Protestant Reformation Research Paper

The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century was a religious revolution that occurred within the Christian Church, which resulted in the establishment of Protestant Churches, who began breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church. Originally the movement was started by Martin Luther, who was a monk, a priest and a Professor of Biblical study at the University of Wittenberg (Fisher 335). Luther, with his great political influence as well as his prolific writing, most notably his 95 Thesis, began a movement intended to address the abuses of wealth within the church. Although there were many people who realized that the church needed reformation, at the time, Luther really had no intention to split the church. The Protestant Reformation

Although the reformation was started in Germany by Martin Luther, after the publication of Luther’s 95 Theses, by the Reformation’s end, Lutheranism had become the state religion. The reformation led to the division of the Western Church, between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. The two distinct branches discussed here were Lutheranism, founded by Martin Luther, "Reform" or "Calvinist" Christian, stemming from the ideas from John Calvin. At the time the Church of England also separated from the Roman Catholic Church for political reasons, when Henry VIII declared its independence from the Church of Rome (Fisher Pp 336). From this division, it also brought out new Christian groups who wanted to push the religious reform movement of Calvin and Luther even further (LaGrone

The protestant reformation had an impact on the way religion was structured at the time and it still has a significant influence today. According to Fisher, the three main branches today are Catholic, Anglican and Protestant. Anglican Branches off further, including Episcopal and Methodist Churches. The Protestant branches off a second time into two further branches. The first group includes Lutheran, Calvinist, Reform, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Unitarian, and Congregational. The second branch is the Free Churches and the denominations include Brethren, Mennonite, Amish, Baptist, Quaker, Pentecostal, and African Instituted. In all, according to Fisher, there are currently nearly twenty one thousand independent church denominations, falling under one hundred and fifty six main groups (Fisher