How The Renaissance Led to The Reformation

This is a thesis I wrote while taking a seminary class on Church History in 2005. We were given a wide range of topics to cover for our class thesis. I chose to write about the events which led up to the Protestant Reformation. I present various historical aspects, which I believe worked together to create the atmosphere needed for the Reformation to take place. I believe the six areas I have settled upon, cover most of what is needed to make my point.

What you see is an edited version I have changed a few times since I turned it in for my class thesis. My overall thought process hasn't changed since I originally wrote it, but I added details while rearranging some of the sentences around. I shared this many years ago but I did so in a six part series. After all, at almost 4800 words, it's a very long read.

by Chuck Ness
Part I
An Introduction Overview
of the Renaissance

Never in history has one man’s thesis so rattled the powers that be, than did Martin Luther’s ninety-five grievances he nailed to the Church door at Wittenberg. It was an act of defiance that would eventually topple a church state organization that held sway over kings and paupers alike for a thousand years.

Every history class that covers the reformation will tell you that it was Johann Tetzel’s selling of indulgences that pushed Luther into action that day, Tetzel’s action was only the final straw, not the cause of the revolution. At the time the Reformation began, there were many factors that enabled and emboldened the common man into action but none was more profound in it’s influence then was the Renaissance.

Encyclopedias and history books all seem to point out that the word Renaissance is French for “rebirth”. However, the Italian painter Giorgio Vasari was probably the first person to describe this era as the “Renaissance” when he used the word rinascit. In 1568 he authored a book called, “Le vita de’ pi eccellenti architetti, pittori, ed scultori italiani” (“The Lives of the Most Eminent Italian Architects, Painters, and Sculptors“) the title more commonly used is, “Lives of the Artists”. Vasari applied this concept specifically to a “revival”, or “rebirth”. In the chapter titled “Andrea di Cione, Spinello, Dello, and Paolo Uccello” where he wrote;

“In the year 1350 was formed the Company and Fraternity of the Painters in Florence, for the masters were there in great numbers, and they considered that the arts of design had been born again in Tuscany, and indeed in Florence itself.”

Classic Movie Clips of Hope & Stewart Putting Down Democrats

by Chuck Ness

How about a couple of classic Movie clips? One is from 1940, and the other is from 1970. One from the golden age and the other from a time when the political winds were changing in Hollywood.  Today we see what that political change has brought about to both Hollywood and the country.

Hollywood has gone full out Godless Crony Communist, but wait until those useful idiots find out their usefulness has ended. After all, once the Golden Goose of the American Middle class has been obliterated, there will be no one left to pay for the Movies made by these idiots. That's because the Middle class will be reduced to serf status as we were during the Dark Ages of the Feudal years. Back to a time when the Godless Kings and the crooked Catholic Church ruled. A time when your only chance to end the misery you were born into was death.