayer he died that is booer in Cambridge England at the age of 59 although his ministry did not lead to the formation of a new denomination many Protestant denominations have claimed him as one of their own he is remembered as an early Pioneer of ecumenism for a while Boer was at the strawberg church where Calvin would be Pastor for a while you also see the interaction between the countries with his making

the most of his Exile into England Boer hoped Catholics would join the Reformation but it did not happen and there is a statue in Geneva that includes buser and zwingley as well as Calvin before turning to lecture number two I want to look briefly at a man named arasmus here is the overview that Wikipedia provides along with a picture of him he lived from 1466 until 1536 he was commonly known in English as a resus of Rotterdam or simply a resus he was a Dutch Christian humanist a Catholic priest a theologian an educationalist a sist

and a philosopher through his vast number of translations books essays prayers and letters he he is considered one of the most influential thinkers of northern Renaissance thinking and one of the major figures of Dutch and Western culture and he also was kind of a mediating figure between Protestants early Protestants in the Catholic Church though he remained a Catholic he was an important figure in classical scholarship who wrote in a spontaneous copious and natural Latin Style one of my daughters who studied the great books of the western world really liked what he wrote about um Catholic

leaders having an influence on princes and leaders of countries as a Catholic priest developing humanist techniques for working on texts he prepared pioneering new Latin and Greek scholarly editions of the New Testament and of the church fathers with with annotations and commentary that were immediately and very influential in both the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Reformation or Counter Reformation he wrote on the free will praise of folly the complaint of of Peace remember he was a sist as well Handbook of a Christian KN on civility in children foundations of the Abundant style and many other

popular and teaching works arasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious reformations he developed a Biblical humanistic theology in which he advocated the religious and civil necessity both of Peaceable Concord and of pastoral Tolerance on matters of indifference in other words the word Adora he remained a member of the Catholic Church all his life remaining committed to reforming the church from within so I guess you could even call him a Catholic Puritan he promoted the traditional doctrine of synergism which some prominent reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin rejected in favor of

the doctrine of monarchism his influential Middle Road approach disappointed and even angered partisans in both camps close quotes and uh you might have heard the joke that the most accidents happen in the middle of the road while he tried to pull together the two sides it never really happened his translating of the New Testament from the Greek was an outstanding development as was his writing about the education of a Christian Prince which I mentioned earlier um my daughter was so enthusiastic about it she told me to buy it for myself for Christmas one year continuing

with the 67 articles with some of them a truly Christian Community must follow the Bible as closely as possible as a result of that final point the state virtually merged with the church in Zurich a city that adopted zwing Le's reform so that led to people viewing it as perhaps a theocracy zwing ley's approach impressed the city council of Zurich and in January 1523 He was ordered to attend a public disputation between himself and the bishop of constance each was given the time to explain what he stood for and zwingley was considered to be the

Victor this support allowed zwingley to introduce into zer the reforms that he felt the city required in the city magistrates not only kept order but they were seen as guardians of public morality and here's a quotation a church without a magistrate is mutilated and incomplete close quote a court of morals was set up quotation this Evangelical reform of the lives of individual men and women carried out through the agency of out through the agency of civil government was one of single's major contributions to the Protestant Reformation however nothing like this was attempted by Martin Luther

and obviously in modern times this is not possible and even the United States Constitution is set up on the basis of people keeping it on their own without external requirements like the magistrates are talking about though you had things like this for a while in New England but not as much as by the time the United States of America was set up all symbols of medieval religion were removed from the city's Cathedral and churches zwingley claimed that these hindered the true worship of God pictures organs shrines and images were removed public Bible readings were introduced

in January 1524 and clerical marriage was allowed in 1525 the monasteries in zeric were dissolved in April 1525 the mass was formally abolished and replaced with a simple communion service in which preaching and prayer played the most important part people no longer knelt at the altar but received Bread and Wine in their seats