This is a bible study forum, but I thought this might be the best place to create this thread because modern Christianity owes so much to the recorvery of truth by the reformers of the early 1500's, Luther being the foremost of them.

If bible prophecy is correct, the issue of whether Luther was lead of God will be revisited and we should expect to see Protestant history being assailed by Protestants and Catholics alike to an ever greater degree. So it becomes more importants to review our historical roots. On this thread, I don't plan to review doctine primarily. This thread is mainly to relate some of the most interesting facts on the development of Protestantism.
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One of the greatest miracles that God worked in the Reformation during it’s early years was the way in which it was preserved. In the fall of 1517 Luther, an unknown monk, first set his foot on the world stage by nailing his famous 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg chapel. Ten years later in 1527 the Imperial armies of Charles V sacked Rome and put to torture and death many of the leading church dignitaries. Charles spared Pope Clement VII however.

What is especially amazing about this is that the Emperor’s armies were composed of Spanish and Lutheran Germans. D’Augne tells us that the German Lutherans did loot and carouse but did not participate in the torture and executions. Who would have thought that Spain under a Catholic leader, where the Inquisition had reigned for almost half a century already would turn on the Papacy? The result of this was that it left the reform movement in Germany in peace for three years during which time it took deep root and when a frontal assault did occur in 1529, the fledgling church was grounded and organized enough to, with Divine aid, withstand it.

Correction: Charles V, not I. MS.

Will be interesting to follow this thread.

One of the interesting things I learned about the Spanish Inquisition recently is that its first victims were converted Jews who were suspected of reverting to Judaism. Many converted Jews were convicted. Some were probably innocent. It reminded me of Pilgrims Progress when Christian’s friend accompanies him for a while but then returns to his town, Destruction, when the going gets tough, and the parable of Christ about counting the cost. Even unbelievers will respect someone (often secretly) who is a ‘heretic’ but stands for a principle and they often have a low opinion of those who change ranks and continue to suspect those who capitulate to their point of view under pressure and threat.

"Some were probably innocent." This comment escapes me. What does it mean?

The words "some" and "innocent" are particularly interesting.

Mark,

You wouldnt be arguing that converting to christianity is a just cause for contempt by friend and foe, would you? I agree with Tom, that way of puting the words need some explanation.

What was happening in the case of the Spanish Jews was that some of them were genuinely converted to Catholicism. The Spanish nobility allowed the converted Jews of the 15 century to begin to hold important offices and to enjoy other privilages that unconverted Jews were barred from. Some of the leading Catholics began to suspect that some of the converted Jews were only converts outwardly. So they imported the institution of the inquisition (it didn't begin in Spain) into Spain as a means of purging the false Jewish converts from public offices that were only available to Christians. From what little I've read, it seems likely that some of the Jews that were found guilty of remaining closet Jews were falsely condemned.

I was trusting my past record on the forum would be enough to allow me to state the facts without explaining that I believe in the rights of Jews to worship and to hold public office whether they are Jews but closet Christians or Christians but closet Jews.

Before going on, I should give a little history of Europe and Germany before the Reformation. Modern Germany comprised the backbone of the ancient Holy Roman Empire that came into existence shortly before the close of the first millennium and continued for about a thousand years until it was dismantled by Napoleon at the turn of the 19th century. It’s territory covered essentially all of the Germanic states of central Europe as well as many other neighbouring states.

Regarding the Holy Roman Empire, Wikipedia states:
Most of the Empire's rulers and subjects were Germans. All of the Emperors were staunch Catholics. However, many of its most important noble families and appointed officials came from outside the German-speaking communities. At the height of the empire it contained most of the territory of today's Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Czech Republic and Slovenia, as well as eastern France, northern and part of central Italy, western Poland and western Croatia. Its languages thus comprised not only German and its many dialects and derivatives, but many Slavic languages and the languages which became modern French, Dutch and Italian. The Emperor's Catholicism did not preclude large numbers of other religious groups - Jews and Eastern Orthodox - from living within its borders at various times. The Empire was also the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation.

Its division into territories ruled by numerous secular and ecclesiastical princes, prelates, counts, imperial knights, and free cities made it, in the early modern period at least, far less cohesive than the emerging modern states around it.

For most of its existence, the Holy Roman Empire was more akin to a confederation of sovereign states than a state in and of itself. The concept of the Reich not only included the government of a specific territory, but had strong Christian religious connotations (hence the holy prefix). Until 1508, German Kings were not considered Emperors of the Reich until the Pope had formally crowned them as such. The Emperors upheld themselves as continuing the function of the Roman Emperors in defending, governing and supporting the Church. This viewpoint led to much strife between Emperors and the Papacy. . . .

The pope's crowning of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus in 800 formed the example that later kings would follow: it was the result of Charlemagne having defended the pope against the rebellious inhabitants of Rome, which initiated the notion of the Reich being the protector of the western church.

Becoming Emperor required becoming King of the Romans (Rex romanorum/römischer König) first. Kings had been elected since time immemorial: in the 9th century by the leaders of the five most important tribes: the Salian Franks of Lorraine, the Riparian Franks of Franconia, and the Saxons, Bavarians, and Swabians, later by the main lay and clerical dukes of the kingdom, finally only by the so-called Kurfürsten (electing dukes, electors). This college was formally established by a 1356 decree known as the Golden Bull. Initially, there were seven electors: the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg, and the Archbishops of Köln, Mainz, and Trier. End of Wikipedia. (Widipedia material is 'copyleft', that is, governed by a free licence to copy so long as credit is given. See their GNU Free Documentation License.

The reason I’ve highlighted the last sentence is to show that at the time of the Reformation, the Duke of Saxony, Luther’s protector, and the Margrave of Brandenburg, both Protestant were two of the most powerful men in Europe, not only Princes of their respective states, but also members of the elite group of seven peers who elected and placed the crown on the Emperor. And these were only some of the German nobility who accepted the gospel of Luther. There were several other princes who did not have electoral privilages.

Within a year or two of the sack of Rome in 1527, Charles V reconciled with Pope Clement VII and renewed his resolve to reunite the empire under the Catholic religion and put down Lutheranism. After cementing his relationship with Clement by treaty he convoked a Diet (a parliament or official government meeting of the empire) at Spires in 1529 and directed that the princes of the empire should revoke the religious liberty that had been approved at the last Diet, three years earlier.

But the passage of time and the enjoyment of religious liberty by the people and their Lutheran princes had strengtherned their resolve not to give up their new found faith and freedoms. The Protestant princes were nevertheless in the minority and things came to a pass when the majority in the Diet issued a decree that on the surface appeared to allow the Protestant princes and states a considerable amount of religious freedom but essentially openned the door to the re-establishment of Catholicism and intolerence. The decree purported to maintain the status quo in the Protestant states but prohibited them from admitting new converts or allowing any other ‘innovations’ into their religious practises.

People of lesser nobility and principle would have accepted the offer and avoided placing their subjects, their wealth and their titles at risk, but not the Lutheran German princes. What is all the more remarkable today when the leading democracies of the world actively promote the notion that self-determination by the majority is the only civilized method of government, is to realize that the very freedom of self-determination that is the Protestant legacy is based not on majority rule but on the sovereignity of the enlightened conscience bound by the invisible ties of faith to the word of God.

After studying the decree of the Diet where they had just been outvoted, the Protestant princes said to each other: “Let us reject this decree. In matters of conscience, the majority has no power”. They register their protest against the decree in written form a day or two later and from that event the reformed church became known to history as Protestant. Few today however remember that the protest of the German nobles was directed against not merely Roman Catholicism’s claim to be the corrector of heretics, but also and especially against the tyrany of the majority in matters of conscience. Memory or no, this is the true legacy of Luther and the Protestant princes.

Mark,

Thank you for the informative post. Especially interesting to note that political subterfuge was practised then as now: "...issued a decree that on the surface appeared to allow the Protestant princes and states a considerable amount of religious freedom but essentially openned the door to the re-establishment of Catholicism and intolerence." So the Protest was not confined to the Church, but crossed into the civil realm, for church and state were mingled. As it will once more come to pass. I feel your final paragraph here deserves amplification and an application to last day events. What wisdom can we draw from this lesson? The majority (& Catholic) use doublespeak to enter a law in which the Protestants detect a hidden or covert threat to religious liberty. They reject the decree and thus receive the brand 'Protestant'.

Gordon

On the one hand it is true that the decree did offer some surprising concessions, so 'double speak' would be too critical a term I think. The catholic princes were open about what they wanted. What the Protestants detected in the decree though was that it forced them to disobey the Gospel commission of Christ and they were open to the conviction of the Holy Spirit that to yield that point was to yield the evangelical faith. Catholicism had used this method in the past with other groups almost invariably with success. Those who bound themselves in the past soon found before long that they had abandoned their faith and had become Catholic rather than evangelical.