( dramatic music ) ( dramatic music ) ( chanting in foreign language ) - [Voiceover] The church
was born 2,000 years ago, when Jesus Christ
commissioned his disciples to spread the gospel or good
news to the ends of the Earth. Jesus told them he was inaugurating a new kingdom of truth and grace. Where the last would be first
and the first would be last. - Jesus spent a lot of
time feeding the hungry, healing the sick. - [Voiceover] Jesus prayed that the love between his followers and their unity, would define his church. - Why do we need church unity? We need church unity because it's essential for interwovenness. If we wish to be believed we have to show the unity of Christians. - [Voiceover] That unity
however never came easily. From the beginning there
were factions, heresies, and breakaway movements. A millennium later, the church has divided into rival eastern orthodox
and western Catholic factions. - In the 11th century, they
excommunicated each other. So if the East is right everybody in the West is bound for
hell, excommunicated. - [Voiceover] The Western
churches power and wealth grew. By the 16th century the church is seen as greedy and immoral. Up for sale to the highest bidder. - Most people in Europe knew
that the church needed reform. - What is missed by many Protestants, was that throughout this whole period, there's a Catholic reform going on. The call for reform is going on for at least 300 years before. - [Voiceover] It's in this setting that an obscure German
monk named Martin Luther, nails 95 theses to the door
of the Wittenberg Chapel, risking his life as he
challenges the church to reform. - And it became if you will, the spark that exploded the powder keg of the abuses of the
Roman Catholic church. - [Voiceover] Luther's bravery
will set off a movement that places Christ's death,
not church hierarchy, at the center of humanity's
relationship with God. - There are no other
mediators between God and man. Jesus Christ is the loving
gift of a loving father. - Yet Luther's actions set off
an unprecedented firestorm, that will send Western culture
into centuries of turmoil. - There's a certain kind of tragic element fighting among Christians that even broke out at times into actual combat. - Did it go too far? Those are really hard questions to answer. - I think Luther was too polemical, and I think he fell into
opposition so quickly. - What the reformation unleashed is an incredible dynamism in the church, and I don't think you can put
that genie back in the bottle. (gentle music ) - [Voiceover] This is the reformation, and it changed everything. (gentle music ) November the 10th, 1483. In the little town of Eisleben, about 120 miles southwest
of modern Berlin, Martin Luther is born. One day later he is baptized. In the eyes of the church, Luther's soul is officially cleansed. - Within the Catholic church, original sin was washed
away by baptism, and then in your life
you might commit sins, but you could repent of them and there was a process to do that. - [Voiceover] As an infant, he is assured entrance
into heaven when he dies. Which in this perilous time
could happen any moment. - Well, this is a period of very
high infant mortality rate, and low life expectancy. The plague came back regularly, at least once or twice in a generation, never in a predictable time, but they also had massive
epidemics of typhoid, of influenza, of all kinds of things. - The world in some ways
was a very scary place, and the role of faith was to provide encouragement and support and comfort during the crises of life. The church would be omnipresent
in people's lives, right? How they would mark time
would be church bells. How they would mark the
stages of their life would be the various
sacraments of the church. From baptism to the
extreme unction at the end. - Saints and relics were a key part of medieval religiosity in
the time of Luther as well, but pilgrimage was a big
part of late medieval and early modern piety. That is that there's a
place that had holiness, it was that imminence, going to that place allowed you to share that holiness, maybe be cured of some
disease or some infirmity, but definitely it would help you in your path towards salvation. - [Voiceover] Martin Luther's father, is a successful self-made businessman in the mining industry. His mother is a lawyer's daughter. Luther has more opportunities
than most of his peers. - So the powerful people in this world, well, they were obviously the
princes, the nobles, the kings, and then below them you would have
perhaps merchants and craftsmen in cities, and below them you have a vast mass of people who live in the countryside. If you wanted education
you went to the cities. Most estimates put the rate
of literacy around 10% . - [Voiceover] As Luther
grows his father can see that he's extraordinarily intelligent. When Luther is 14, he
is sent away to school where he excels. - His father is very
ambitious for his son, as many recently rich fathers are. He pressures Luther to go to law school, and he even buys him the Corpus Juris which is this really big
expensive book of Roman law. - [Voiceover] Luther dutifully
enrolls in law school. Yet he's not sure he
wants to be an attorney. - He was known to his friends as somebody who liked
to have a good time. He was very good at playing the lyre, the equivalent of the guitar. - [Voiceover] At the age of 23, Luther takes a leave of
absence from his studies. The course of his life
changes dramatically, however, one evening when he is trapped outdoors in a severe thunderstorm. (thunder crashing) - He's terrified 'cause he's
out in the woods by himself, there's lightning, and trees
falling all over the place and wild animals, and of
course robbers in the woods, and in the middle of all
this, Martin Luther says, "Saint Anne, save me, and
I will become a monk." I think that's really interesting
for a couple of reasons. One is Saint Anne is the
patron saint of miners, but the other thing is that when he is caught in the thunderstorm the thing that he thinks would
be most pleasing to God were to become a monk. ( chanting in foreign language ) - Obviously when he thought he might die he was afraid of what would happen to
him if he came before God, and to become a
monk was understood to be the best way of finding ways of pleasing God, of walking in his ways,
of drawing close to him. - [Voiceover] Luther wastes no time making good on his promise. Within months he gives away
all of his possessions, including the expensive law
book his father bought him, and enters a monastery. - When Martin Luther decides
to join the monastery he doesn't join some
luxurious monastery where the aristocracy would send
their illegitimate children, he joins one of these reformed
Augustinian monasteries that is trying to bring
back the discipline of the early church. - 'cause that is the religious
ideal of the 16th century. That was what Catholics thought God would most want you to be, which is live a life of
poverty, chastity and obedience. - [Voiceover] In that spirit,
Luther holds nothing back. Praying, fasting, going without sleep, even flagellating himself. - He was super scrupulous
about everything he did. He was always examining his conscience. He was a Catholic's Catholic. - [Voiceover] Within two
years, Luther is made a priest, and begins theological studies. Luther embraces what he is taught. That God is perfect,
demanding absolute obedience and unwavering faith. The burden of right relationship
with God is on the sinner. One must obey God with one's own
strength in order to receive grace. When one sins, one must repent fully, and perform acts of penance. The church administers grace
through the sacraments. - The medieval church had
many gradations of grace, you had the initial grace that
was given through Christ's
sacrifice, and then you had the many different kinds of specific grace that were also given
that could be obtained by acts of penitence, an act
of forgiveness by the church. - [Voiceover] Those acts of
penitence include good works. - Good works mean going to church, going to Mass, receiving the sacraments, going on a pilgrimage,
giving to charities, making donations, and that a lot of people thought if you did enough of these things, that would outweigh all
the sins in your life, and this was not exactly a
theologically sound position, but I think most people in practice accepted that the idea of salvation was to have more merits than you had sin, and that most people when
they died had a deficit. That is, they had more sin than merits, and that's why we have purgatory. ( dramatic music ) - A lot of people misunderstand
the doctrine of purgatory. They think, mistakenly,
that the Catholic church teaches that purgatory
is a lesser hell. Which it is not, it's a
place of spiritual maturation before we can enter into the
all holy presence of God. Those who have died still
with attachment to sin, who have not done sufficient penance or who have not been purified
of the remnants of sin, those must be burnt away as it were, in the purifying fire of God's love. - In other words you don't
wanna come before God in a grubby state of
being, spiritually. So therefore purgatory
is the scrubbing station where your sins are scrubbed
off you and it's a passageway. You don't stay in purgatory,
you move through purgatory, and the end result then is heaven. - And this was seen as something that, in God's mercy,
God offered to those after they died as a
period of purification in preparation for their
full entrance into heaven. - [Voiceover] In spite of this mercy, the emphasis on good
works in the 16th century, creates intense anxiety for
many about their eternal fate. - Of course nobody in the medieval church doubted that God had initiated
grace and given grace to believers through the
sacrifice of his son. That was without any doubt, but there was the idea that you could somehow forfeit this grace,
you could endanger it by your own personal sin. So most of medieval piety was direct to make up with God by your own actions. - [Voiceover] Luther himself is terrified that he will not be acceptable to God. His conscience is a dripping tap, always reminding him of his imperfection. Even his confession is motivated by a desire to save his own skin. Luther develops digestive difficulties, and suffers from nightmares
and panic attacks. He turns to his spiritual
advisor for help. - He was fortunate to have
as his Father Confessor, the monk was especially
responsible for him, Johann Staupitz, who had
written a number of works that called on people to
trust in the mercy of God and to trust him beyond their sins, and it was fortunate for Luther that he had someone
that could listen to him and understand and counsel
him to trust the mercy of God even when he found that he
himself was not living up to it. - And he was deeply unsatisfied, and more than that he was tormented, and he used to go to confession
at least once or twice a day until his confessor
finally said to him, look, wait until you've committed some real sins and then come back and see me. (gentle music ) - [Voiceover] The turning point comes, when Luther is made a
teacher of the church at Wittenberg University. As he studies scripture
and gives lectures, Luther begins to see familiar
verses with new eyes. One in particular, Romans
chapter one, verse 17, hits him like a lightning bolt. The righteous shall live by faith. - So Luther has this burst of insight when he's reading Saint
Paul that he sums up in a phrase like
through faith alone, through grace alone,
and what he's done there is he's taken human effort out
of the equation of salvation. That's something that was
hard to believe in his day, it's hard to believe in our day but it's at the core
of the gospel message. - So it's not that you could go and get freed from your
burdens of sin by good works or by penance, but that
you had to trust in God to free you from that sin through the death and resurrection of Christ. - People are saved by
grace alone from God, by faith alone our response. - [Voiceover] Luther comes to believe that he cannot earn salvation. God, through Christ,
has earned it for him. - It is God's action in someone's life that frees them from their burden of sin. It is not something that
they can do themselves as a process throughout their
life to get cleansed from it, it has to be done through trust in God. - [Voiceover] And for the rest
all these acts of penitence and acts of piety, those
are not to obtain grace, but they're acts of gratitude instead. So that's a radical
departure in the theology of the medieval church. - [Voiceover] Luther's study of scripture is leading him to a
theology that challenges the very church he represents. Even so, he cannot predict how divisive his ideas will become. ( dramatic music ) In the early 16th century, church and state are
inextricably intertwined. They mirror one another in structure, and even share certain leaders. - So the church had largely bought into this medieval world view where you have a hierarchy
with the aristocracy at the top and the peasantry
at the bottom, and the bishops would come
from the higher classes in European society and they were also often if not always princes. They were secular rulers as well. - And that did not mean, obviously, that they were very good at their job. They simply had the money
to be able to afford it. - [Voiceover] The result is a church that holds great political power in addition to its spiritual power. - So for example, in
Germany you have the princes who are allowed to elect the emperor. Of those, three of them
are actual archbishops who rule as princes of their territory. The Pope himself is also
a king, so to speak, of the papal state. He rules
that area as a secular ruler. - [Voiceover] With this secular
power came great wealth, which many church leaders
find irresistible. - It was a financial boon to be able to become a bishop,
because it brought with it lots of land and lots of
peasants who then gave money. So you have a church that is corrupted by the standards of the
society in which it exists. - At the same time it's fair to say that church and state
were in some ways rivals to each other before the reformation, because the church was a big landowner, because the church had
the power of appointment to clergy in the district, you have monastic orders
that are very powerful, so when you look at the relationship between church and state, sometimes it is clear that
governments were concerned about the church's power. - [Voiceover] Whether by
mutual benefit or expediency, church and state functioned
in a symbiotic relationship. When necessary, the church fights battles to protect the government and vice versa. The monarchy in return can appoint clergy, and considers it a sacred
duty to punish anyone who breaks the church's divine laws. It is universally accepted that there is only one true doctrine,
and that to reject it puts not only one's own soul at risk, but that of the entire community. - The vocabulary for wrong belief is the vocabulary of contagious disease. The talk about epidemics of heresy. They talk about contagion
of wrong beliefs, so it wasn't just that
well, you think your thing and I think my thing
and that's fine, right? In the 16th century, believing something that was not accepted by the broader community could put you in a great deal of danger. ( dramatic music ) - [Voiceover] To blaspheme God is heresy, which is even worse than treason. The punishment for both is death. For this reason the monarchy and church consider it merciful to
force a heretic to recant. If the heretic repents, his
or her life will be saved. If the heretic refuses,
all of society is at risk. - If you notice the ways of execution, they're all means of purifying. So people are burned, people are
drowned, people are buried alive, and in each case they're
trying to purify the community. From the standpoint of avoiding
the contagion of heresy, it makes perfect sense, but from our 21st century perspective, the idea of killing
people because they have a different theological
viewpoint is obviously abhorrent. - [Voiceover] The church and
state have maintained order in this way for centuries, but the forces they seek to
repress are gaining strength. The Middle Ages have given
way to the Renaissance. New forms of education are leading to a greater interest
in the ancient world. Prominent scholars like the
Catholic theologian Erasmus are championing the cause of humanism, an academic movement marked by
optimism about human nature. - Today if you say the
word humanism, people think of some kind
of irreligious movement or perhaps some
movement that doesn't have any room for religion. That would not apply in the 16th century. Humanism in the 16th century, particularly in northern Europe, was very much a Christian movement, and the great Erasmus, the
leader of European humanists, was very much focused on doing his best to see that people could learn what it meant to be a Christian. - You look at Erasmus, who was
just as passionate as Luther about the need for reform in the church, but through his conscience
and his decision he remained within the church, although a pretty vigorous
critic all the way through, - [Voiceover] Trade routes
in non European countries are being discovered, and the groundwork for capitalism is being laid. - There's all sort of economic
changes that are going on. You have in this period the
rise of the middle class, the rise of cities and
this middle class's ability to make money is dependent
upon having free trade, having a free hand, and
this is coming into conflict with traditional aristocratic
land-holding authority. It's all of these factors
together that just contribute to the destabilization of
the medieval world view. This kind of hierarchy that
seemed to be established and unchangeable, now
suddenly was changeable. - [Voiceover] For the first time ever, the printing press is making books and ideas more accessible. - In western Europe you
have Johannes Gutenberg, who developed the printing
press around 1450, and his technology really caught on because it enabled the production of texts in a much more consistent fashion, and obviously more quickly than writing everything out by hand. By the turn of the 16th century, texts could be printed and were printed in increasing numbers. - We think now this is probably slow compared to the internet,
but back in the day, compared to hand writing out documents this is revolutionary in terms of the ways in which ideas can travel. - [Voiceover] Prior to the printing press, the only copies of The
Bible were hand written, usually in Latin. Vernacular translations were rare and often regarded with
suspicion by the church. However, by Luther's time, translations of The Bible
are becoming more widespread. - So all of these played a role in emphasizing the
importance of the scripture text. Distinct from its
context within the church, and seen as accessible
as a text in itself, without having to be transmitted through, let's say, a
church authority, a priest. - [Voiceover] The movement
to translate The Bible, coincides with a simmering frustration with the hierarchy of the church. ( dramatic music ) For more than a century the
Vatican has been riddled with rumors of incest, adultery, prostitution and debauchery. When Pope Leo the 10th
takes office in 1513, he spends one seventh
of the papal treasury to celebrate his coronation. He quickly gains a reputation
as a pleasure seeking double-tongued politician. - Most people in Europe knew
that the church needed reform. Knew that the way that the church
operated was not the way it should operate given the texts that we
hold to be canonical, the texts that we hold to be sacred. - [Voiceover] The notion of reform within the church is nothing new. It's been going on for centuries. - The Augustinians, the
Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Carmelites, you just go down the line, there were myriads of people
in the Catholic church, and not just in the 1500's. The Franciscans as a religious order emerge out of a call for reform,
and this is in the 1200's. - [Voiceover] However the moral
corruption within the leadership is running rampant. It's in this turbulent setting, that Martin Luther's
intense study of scripture sets off a firestorm. ( dramatic music ) In 1517 the church is selling indulgences as a kind of shortcut to forgiveness. - [Voiceover] Well, an indulgence was a letter with the seal of the Pope that declared forgiveness of sins. - An indulgence is a remission of temporal punishment
due to sin. Let's say that I break
your window deliberately, and I seek your pardon and you forgive
me. You don't hold that against
me for the rest of my life. In justice however, I
have to make reparation. Sin leaves wounds. Once we are forgiven we must
do penance for our sins. Not because our Lord by his
sacrifice didn't do enough, but this is a way of expressing genuine contrition and sorrow. - [Voiceover] Indulgences
are growing in popularity. Though officially one still
must confess and repent of sins, the indulgences are a way around more arduous forms of penance. - The problem with indulgences was that one of the things you could do, was instead of going to your priest you could buy a piece of paper
that said you were forgiven. That gift of money could
then be seen as a good work, an act of satisfaction
that would enable you to get out of some time in purgatory, and so the Pope could issue
in the name of Christ, forgiveness, this was part
of the power of the church, the keys of the kingdom so to speak. - [Voiceover] The growing demand is a financial boon to the church. - As you can see with the
start of the printing press, that indulgences start
to proliferate as well. In fact the first
documents that were printed were not bibles, it
was in fact indulgences that were printed. - [Voiceover] A plenary indulgence, which is seldom offered,
will release a person from purgatory all together. It's this sale of plenary
indulgences for the dead that electrifies Martin Luther
on All Saint's Eve, 1517. (gentle music ) - Luther is teaching
in Wittenberg and he hears about this
guy named Johann Tetzel, and Tetzel is a monk who is sent on behalf of The Bishop of Brandenburg,
his name was Albrecht, to sell indulgences, and
what he's basically doing is trying to raise money
for both his archbishop and for the Pope in Rome. - [Voiceover] Tetzel
promises that in exchange for a donation to the
building of a cathedral, the Pope will release a loved
one's soul from purgatory. - Tetzel even has a little rhyme which translates into English, "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, "the soul from purgatory springs." - This indulgence was declared to be good for people in purgatory, good
for those who had already died so I can pay money to have time taken off my grandmother's time in purgatory. Thus acquiring the forgiveness
of some of her sins through this payment to the church, which would be used to
finance the building of Saint Peter's Basilica. - This is crude by anybody's standards, and a lot of theologians
find this offensive. Martin Luther found it outrageous. ( dramatic music ) - [Voiceover] Ever the conscientious monk, Luther takes action. In keeping with academic tradition, he writes 95 theses in Latin that condemn the church's sale of indulgences. He posts his theses on the
door of the Wittenberg chapel. - These 95 theses on indulgences actually was a call to debate, does the church really
have the right to do this? He was not protesting the
Roman Catholic Church. He had no idea of starting a
new church, he was not wanting to break from Rome, and he just followed the
practice of posting it on the public bulletin board
and say, let's debate it. - And most of them, if you read them today are focused on the
question of indulgences, but you do also start to get a sense of some of the larger theological issues, such as the role of
good works in salvation, and the role of scriptures in
understanding God's teaching. - He asked the question,
if it's really true that the Pope has the
power through the church to forgive sins, why is
he making poor people have to pay for it when it means that they can't put shoes on their children's feet
and food in their stomach. If the Pope really loves
people and has this power why doesn't he just forgive them? Why does the Pope want so much
money? Why doesn't he just in
love extend this grace? - [Voiceover] Luther is looking
for a good healthy debate. What he gets is a revolution. ( dramatic music ) Within two weeks, thanks
to the printing press, Luther's 95 theses are
translated from Latin into the common language and
distributed across Germany. His ideas have found a market, and people are hungry to hear more. - [Voiceover] The role
the printing press played in the expansion of Luther's beliefs was that it simply prevented people from controlling where
these ideas would go. - [Voiceover] There's a saying among some reformation historians, no printing press, no reformation. Being that if Luther and other reformers didn't have this mass medium
to spread their message in different ways, it
would never have succeeded the way that it did. ( dramatic music ) - [Voiceover] Within a few months of posting his theses in Wittenberg, Luther is asked to speak
to the monks of his order in Heidelberg Germany. Luther shares his new
understanding of scripture and God's grace. His ideas are provocative, and Pope Leo the 10th takes notice. He sends emissaries to placate Luther, but he is unrelenting. The issue quickly moves from
indulgences, to an even more fundamental
and powerful question. Can one theologian's reading of scripture outweigh centuries of church tradition, and the Pope's authority? The church firmly answers, no. - Catholicism tries to
hold both the scripture and it's tradition in a kind of reverence and recognize that they need each other. You can't simply have
tradition without scripture, just as you simply, from
a Catholic perspective, can't have scripture without
some communal context in which that's understood and accepted. - When we talk about
development of doctrine it's inseparable from this idea that tradition is a living,
organic part of the church. One could say tradition is the church. Not an institution but the
living of the gospel life of our relationship with Christ, and that living is the
thing that is the basis for our reading of the scriptures. - [Voiceover] For Martin Luther, scripture, not tradition,
is the ultimate authority. - Certainly Luther did not discard the tradition of the church,
and he read the church fathers, and he even read medieval commentaries and listened to them as well,
but he says the authority is primarily vested in The Bible itself, and if the tradition
contradicts The Bible, then we should put the
primacy in The Bible. - [Voiceover] In June 1519, Luther and theologian Johann Eck, publicly debate one another
for 18 days in Leipzig Germany. Multitudes swarmed the event. Eck, who is backed by the Pope, sets out to prove Luther is a heretic. In the same vein as Jan Hus, who was burned at the stake for rejecting papal authority a century earlier. Luther is fearless, boldly declaring, " A simple layman "armed with the Scriptures
is superior to both the Pope, "and his councils without them." Luther's language is colorful
and occasionally foul. He is unapologetic for calling
his brothers and sisters in Christ, monsters and deaf goats. - He was an earthy man,
as we like to say, and so his language
was kinda rough. Luther was really good
at using bodily functions to describe his opponents. He would often call
them dogs and scoundrels and language of that sort. - Talked about the captivity in Babylon and he definitely saw the
church as being in captivity, and so for him he saw this as similar to Jesus' cleansing of the temple. - [Voiceover] One scholar
involved in the debate, Philip Melanchton, aligns
himself with Luther, yet he pleads for a
more measured approach. - Meanchthon's more inclined
to find a way of peace, to find a way of understanding the others, whereas Luther was more
interested in proclamation. - [Voiceover] Melanchthon's moderate
style is brushed aside as Luther's views gain momentum around Germany. Pope Leo the 10th takes decisive action. On June the 5th, 1520,
the Pope issues a decree, or papal bull, censuring 41 propositions extracted from Luther's 95 theses. In it he calls Luther a wild boar, invading the Lord's vineyard. The Pope threatens to excommunicate
Luther unless he recants his
beliefs within 60 days. Not only does Luther refuse to recant, he writes three books
lashing out at the papacy. Luther is risking his life. - Luther had one of the boldest
personalities imaginable. I mean he wasn't a superhero,
but he was pretty close. - [Voiceover] In his books, Luther tackles one of the
church's central beliefs, that the church hierarchy
is the means through which ordinary believers access God. ( chanting in foreign language ) - God's grace is mediated
by the priesthood, to the people, through
the sacraments. That was the official theology. - When a man receives the
sacrament of holy orders and is ordained a priest,
he is given a share in the role of Christ in his capacity as head and bridegroom of the church, and can forgive sins sacramentally, and celebrate Mass, and
confect the Eucharist, meaning bring about a
change of the elements of bread and wine into the
body and blood of Christ by the power of Christ alone. - [Voiceover] Luther argues that baptism makes all Christians priests, so ordained priests have no
more access to God's grace than the average layperson. - This dispensation of grace
is something that belongs to every believer, to
the body of believers rather than to the priesthood exclusively. - [Voiceover] Then Luther
addresses the church's sacraments. - Catholicism puts great
emphasis on the sacraments because the sacraments
are the ordinary means of receiving God's sanctifying
and merciful grace. - Each sacrament has form, which
means the idea or the grace or the spirituality which
is being communicated, but they also have matter. So baptism is with water. The forgiveness of sin through
the imposition of hands. The Eucharist with the elements
of bread and wine, et cetera. The idea is they appeal
to the whole person. Not just to the spirit,
but to the body as well. - In these sacraments it's
God who's working the work. My participation in it
is obviously critical, but it's God who's doing the work. It's not my belief in
it that does the work. - [Voiceover] The church
observes seven sacraments. Baptism, confirmation, Eucharist,
penance, anointing of the sick,
holy orders, and matrimony. ( dramatic music ) - So I think Catholic sacramental theology is a reflection or a further instantiation of our anthropology, the way
we understand the human person. - [Voiceover] Luther argues that only two of these seven sacraments are scriptural. The Eucharist, and baptism, but his challenge to the
church doesn't stop there. He also tells Christians they are free of fear from God's judgment. Christ has taken
humanity's sin on himself, and imputed his perfect righteousness. Therefore one can obey out of
love, not fear of punishment. Luther's defiance culminates
on December the 10th, 1520, when he burns Pope Leo
the 10th's papal bull in a festive bonfire attended
by faculty and students at the University of Wittenberg. What started as a refutation
of a money-raising scheme, has turned into a full-fledged movement against core teachings of the church. - So one way of thinking
about the reformation is it's a church split caused by a building project gone bad. - [Voiceover] Pope Leo
the 10th is not amused. He promptly excommunicates
Luther from the church. - Some people asked the question whether or not Luther was
kicked out of the church or whether he left the church. Well, the answer is both, because Luther made that
situation so impossible for the medieval church that
they had to excommunicate him. So he really didn't give them any choice. - [Voiceover] The Pope also asks the head of the Holy Roman empire, Charles the 5th, to execute
Luther as a heretic. The church needs the state's support, but it won't be easy to obtain. The political tides are changing, and working in Luther's favor. - People were obsessed about
the threat of the Ottoman Turks moving into Europe coming
into as far as Vienna, and that all of Europe would
be overrun by Islamic armies. That played a key role I
think in the reformation because the emperor, Charles the 5th, had to make a lot of
compromises with his princes in order to get their
support to fight the Turks, and part of those compromises included letting them practice Lutheranism. - [Voiceover] Large parts of Germany now support the brave monk Martin
Luther, and the church leadership is
out of step with the times. - The way to deal with a
huge crisis in the church naturally would have been
to convene a general council and see what is the
consensus in the church. I think it is one of the great mistakes of the Pope's at the time
that they did not call for a general council as a
reaction to Luther's theology. - [Voiceover] Under pressure, Emperor Charles the 5th
invites Luther to the Diet, or assembly
of Worms in April 1521. He positions it as an opportunity for Luther to present his claims. - He's called to appear
before the emperor, and all the crowned heads
of the German empire. This is the equivalent
of a full UN assembly or Congress combined,
and he appears in person and he's at a table with a pile of various pamphlets and books, and
the prosecutor says to him in front of the emperor
and everybody else, "Doctor Luther, do you acknowledge "having written these works
and do you hereby abjure them?" Do you reject them? - [Voiceover] Luther begs for another day to compose his response. The next day, in the face of
the real danger of execution, Luther stands his ground. - [Voiceover] He essentially
says, "Unless I am convinced "by holy scripture otherwise,
I stand by these words. "Here I stand, I can do
no other, God help me." Now whether he said those
actual words or not, this was an incredibly
brave moment for Luther. He stood in defiance of all
the assembled secular heads of the German empire, and
he rejected the pressure. - It definitely set a precedent in which one's individual
sense of the faith became some kind of normative
determiner for how one receives the faith and lives it
out in a community of faith. - [Voiceover] In spite of Germany's widespread support of Luther, the emperor decrees
him a notorious heretic who must be stopped. He issues an edict
calling Luther a criminal who has committed high treason, and demands his capture along
with that of his followers. Luther is a marked man. He is saved, however,
when his prince elector Frederick the Wise, has armed horsemen abduct Luther on his
return trip to Wittenberg. The prince conceals Luther
in one of his castles in Wartburg, Germany. (gentle music ) - Why did Frederick the
Wise put his life at risk, his throne at risk, to support Luther? Maybe it was some sort of social contract between the ruler and his people. Some people think that may have had something to do with it. - [Voiceover] Luther remains
there for the next 10 months. Though he despises his enforced solitude, Luther uses the time to translate the New Testament from Greek into
German, an act of both defiance and courage. - [Voiceover] In past
days, 100 years earlier with somebody like Jan
Hus, that would've ended not only with in his excommunication, but being burned as a heretic. - [Voiceover] In December 1521, Pope Leo the 10th falls ill and dies before he can be administered Last Rites. In his seven-year reign he
has spent the equivalent of $56,000,000. The papal coffers are so empty, that Leo's coffin has to be
lit by half-burned candles borrowed from another funeral. Within months, Luther comes out of hiding and returns to Wittenberg. His safety however is not assured. - So Luther lived consciously, mindful that every day could be his last. So he lived with that everyday. - [Voiceover] In spite of the danger, Luther presses forward. New leaders are springing up around him to fan the flames of reform, but Luther won't always be pleased with how they carry the torch. ( dramatic music ) A few years after Martin Luther launches a revolution in Germany, a parish priest in
Switzerland, Huldrych Zwingli, is seeing a similar need for reform. Like Luther, Zwingli believes
the church is off track. - He served in rural parishes first, and then he was actually
a priest in Einsiedeln, which was a Benedictine monastery
and place of pilgrimage, and from there he got a position in Zurich as the people's priest
at the Grossmunster, which is Zurich's cathedral. It was during this period that he became more and more convinced that
the way the Catholic church of his day understood things
was not the correct way. - [Voiceover] Zwingli is
an accomplished scholar, an excellent preacher, and
passionate about scripture. Like Luther, Zwingli rejects
the authority of the Pope, and holds to the authority
of scripture alone. Yet his ideas will prove to be even more radical than Luther's. - Zwingli always said
he was not particularly influenced by Luther, he
was doing his own thing and got his own inspiration and revelation and that he was not simply copying Luther. - [Voiceover] Zwingli
has a pastor's heart. When he arrives in Zurich in 1519, two years after Luther
posted his 95 theses, a plague strikes the city. ( dramatic music ) Thought almost a third
of the population dies, Zwingli is fearless,
ministering to the ill. Before long, he contracts
the disease himself and barely survives. Zwingli is as courageous
with his preaching as he is with ministering. He drops the assigned
lessons of the church and begins teaching through
the gospel of Matthew. - He wanted to have everything reference back to the word of God. So he began a preaching program in
Zurich. Where he started with,
say, the gospel of Matthew, and would preach sequentially
all the way through Matthew rather than jumping about, and he basically got the
city authorities on his side. - [Voiceover] Zwingli does
something else radical, he challenges the church's
rules on celibacy. - The rule in the Catholic church had been for centuries
the celibacy of clergy. The thought was that
only a celibate person could truly and fully serve God with their whole heart
because they would not have a divided heart, serving God and also then loving their
spouse at the same time. At the reformation Luther, Zwingli, pretty much all the reformers
said the same thing, which is that celibacy is really only for the very very few, it is not the norm. - [Voiceover] Martin Luther turned the idea of marriage on its head when he married a runaway
nun, Katharina von Bora. In a society that views
marriage as a financial and social contract, Luther's
marriage is revolutionary. - There was no social status to be gained by the two of them
getting married, and there was no money. I mean he didn't
have any money and she didn't
have any money. So what did they have? They had love. - [Voiceover] Even before
Luther's marriage to von Bora, Zwingli, a Catholic priest,
secretly marries a local widow. The reformation is changing
even the concept of marriage. - Before it was based on
social status and a dowry. Suddenly this whole
notion of marrying someone because you love them
becomes a significant paradigm shift in the concept of marriage. (gentle music ) - [Voiceover] Zwingli challenges
another societal norm, when some of his followers deliberately eat smoked sausages during
the fasting period of Lent. Zwingli defends them, arguing that no food is off limits in scripture. Clearly there are no
sacred cows, or sausages, for this Zurich priest. He even begins questioning the economic foundations of the community, a bold move that stirs
up much controversy. The Swiss have a long history
of hiring themselves out as mercenaries to other nations. A time-honored service that is also an important source of revenue. - In the late 15th and early 16th century, there were a lot of mercenaries
operating in Europe. The Swiss Cantons had the reputation of producing the very
best mercenaries around. Machiavelli quotes one prince
writing another saying, what's the secret to success, and he says, "Swiss, Swiss, and more Swiss." Meaning more mercenaries from
Switzerland, '
cause they're the best. - [Voiceover] Though he's
certainly not against war per se, Zwingli begins to preach against what he views as senseless bloodshed. - One of the aspects of Zwingli's life that really shaped him was
his service as a chaplain to Swiss mercenary troops in Italy, and he was completely
devastated by that experience. He saw his compatriots
dying on foreign fields and he thought it was
a waste of their lives. He really found it was
an abusive practice. - [Voiceover] Zwingli's
message is not well received, and for a time he loses his pulpit, but his preaching is too magnetic, and in 1523 the Zurich city council announces it is willing to
consider his radical ideas. Zwingli publicly presents 67 theses to the council of Zurich
arguing for reform. - And they had a couple of disputations, or public debates, where
Zwingli and his colleagues who favored the reformation
spoke out against Catholic practices,
Catholic theology and so on, and the magistrates were
there as judges and referees, and this was a very attractive situation for the magistrates to be
in because all of the sudden they are the deciders for
something really important like what faith shall this city follow. - [Voiceover] Zwingli argues that even the ornate decoration in
Zurich's churches is ungodly, and needs to be changed. - The reformers, when
they looked at scripture had different ways of understanding what one should or should not do, and for Luther the idea was that, if it is not mentioned in
scripture, it's okay to do it. It's not a problem, they were indifferent. So if you wanted to have images in your churches, that's fine. Zwingli took a narrower view. He said, "Unless it is said in
scripture, I will not do it." - [Voiceover] The Zurich city council meets Zwingli's reforms, both practical and
theological, with approval. They abolish the Catholic Mass, and replace it with a
simple communion service. Wooden bowls and spoons replace
silver and gold utensils. Icons are removed from the sanctuary. - The churches became whitewashed. Their images were taken out. In some cases they actually contacted people who had donated
images to the church and told them to come and collect them. Take them home, because we don't want
them in the church anymore. So it's not a wholesale destruction, it is simply a very organized removal. - [Voiceover] By 1525 Zwingli has created a church model in Zurich that he hopes to replicate throughout Europe. Zwingli forms an alliance
of Protestant Cantons, or states, within Switzerland. The reformation gains more ground in
1526 when King Charles the 5th
needs the help of the reformers and their princes to battle the Pope. The king issues an edict of toleration, and for several years
the reformation grows without opposition, but
not everyone is on board. - So you have Zurich
and then Bern and Basil and various other cities
that adopt the reformation, they are the urban centers
of the Swiss lands, and interestingly the Swiss territories that were more rural
tended to stay Catholic, and there tended to be tension between the Catholic areas
of the Swiss territories and the Protestant areas that
tended to be in the north and tended to be the urban settings. - [Voiceover] Within a few short years, the hostility between Swiss
Protestants and Catholics, will explode into a full-fledged civil war that will ultimately
culminate in Zwingli's death. Zwingli has no way, of course, of knowing what the future holds. Yet it's becoming increasingly clear that the reformation is setting off a domino chain of conflict. It begins at the Diet of Speyer in 1529, when the emperor rescinds
the Edict of Toleration. - At this meeting it was decided that the reformation which
had been allowed to go on in a number of provinces
within the Holy Roman Empire, would no longer be tolerated, and the princes who had allowed
the reformation to go on within their territories issued a protest against that legislation. - [Voiceover] That protest gives birth to the new name of the reformers. Protestants. The reformation is taking form. With Protestants on one side,
and Catholics on the other, one might assume that its
two strongest leaders, Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli, would be arm in arm in their fight to restore the church to
its scriptural roots. Yet nothing could be less true. ( dramatic music ) By 1529, Martin Luther
and Huldrych Zwingli have separately managed to spark a fire of reform that is sweeping Europe. Luther's movement will come
to be known as Lutheranism, while the churches associated with Zwingli and later Calvin will be
named simply as Reformed. - Comparing the Lutheran reformation and the Reformed reformation you have to first of all understand
that for Luther and Zwingli their movements are happening
almost simultaneously, and Zwingli always said
he was not particularly influenced by Luther, he
was doing his own thing and got his own inspiration and revelation and that he was not simply copying Luther. - [Voiceover] In Luther's opinion, Zwingli thinks too highly of himself, and is too much of a
radical and a patriot. Though Luther is no pacifist, he is appalled that the giant of Zurich as he derisively calls Zwingli, is willing to take up arms
to spread the reformation. - You have to understand Zwingli was not just a theologian and a pastor, he was also a Swiss
patriot, and so for him politics and religion
were almost inseparable. - [Voiceover] Zwingli, for his part, doesn't believe Luther's reformation has gone far enough in it's pursuit of adhering to scripture. For one thing, Luther has never
demanded the removal of images
within the church as he has. The reformers are
experiencing the conflicts that arise when sola
scriptura, scripture alone, is embraced. - Sola Scriptura is for Protestants an extremely important
part of what we confess and what we believe, but it's also one of
those areas that has been not only
poorly understood, but even more poorly practiced. So the result of Sola Scriptura today five centuries later is
that many Protestants and many Protestant
denominations and leaders think of Sola Scriptura as
my Bible, my interpretation, my tradition, and I see
it and I read it clearly and I’ve got it right. Which means everybody else is wrong. Luther himself was concerned that the doctrine of Sola
Scriptura could lead to this. He expressed that concern. - When you say Sola Scriptura, you eliminate any means for
having a guiding hermeneutic, or interpretation of the scripture. If you push Sola Scriptura too far, you have no basis for the canon, and you can't use the creed as the filter that allows you to know whether
you're reading the scripture correctly according to scripture's own mind or whether you're imposing
something exterior to it. - [Voiceover] The biggest
point of contention between Luther and Zwingli
is that Luther has not moved far enough away from
traditional church teaching about the Lord's supper, or Eucharist. - The doctrine of
transubstantiation is that the Eucharist elements,
the bread and the wine, are changed through the
power of Christ's own words at their most fundamental level. Even as the accidents or the appearances of bread and wine remain. So it depends upon the
distinction between, I would say, appearance and reality. So the appearance remains the same but the deepest reality has changed. - It was a miracle,
a little bell would be rung at that point in the service
and everybody would kneel down. Okay, that's a very holy thing, and therefore also people only got the bread at the communion
because they were taught that Christ is fully present
in both the bread and the wine, so you only need one. - [Voiceover] Luther does not
believe in transubstantiation. Yet some see his view as
only subtly different. - His view was, I can't
accept the Catholic view of this miracle where
bread is no longer bread 'cause it still looks like
bread, it tastes like bread, it doesn't change. The wine still looks like
wine, tastes like wine, it's not blood, it doesn't change, but Christ is really here, and so he went from transubstantiation to what we call consubstantiation. The substances are together. Luther's view was so that
the body and blood of Christ is in, with, and under the
elements of the Eucharist, and so he used a very fascinating
image to communicate it. He said, if you go to a blacksmith's shop and he has a roaring fire,
and he takes his tongs and he picks up a horseshoe,
just a normal horseshoe, and he puts it into the fire, well, the horseshoe is in the fire, but the horseshoe is not the fire, and the fire is not the horseshoe. It is in, with, and under the fire, and after it's been there for a long time you pull it out and the fire is there, and the horseshoe's here, but
now it's glowing red hot. The fire now is in the horseshoe. It is in with and under the horseshoe, but the fire is not the horseshoe, the horseshoe is not the
fire. They are different, but they interpenetrate each other. (gentle music ) - [Voiceover] Zwingli views
the Eucharist differently. He believes the Lord's
supper is a sacred feast at which Christ's death is commemorated, and Christians enjoy an
enriching fellowship. - For Zwingli on the other hand, he interpreted that passage symbolically. , and said that, what happens
in the Lord's supper is that we remember Christ's sacrifice. So it's not a supernatural presence in the sense of Christ's body physically being present with the elements. It's more that we remember Christ, and that's what binds
the community together. - [Voiceover] To Luther,
Zwingli is a fanatic. To Zwingli, Luther is teaching
recycled papist doctrine. Ironically, the Lord's supper which marks the last time Jesus Christ was unified with all 12 of his disciples, is now the major point of disagreement. - Why is this something
people got so upset about? I think it's because the
importance of the Eucharist in Christian belief in that period; that is, that the Mass
was a very central part of a lot of people's experience, and the moment when God came down to
Earth into the bread and wine was
an awe-inspiring moment, and then for people to start
denying that that happened, or to desecrate hosts
or do things like that was really shocking. - [Voiceover] It's obvious to at least one champion of the
reformation, Philip of Hesse, a prominent German nobleman, that the reformation needs to be unified in order to fully succeed. Hesse persuades Luther and Zwingli to meet in October 1529 at Marburg
Castle. ( chanting in foreign language ) They quickly agree on
14 points of doctrine, but on the 15th point, the
Eucharist, hostility erupts. The men agree that the sacrificial nature of the Catholic Mass is wrong, and that communicants should
receive both bread and wine, but on the rest they are worlds apart. Luther challenges Zwingli to prove that the body of Christ is
not present in the Eucharist. Zwingli argues that the passage
must be taken as a metaphor. They alternate between
calling one another names and asking one another's forgiveness. "One side of this controversy
belongs to the Devil "and is God's enemy," says Luther. Clearly he does not mean himself. - I tell my students there
are always certain things that are hard to capture from a distance, certain Zeitgeist elements. You can understand on paper
why they disagree about this, but the vehemence and
the emotion behind that is really hard to convey. I think the analogy might be
something like abortion today. We can understand rationally
the different positions, but why this is something
that so deeply angers people and causes such strife,
that's hard to convey to another historical period. You have to just experience it. - [Voiceover] Luther will no
more compromise with Zwingli than he will with the Pope. - The conclusion was,
my understanding is that Oecolampadius, one of the
associates of Zwingli, said, "It's clear we have not
been able to agree." He said, "Let us at least reach out "and shake the hand
because we are brethren." And Luther said, "No, I
cannot shake your hand. "You are of a different spirit than I am." For Luther, believing in consubstantiation was so critical for his movement that he said there can be no fellowship between those that do not accept this, with those who do. - [Voiceover] "I would rather
drink blood with the Pope, "than mere wine with the
Swiss.", Luther says rudely. Luther and Zwingli walk
away from one another less united than they began. For a moment in time, they
have had the opportunity to unite the factious Protestant movement. As history has proven, it may
have been the last chance. ( downbeat music ) ( religious choral music ) ( chanting in foreign language ) - [Voiceover] In the 16th century, the Western Catholic church maintains a form of unity through a deep respect for hierarchy, community, and tradition. - In the pre-Reformation
period, if you wanna say there was unity, there was order, there was also great injustice, and brutality, and exploitation. - 16th century Europe
really thinks communally, not individually. So it's very important to consider that most of the rules for religion applied to the whole community. - [Voiceover] That
begins to change in 1517 when one German monk, Martin Luther, begins to question the church's teachings on everything from
indulgences to salvation. - Luther is perhaps one of the
most polarizing figures ever. He was defiant, he was
bold, and he was initially willing to die for what he believed. - [Voiceover] Luther's counterpart, Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli, agrees with him on almost all points of Reformation doctrine, except the Lord's Supper. - For Zwingli, the sacrament
was essentially a memorial, a remembrance of what Christ had done. - [Voiceover] They meet in 1529
to settle their differences, but end up calling one another names. - I think Luther was too polemical, and I think he fell into
opposition so quickly. - [Voiceover] This marks the beginning of what will become two
separate Protestant movements, Lutheran and Reformed, and it sets the stage for the hostility, suspicion, and lack of unity that will mar the Reformation
for years to come. - One of the legacies of the Reformation is a fracturing of the unity of sort of the Christian identity
or Christian church. - Can I envision a day of unity? And certainly, I’m theologically
obligated to envision it, because Christ prayed for it. - [Voiceover] This is the Reformation, and it changed everything. In 16th century Europe, the Renaissance, the printing press, and changing
economics are creating fertile ground for new ideas, including the Reformers'
views on the church. Reformers across the
board all believed that the practices of the
church had strayed from the
teachings of Christ, and so that the church
needed to be reformed and brought into line, and that was true for those
who would be called Protestants as well as those who would remain within the Roman Catholic fold. - If you look at Erasmus,
who was just as passionate as Luther
about the need for reform in the church, but through his conscience
and his decision, he remained within the church, although a pretty vigorous
critic all the way through. One of the tragedies of
the Reformation, I think, is the split between Erasmus and Luther because in a certain sense, they would have been good for each other, but they couldn't make it work. - [Voiceover] Martin
Luther and Ulrich Zwingli are making radical
criticisms of the church's traditional teachings, and their bold ideas about
the authority of scripture are finding an audience in
Germany and Switzerland. - The foundation for
most Protestant theology is in the ideas that authority
comes from the scriptures, authority comes from faith,
authority comes from grace, these emphases, theological emphases. So Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, as well as the priesthood
of all believers, that all Christians by
virtue of their baptism are priests to one another. And of course, by saying
that, they're saying the way in which salvation is taught within the larger
Catholic church is wrong, and that's what is scandalous. - To be saved in Protestantism
means to be justified, to be put in right
relationship with God by making an act of faith in
the saving work of Christ. It has more to do with legal status, that God imputes the
righteousness of Christ to me. I still have the filth of my sins, but now when God looks at me, he does not regard me, he regards his
son, because I have been clothed in Christ. - So, the Lutheran view roughly, justification by grace
through faith alone, that sets us right with God. The Catholic view is to be saved is to be drawn into friendship with God. What's the moment when the
friendship is sufficient? What's the moment when you've -- I mean, in some ways, who knows? The Lord wants us to
grow in that friendship, and he keeps summoning us, first through faith and
then through the life lived in the church and in the world. He's drawing us evermore
into friendship with him. - The Reformation taught that the believer is simultaneously justified and a sinner. (speaks in foreign language ) This was staunchly opposed
by the Church of Rome because Rome taught that you are declared righteous before God only as you are being made
righteous in sanctification. - From our perspective,
faith, yeah, there's the beginning, it's the seed, the initium, the radix,
the root of justification, but then it grows, and
broadens, and deepens through the works of love. Faith now expressing itself through love deepens, broadens,
enriches our justification, which means being set right with God. - We are changed, we are regenerated, we're made new creatures in Christ, so we go on to bear the
fruit of love and good works, no question about that, but that doesn't lead
to our justification, that is the fruit of our justification. - [Voiceover] Desperate to
preserve its unity and power and to battle what it
believes is false doctrine, the Catholic church denounces
the Reformers as heretics and seeks to snuff out those
who threaten the community. - It certainly could be argued that in the
16th century mindset, the execution of heretics was a perfectly reasonable strategy to deal with what could be very
dangerous. - [Voiceover] Though the Reformation is transforming western Europe, traditional Catholicism still
has strong support in England thanks to King Henry VIII. At the age of 22, Henry
fought a holy war in Europe on behalf of Pope Julius II, who promised him the title
"Most Christian King." Eight years later, when Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses, Henry earned an even grander title. - Well, Henry VIII was granted a title of "Defender of the Faith" because he actually wrote
a critique of Luther, but he didn't actually
write it himself, he had some of his
theologians write it, and it was published, and the Pope rewarded him with this famous phrase "Defender of the Faith." So he was quite critical of Luther. - [Voiceover] The king will
soon sing a different tune. Henry VIII's troubles
with the Catholic church begin 17 years into his
marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Catherine has provided
only one surviving child, a daughter, Mary. With no male heir, Henry is in a politically tenuous position and blames his wife, who happens to be his
former sister-in-law. - Catherine of Aragon was actually the wife of his brother Arthur who, had he lived,would've
been King Arthur. Catherine had married him,
but after six months he died. She claimed they never
consummated the marriage, and so there were some political concerns because she was from Spain and
they were political allies. And so there was pressure
put upon young Henry VIII to marry his brother's widow, and he did. - [Voiceover] In order to
marry his former sister-in-law, Henry had gained special permission from the former Pope, Julius ll. Now he wonders if he and
Catherine are cursed. - When Henry looks
at the Bible, he runs
into a problem because the Bible says
two conflicting things. One passage says that you should
marry your brother's widow, another passage says that if a man marries his brother's widow, the union shall be childless, which Henry interprets as meaning not having any sons of his own union. - [Voiceover] Something else
is fueling Henry's discontent. A young woman named Anne
Boleyn has caught his eye. She refuses to be his mistress, and Henry is obsessed
with making her his wife. - Anne Boleyn was a very striking woman, a very vivacious, kind
of unusual apparently at the king's court. Now, Henry had always had various
affairs. That was just par for the course in 16th century royal circles. No wife married a king
without anticipating that he would have these side affairs, and Henry had had an affair
with Anne Boleyn's sister, and she'd been his mistress, but through that, he apparently became aware of Anne Boleyn, and she very much reeled him in, and since his wife was
not producing a male heir, this young, vivacious woman
showed all the prospect of giving birth to a male heir. - [Voiceover] The king turns to the current pope, Clement VII, for permission to divorce Catherine on the grounds that Pope Julius II had erred when permitting the marriage. His request is unheard of. - There is no divorce in the
16th century, there's only separation. - [Voiceover] The pope is in a quandary. If he doesn't grant the
divorce, he angers Henry. If he does grant the divorce, he overrules his own predecessor and upsets and even bigger
political apple cart. - The pope is kind of nervous because Henry is not an
insignificant figure, but he knows that's a very
dicey situation for this reason: The newly crowned holy
Roman emperor, Charles V, clearly the most powerful
monarch in Europe, just happened to be the
nephew of Henry's first wife, the one he's trying to get rid of, and so the pope is caught between the most powerful monarch
in Europe, Charles V, and Henry. And so the pope stalls,
and stalls, and stalls until finally Henry
appoints his own people. - [Voiceover] Henry and
his advisors begin arguing that as king, he has and has always had dominion over the church of England. The debate drags on for six years. Then Anne Boleyn capitulates
to Henry's advances and gets pregnant. King Henry VIII acts swiftly, proclaiming that he, not the pope, is the rightful leader
of the church in England. - Henry was a kind of a bully, clearly, and a megalomaniac, and a psychopath. I mean, I think he was all of those things sort of wrapped up in one. Henry was a guy, he got what he wanted. I mean, he'd been raised a royal. No one had ever said no to him, and when the pope said no, that really was a problem for him, and so he found another way around it. - [Voiceover] In 1533,
England's parliament passes the Act of Appeals,
which declares the king the final legal authority in all matters and making the pope's rulings
in the church illegal. Henry appoints Thomas Cranmer, a friend of the devoutly
Protestant Boleyn family as Archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer becomes the
highest clergy in the land. Like Martin Luther and other Reformers, Henry has broken with the pope, though for personal, not
theological, reasons. - It's essentially a political break where the top part of
the pope is broken off but everything below that is kept. You still have bishops, and
archbishops, and parishes, the only difference being that the head of church in England
is no longer the pope in Rome, it's the king of England. Within months, Cranmer declares that Henry and Catherine's marriage is against the law of God. He even threatens excommunication if Henry doesn't stay away from
his wife of almost 24 years. Henry's 17-year-old daughter Mary is now considered illegitimate. Archbishop Cranmer then
validates the union of King Henry and Anne Boleyn, who secretly married weeks earlier. Boleyn is anointed Queen of England, then gives birth to a daughter, Elizabeth. Furious with this turn of events, Pope Clement VII excommunicates
Henry from the church. That's just fine with the king. - Henry broke from the papacy
for purely selfish reasons, if you consider the desire for
a male heir a selfish thing. But it's more than just selfishness, it's sort of the dignity,
the stability of society he believed hinged upon that. I do think he was very pragmatic. At first, the impact of this
drastic change is minimal. - Henry VIII comes in, makes himself the de facto
head of the English church, but doesn't change anything theologically, for all practical purposes, doesn't really change anything in the way of the expression of
worship on the local level. - Henry VIII was really,
from beginning to end
to his death, was in almost every respect
a traditional Catholic. - [Voiceover] As the king begins exploring his new authority, however, Reformers around him have
a golden opportunity. - The king's dynastic
crisis creates a space in which other, more
committed evangelicals can try and push their agenda on the king and on the country. - [Voiceover] Though his
motives are politically based, Henry makes several key decisions that further the Reformation. He installs English Bibles
in all the churches. His concern, however, is not
that people read scriptures. Rather, Henry wants to
increase his subjects' loyalty, which means not being
dependent on a Latin Bible. For the same reason, he
closes England's cloisters. - When he broke with Rome, one of the things he
did within a few years was essentially shut down the
monasteries and nunneries of England, and take their land, and
redistribute it among his nobility, and take a big amount of it for himself. It certainly helped
the royal coffers to have this changeover
from being Catholic to breaking from Rome. - [Voiceover] Several monks
who resist his actions are tortured and executed. King Henry's actions are met with approval by Archbishop Cranmer, who is secretly married
to a Lutheran woman and dislikes the monasteries on principle. - Cranmer was a secret
Protestant all this time, and so Cranmer had this
extraordinary skillset to persuade the king to make decisions and the king thinks they're his decisions but actually Cranmer
is moving things along. Cranmer does a lot behind the scenes and is able to sort of
guide and cajole Henry VIII so that he sort of opens
the door to Protestants. - [Voiceover] Not everyone in
England embraces the changes. As orders trickle down from the archbishop into the remote corners of the country, some parishes obey, while
others do as they please. - So you end up with a
very complicated patchwork of religious change. - On January 29th, 1536, Queen Anne
Boleyn miscarries a son, and the king's eye begins to rove again. This time, it falls on lady
in waiting Jane Seymour. Archbishop Cranmer hears
Anne Boleyn's confession. Two days later, Anne is beheaded under false charges of adultery,
incest, and high treason. Before the end of his
life, King Henry VIII will have had six wives,
two of whom he will execute. Across Europe, the passion to free the church from corruption motivates many Reformers. Yet the Reformation in
England is being fueled by the most ungodly of circumstances, a king whose appetite for authority and lust for women is unchecked. With Henry VIII's transformation from the Defender of the Faith to the head of his own church, Rome has been dealt a severe blow. However, the pope isn't the only one facing an uprising within his ranks. Ironically, one of Luther's
most hated opponents, Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli, is facing the same problem. Zwingli believes that traditions not specifically found
in the New Testament should be rejected, even if they had been handed
down from the early church. As a result, his church in Zurich has radically altered services, removing images and even music. - Zwingli was also a very fine musician but did not think that
music belonged in church, so Zurich church services
had no music. They were simply
listening to sermons, joining in prayers, and so on, but there's no music
in the service itself. This is in stark contrast to Luther, who not only promotes
congregational singing, but publishes some of
the first hymn books. For Luther, music is just
one of many traditions open for discussion. - For Luther, it's indifferent. As long as people are
not worshiping a cross or worshiping a statue
in an idolatrous way, it doesn't matter. So Lutheran churches
did not have to change. - [Voiceover] Once again,
Luther and Zwingli disagree. Yet despite the drastic changes Zwingli has made to his church, some of his followers believe
he hasn't gone far enough. A group led by Felix
Manz and Conrad Grebel, co-laborers of Zwingli's, is coming to even more radical
conclusions as it studies the New Testament. - What they were is people
from Zwingli's congregation and other reformed congregations who took to heart his
teaching and Luther's teaching that the Bible alone was
the source of God's wisdom. - A young radical
like Conrad Grebel who said,
"Who's in charge here? "ls this a political process "or are we listening
to the scripture here?" And Zwingli would've said
that you have to be realistic, and Conrad Grebel would've
said, "That's not the point. "The point is something
new is breaking in here." - [Voiceover] Their criticism of Zwingli stems from their understanding of one of the cornerstones
of Christendom, baptism. For more than 1,500 years,
the church has baptized children at infancy, bringing them into the
church as soon as possible. - All who are baptized
are automatically in some relationship
with the church of Christ by virtue of baptism because there is one Lord,
one faith, one baptism. So when we are baptized,
we are regenerated, reborn spiritually as children of God, adopted children of the Father because we are incorporated
into the body of Christ, we become sons and
daughters in the one Son. - [Voiceover] The high
infant mortality rate in the 16th century provides a practical impetus to the Catholic church's theology. - If you were an unbaptized baby, you had died before you could be
baptized, you would be heading for limbo. Limbo is something like
an eternal waiting room. You're not gonna get from there to heaven, there's no pain or suffering, but it's just a waiting place and nothing much happens to you, so there was a very big
pressure to have babies baptized as soon as they appeared from the womb because you did not want to
be separated from your baby and have your baby in limbo all this time. - [Voiceover] Like Martin Luther, Zwingli still accepts infant baptism, though he believes it is a
sign of God's faithfulness, not a means of salvation. - The Reformers viewed baptism akin to circumcision in the Old Testament. Baptism is what marks an individual as being part of the covenant community. Parents were told that if
your child died unbaptized, it did not mean that this child was lost or not gonna be in heaven, because the idea was God saves families, God saves communities, and the covenant of God
is with his faithful and their children after that. But baptism was still necessary because it was a mark of the covenant, it admitted you to the
Christian community. - Zwingli, Luther, and the Catholic church are all dead wrong,
according to Manz and Grebel, who find no examples of
infant baptism in scripture. - When they read the Bible,
they believed there could only be baptism of a true
believer, meaning adult baptism because a baby can't understand
salvation. - [Voiceover] Like the
Reformers they admire, Zwingli's followers are simply reading the scripture for themselves and drawing their own conclusions, and their conclusion is that
baptism is only for those who have made a conscious
decision to follow Jesus, not for infants. - They believed that a
child was born into grace and then as a child got
older and was able then to decide whether they're
gonna follow Jesus or not, at that point, the baptism is meaningful. - The decision to follow Christ
is often a very costly one. Jesus says, "Take up your
cross and follow me." That's a decision that
requires adult understanding, and to embrace and make that decision and have it marked by baptism is an adult move. - [Voiceover] The idea that only adults should be baptized by being
fully submerged underwater is shocking and controversial in 1525. For one thing, infant baptism
is linked with citizenship. - Being baptized marked
you as a member of society and it also marked you
as a subject of the particular Christian
government that you were under. In some cases, there may
even have been parish records so that then your name would be recorded and it was a marker of being
a member of that community. Anabaptists refused to
baptize their children and this was seen as subversive by all of the different
governments involved. It was a rejection of the
established social order, of the concept of Christendom. - [Voiceover] Baptizing
adults also suggests that church is not a social
and cultural institution that shapes families over generations, but a group made solely of people who have chosen to be there. To Ulrich Zwingli, these new
ideas about adult baptism are nothing short of heresy. - Now, from Zwingli's point
of view, this was a re-baptism because all these people had
already been baptized as babies and that's a great offense, and he calls these people Anabaptists. And that's a derogatory term. It means "people who baptize again." - The Anabaptists did not consider their baptisms as re-baptisms because they didn't consider
their first baptisms as valid. - [Voiceover] The Anabaptists have other revolutionary ideas. For many of them, the adult
who chooses to follow Christ must embrace more literally
his difficult command to love one's enemies. - They particularly felt that the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew had been unhelpfully made more figurative than they wanted to see and so they took the teachings
to love your enemies, to do good to those who persecute you, to the many things that
are in Matthew 5 through 7, as being meant as literal teachings that Christians should
seek to actually enact in their daily living. - [Voiceover] Accordingly,
Anabaptists begin preaching that it's wrong to join the military. - In general, I think the principle is that Jesus calls us
to act non-violently, to seek to find ways that are not gonna perpetrate violence, not to continue the cycle
of violence on others. - [Voiceover] These ideas of pacifism are advanced greatly by Menno Simons, who later gives his name
to the Mennonite church. - Menno Simons
was a Catholic priest whose brother was involved
with some radical Anabaptists who were one of the rare
groups of Anabaptists who actually were violent. - [Voiceover] One of
the most extreme groups takes over the city of
Munster, Germany in 1535, determined to usher in the
kingdom of God by force. - They thought Christ was about to return and they were finally going to participate in putting down evil in the world. - [Voiceover] Like many Anabaptists, Menno Simons is horrified at the actions of this fringe group, but he is still considered
guilty by association. - When Menno saw how they
ran off the rails in Munster, he said, "This is an abomination. "We are people of peace." They never caught Menno. Menno would've been roadkill,
if they could've caught him. - The city is laid to siege by joint Protestant-Catholic forces. Eventually, it collapses
and the leaders are tortured and displayed publicly
before they're executed. - [Voiceover] The disorganization and diversity of the movement only fuels the persecution. - Another important aspect of
Menno Simons is the fact that he
traveled widely, so even though he was
a fugitive, he traveled around the Netherlands, northern Germany, all the way to Danzig, and related to different
groups, building a movement by making sure they were on the same
page with their beliefs and practices. There was no one, unified
Anabaptist movement. Anabaptists are not the same
as Catholics or Lutherans. There was no unified church structure, nobody at the top dictating
what people should do. - [Voiceover] As each congregation takes on its own personality, the Anabaptists become less organized. - You have many different groups, many different prophets and
prophetesses, many different
interpretations of the Bible, all feeling as though they're
being led by the Holy Spirit. - Anabaptists tend to be toward the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, and once they become
Anabaptists, they fall even lower because, of course, they are
persecuted by everyone. - In only a few cases,
did Anabaptists gain the protection of nobles, but most of these folks were peasants, they were artisans, some
were urban, some were rural, but it was a movement of the people. - [Voiceover] Anabaptists
even extend grace to the hated Turks, who have been threatening
European Christians for more than a century. - So Michael Sattler was
a very important leader in the early Anabaptist movement. He'd been a Catholic priest
and became an Anabaptist, and a big part of his beliefs were that Christians should not take up arms. And that part of Europe was
under threat from the Turks coming from the southeast and Sattler, when he was
on trial for his life, he told the people in the trial that he believed in loving his enemies and that all Christians
should believe that and so the Turks were
really doing what Turks did, and the Christians were doing
what Christians should not do, and so he was actually way
more critical of the Christians for fighting than he was of the Turks. - When nations make
war against each other, they start by demonizing the enemy and making the enemy out
to be less than human. As I understand the command of Jesus, and something that was written by Paul as well in the Epistles, was that we are actually to
work at humanizing the enemy by feeding and clothing those
that are seen as our enemies, and one of the reasons we
do that is the reminder that they too are humans and that we
share the common humanity of
needing food and clothing. - Progressively, there grew
to be a sense of
human rights, of individual rights,
a check against the authority of traditional
hierarchies of power. - [Voiceover]
Though the church has had some kind of hierarchy
for most of its history, the Anabaptists can find no
support for it in scripture. They want to flatten the structure and create a democratic congregation. - Anabaptists are non-hierarchical, so there was nobody from the top dictating what they should believe,
how they should worship, what kinds of practices they should do. This then led to a lot of
diversity in the movement because they were basing
their ideas on scripture, but everybody was interpreting
it in different ways. - [Voiceover] And though the Anabaptists believe the Reformation is
bringing much needed change, they don't believe the
Reformers are addressing what they see as the core problem, the church's symbiotic
relationship with the state. - To Anabaptists, the central
motif for Christian life was Jesus' message, Jesus' way, Jesus' teaching, how Jesus lived, and the community that
Jesus created around him and that continued after
his death and resurrection, and the Anabaptists saw
this as their model, this kind of radical
caring for each other, living in tension with the wider society, and they saw the Christianity of their day as having been very compromised
to the world around them and they really lost the basic spirit of the message of Jesus. - Faith should be
something that is authentic that should be personally chosen and it should not be something that is what you were just born into and not something that is
conferred by the state. It's a personal choice. - The question really is, how did this change happen from this
early pacifist, Jesus-centered church to this later church with
hierarchies within the church and where the church and state
were totally linked together and the church was basically
embracing violence. - [Voiceover] The mere
suggestion that church and state should be totally separate cuts to the heart of European society, and Anabaptists will pay the
price for their temerity. In 1525, an offshoot of the
Reformers in Zurich, Switzerland is questioning the
fundamental relationship between church and state. These so-called Anabaptists
trace the problem back to the 4th century, when Emperor Constantine
embraced Christianity and the emperor Theodosius
made it the state religion of the Roman Empire. - The Anabaptists
were just as critical of the Protestants as
they were of the Catholics insofar as the Protestants,
like the Catholics, felt that the church and
the geographical territory should be exactly the same. - Anabaptists rejected
all use of the sword. They also rejected
positions of government, partly because of the fact that they might need to wield the sword in
cases of the death penalty or making decisions about defense. - [Voiceover] The belief
that one should be as free to leave the
church as one is to enter stands in stark contrast
to the widely accepted idea that heretics are a threat to society and should be executed. - I think the Anabaptist
theology of church membership had at its heart that church membership should be only for people who are making the choice to follow Jesus. And so it's very different from the idea of membership in the state church where everybody belongs to the church. And so in that sense,
they were really pioneers in kind of imagining that you could have -- Christianity should have the church without it being part of the state. And so in that sense, I think
they really did contribute to what evolved to be the
separation of church and state, even though they weren't self-consciously trying to argue for that in
their own time and place. - [Voiceover] Though the
leaders of the Anabaptists are students of the
powerful Reformer Zwingli, he is deeply offended by
many of their beliefs. Zwingli, who was put into power by the city council of Zurich, is convinced that the council is an asset to furthering the cause of the Reformers. - Zwingli was a political, pragmatic man, and he did not want to
anger the city council. For him, reform had to move
along with their approval. - Once you have government support, arguing for the separation
of church and state doesn't really make a lot of sense. - [Voiceover] Zwingli and
the Zurich city council are in agreement that
this radical new movement must be extinguished. On January 21st, 1525, the
Zurich council passes a law forbidding the Anabaptists
from meeting as a group. It also orders them to
baptize their children. - This was a threat to the whole culture of Zurich, Switzerland, so the regime came down on them and
said, "Either get your babies
baptized or get out." - [Voiceover] That very
night, the Anabaptists meet in the home of Felix Manz and
baptize one another as adults. Immediately after the
meeting in Munz' home, the Zurich council, with
the approval of Zwingli, expels the Anabaptist leaders from Zurich. The rank and file Anabaptists are fined. When that doesn't stop
the radical Reformers, some are imprisoned. That too isn't enough. Within days, farmers in a
nearby village are baptized and the movement begins
to spread across Europe. At first, Martin Luther is uncomfortable with persecuting these radicals. - He even said that an
Anabaptist preacher may be actually
preaching the gospel. He admitted that much. - [Voiceover] Yet as the
movement gained strength, Luther's views change. For every convert, the Anabaptists
create manifold enemies. They quickly find
themselves on the outside of not just the Reformers,
but of society itself. - They said, "We need to
follow Jesus all the time, "and if the world won't
let us do it all time, "we need to find a place
separate from the world "where we can do it." - They developed their own communities, sort of utopian communities,
out in the country. They had no laws, they
refused to pay taxes, they wouldn't serve in the army, and they thought that
this was the true church, that they had the true
interpretation of scripture. Anabaptists were the one group
that Lutherans and Catholics could all agree on as being evil. - [Voiceover] From the moment they defy Ulrich Zwingli and the Zurich city council by re-baptizing adults, the Anabaptists are a hunted people. - There were many martyrdoms, and sometimes the only difference was the way that they executed them. Sometimes Protestants liked to drown
them -- they thought this was sort of humorous -- as a second baptism, and the Catholics would
burn them at the stake. - [Voiceover] Within its first two years, the movement's brightest,
most learned leaders, including Felix Manz, are executed. Manz' death is approved by none other than his former teacher Ulrich Zwingli. - Felix Manz was arrested after
several times of being told not to participate with the Anabaptists, not to do adult baptisms. Felix Manz refused. Felix Manz was put on trial in Zurich and then drowned alive in the Limmat. They tied his hands and arms together and pushed him under the water. And Zwingli was the chief
pastor of Zurich at the time. - [Voiceover] In spite of the risks, many are persuaded by the Anabaptists' commitment to non-violence. - There's a famous story on
Dirk Willems, who was being
chased by his persecutor who fell through the ice, and Dirk went back to
help his persecutor out, even though it was not in
his own interest to do so. It goes back to what was modeled in
Jesus. - [Voiceover] After saving his captor, Willems is arrested and later executed. He becomes a martyr for the movement. - The leaders were killed
but there were new leaders that immediately rose to take their place, and so you see resurrection
play out in different ways. It's not that they
physically came back to life, but there were new people
to carry on the faith and to live out those values. Something about the persecution forces
one to really make choices
of what you believe, and what you're ready to stand up for, and what you're willing to die for. - [Voiceover] The radical movement
spreads as traveling preachers
show up in remote towns and convert followers. - In Catholicism and
regular Protestantism, everybody in the territory
was part of the church, and so you didn't need
to try to evangelize to persuade people to
become part of the church. For the Anabaptists, only
believers were part of the church, and so everybody who
was part of the church had to make the decision
to take that step. And so for the Anabaptist,
evangelism was very central, because for the church to survive, you need to continually
be welcoming new people, people who choose to
be part of the church. - [Voiceover] With the same certainty that Luther and Zwingli had when they challenged the Catholic church, the Anabaptists are confident that their understanding of scripture outweighs that which has been taught for more than a millennium. "The fanatics suppose that because "they have read only one little book "they know everything!" Luther complains. His comment is ironic, given that it is he who popularized the
idea of Sola Scriptura. - I think Luther in the beginning when he talked about Sola Scriptura actually thought that there was one clear meaning to the scripture. I don't think he anticipated
that so many people would have so many different
interpretations of scripture, and once it happened, it put
Luther in a defensive position to explain why his interpretation and the interpretation of his colleagues was the right one and
the other ones were not. - Reformers emphasized the
priesthood of all believers, not the interpretive
skill of all believers. The fact that a person can read the Bible doesn't mean that
they therefore have the right or the
ability to interpret it faithfully, and well, and responsibly. - [Voiceover] The irony is not lost on the Roman Catholic church. - Now, from the Catholic
church's perspective, this is what always happens with schisms. Schism breeds schism. Once you take away the Catholic church's authority to interpret scripture, then it's an open house, anybody can make any kind
of interpretation they want. - And in a certain sense,
that's what has happened each time there's been a
permanent split in the church, is that one side or the other has said, "We're not going to accept
the diversity that can exist, "we're gonna insist simply on
a single school of thought." - [Voiceover] While
the Protestant movement continues to splinter, the Catholic church struggles
to find its footing. For decades, its leaders
have more often sought to repress the Reformation
than to be changed by it. To pleasure-loving Pope Leo X, Martin Luther is just
another apostate monk. Those Catholics who see the
validity of Luther's points often choose to stay within Rome making efforts to reform
the church from within. - One of the things that I think is missed by many Protestants was that throughout this whole period, there's a Catholic reform going on. - The medieval church clearly was not a monolithic institution, and there were many,
many different movements, many different opinions,
many voices also that called for reform. I think it's important to realize that Luther was not a
thunder bolt at a clear day. - [Voiceover] One of the
most fervent proponents of reform within the Catholic church is Cardinal Gasparo Contarini, who leads a group that becomes
known as the Spirituali. - People like Contarini, other
cardinals, other archbishops, believed in justification by faith alone. They believed the church
needed to be reformed. And thirdly, they all
agreed that they ought to seek reunion with the Protestants. This is now in the 1530s,
where this movement gains some momentum within
the Catholic church. - [Voiceover] Cardinal
Contarini leads the charge against corruption within his church. - And so he set up something called The Reform Commission of 153 7. It got permission from Pope Paul III to look at ways to reform the church. - [Voiceover] The resulting
report is blistering, revealing widespread bribery,
undisciplined monasteries, and of course the abuse of indulgences. Though the pope accepts the report's recommendations for change, they are never implemented. Even so, efforts at reform
and reconciliation continue. Inspired by his studies
of the life of Christ, Ignatius of Loyola founds
the Jesuit Order in 1540. One year later, Emperor Charles V encourages Catholics and Reformers to meet and iron out their differences. The Turks are still a threat
to the Holy Roman Empire, and the emperor needs a united front. In 1541, the Colloquy of Ratisbon convenes in Regensburg, Germany. - This is 24 years after
Luther posts his Theses. There is a conciliatory meeting in the city of Regensburg
in southern Germany. This is among various
Protestants and Catholics trying to find a way to reunite. - [Voiceover] Remarkably, the two sides find many points of agreement, even the contentious issue
of justification by faith. But once again, when it
comes to the Eucharist, everything falls apart. - They couldn't agree on
the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. They couldn't agree on
the role of tradition. They couldn't agree on the
authority of church hierarchy. Those things had become
central over the years to understanding what it
means to be a Christian, more central even than the
doctrine of justification, which they were able to agree on. - [Voiceover] Despite the valiant efforts by the theologians of Regensburg, both Martin Luther and the pope reject the council's final document and refuse to sign it. - Part of the reason was, Martin
Luther even expressed this, is that they just didn't
trust each other anymore. They didn't trust the people that they were in dialogue with, and so any agreement was
thought to perhaps be a means to an end of
quashing the Reformation. - [Voiceover] Cardinal
Contarini dies soon after the failure at Regensburg, and the influence of the
Spirituali begins to decline. In 1542, in keeping with the medieval tradition of the church, Pope Paul I ll establishes The Congregation of the Holy
Office of the Inquisition. The Inquisition is a commission to focus on writing of theologians, with the intention of rooting out heresy. However, within three short years, it tries more than 800 individuals suspected of following
Luther and the Anabaptists, as well as being Jewish,
sorcerers, and blasphemers. It's within this context
that Pope Paul III convenes a council that
will define Catholicism for the coming centuries. - Trent is the moment where reform is finally taken seriously and it becomes the number one agenda
item. So for Catholics, Trent
stands as the moment when they've put their
will behind the need to end corruption in the church and to call the church
back to a life of holiness. - [Voiceover] The council begins in the northern Italian
city of Trent in 1545 and consists of three large meetings over the course of the next 20 years. The council officially
addresses the doctrines Martin Luther began
spreading decades earlier. For Protestants, the results are mixed. The Catholic church does
condemn the greed of its clergy and forbids the sale of indulgences. It does not, however, do
away with indulgences. - That did not mean that they were changing the doctrine of the church. They were changing the
practice of the church, the discipline of the church. - Trent agrees with the Protestants at what the moral problems are, but then it takes a different path and doesn't throw traditional doctrine out as the means of solving it, but it solves the moral
problem as a moral problem. - [Voiceover] The council
ultimately rejects most of the key points of the Reformation, declaring them anathema, which
literally means "accursed." The anathemas include
Luther's understanding of justification by faith alone. - So the anathemas go back
to that problem of the Solas. Catholics and Protestants can agree on justification by faith
until you put the word "alone." The anathemas set a boundary. They say, "No, this is not a formulation "that's acceptable, and
here are the reasons." - [Voiceover] The councils affirms that there are seven sacraments, not two. It affirms the Latin mass as a sacrifice and the belief that the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ are present in the Eucharist. It also insists that the
only version of scripture is the Latin Vulgate. Finally, the church
rejects Sola Scriptura, confirming the tradition
as preserved by the church is an equal source of authority. - When the Council of Trent tried to come up with a solution to the problems that Luther had raised, regrettably, it defined many
of the points of doctrine in a way that was completely opposite to everything that Luther had said. It's very antagonistic
against this movement of the Protestant church, which, of course, had grown
considerably by that time. - Something a lot of us
dream about, speculate about, if Luther had been able
to come to the first session
of the Council of Trent... Luther died in the midst of
the first session of Trent. What if he had been there? What if he had been
there at this gathering of Catholic hierarchs and theologians? 'Cause when you read
the documents of Trent, I find them very moving in the measure that they gesture broadly
toward the Reformers. These are very smart people who had read the Reformers carefully and they gesture positively to a lot of the observations of the Reformers. If only Luther had been
there, if he had a chance to hear these people who are
taking him very seriously, what might've happened? - [Voiceover] While the Council of Trent brings some positive reform
to the Catholic church, it also deepens the gulf with Protestants. - Do I believe that it
would've been possible to articulate an
understanding of salvation that both Catholics and
Protestants could have agreed on? Yes, I do, I do believe that. - I think Luther was too polemical, and I think he fell into
opposition so quickly with the Catholic church. Again, I think if we had just found a way to take in Luther's great,
legitimate insights, there could be a Lutheran
order within Catholicism. Just as the Franciscans, and
Dominicans, and Augustinians add something, they nuance,
they emphasize, and so on, we could've used that up and
down these last five centuries. - Could the outward expression of worship and church organization have been maintained
with the kind of unity that the medieval Catholic church had? I don't think so. - [Voiceover] Any remaining
hopes of reconciliation are dashed. And as the next five centuries prove, the divisions within the church only grow as the Reformation continues to spread. ( religious choral music ) (solemn choral music ) - [Voiceover] In 1517, a German
priest named Martin Luther challenges the authority of the pope, and in the process, starts a revolution. - When Luther stood up
at the Diet of Worms, this was a man of conviction who was willing to die
for what he believed in. - Reformers across the board all believed that the practices of
the church had strayed from the teachings of Christ. - Luther essentially said
that every individual person must become a Pope, must become
the definitive interpreter of the Bible. - [Voiceover] The Catholic
church denounces the reformers as heretics and seeks to snuff out those who threaten the community. - In the 16th century mindset, the execution of heretics was a perfectly reasonable
strategy to deal with what could be very dangerous. - [Voiceover] Even as it seeks
purity within the church, however, the movement finds itself a bedfellow of politicians. In England, King Henry the
VIII rejects papal authority, in the process, furthering his power and opening the door
to Protestant doctrine. - Henry broke with the papacy
for purely selfish reasons. - It's essentially a political break where the top part of
the pope is broken off, but everything below that is kept. - So you end up with a
very complicated patchwork of religious change. - [Voiceover] The
reformers struggled to hold their theological center
even as radical movements like the Anabaptists gained momentum. - Anabaptists refused to
baptize their children. - They had no laws, they
refused to pay taxes, they wouldn't serve in the army. - A young radical like Conrad Grebel said, who's in charge here? Is this a political process, or are we listening to the clergy? - There were many martyrdoms. Sometimes Protestants liked to drown
them. They thought this was sort of humorous, like a second baptism. - [Voiceover] The Reformation
is changing how church, politics, and society itself function, and it's creating irrevocable divisions. - I think Luther was too polemical, and I think he fell into
opposition so quickly. If we had just found a way
to take in Luther's great, legitimate insight.. . - Strange things happen
when we work side by side. We find out we care about the same
issues. - There's been a movement to recognize historical commonality
in ancient Christianity. - Thank God we got
through the first stage. We're not anathematizing each other, and we're not in violent opposition. We're able to sit around
a table in friendship. - Why do we need church unity? We need church unity
because it's essential for integral witness. If we wish to be believed,
we have to show the unity of Christians. - [Voiceover] This is the Reformation, and it changed everything. ( dramatic music ) Before Martin Luther's death in 1546, he has harsh words for most
of his fellow reformers who disagree with him. Rather than viewing them as companions in the search for Biblical truth, he views them as having
betrayed the cause. - When he's at odds with Huldrych Zwingli, this choosing a single
school of thought approach, the Augustinian school of thought, to the exclusion of any other approaches makes him very rigid. - [Voiceover] Luther is merciless in 1531 when Zwingli is killed
in battle by Catholics outside of Zurich. - When Zwingli took up
arms in Switzerland right outside of Zurich, and
was actually killed in battle, we think he was actually
engaged in the battle. He wasn't just a chaplain. He apparently was using his sword. Luther was appalled at that. Luther believed that
Zwingli was a heretic. He's reported to have said
something along the lines, that heretic got what he deserved. - Reformers didn't all
march to the same beat. It's not as if when
Luther ran up the flag, everybody saluted and got in line. The other reformers saw
themselves also as serving God and serving others, responding
to and working with Luther, but others viewed things
in different fashions. - [Voiceover] There is
one exception, however. Luther appears to have respect
for a French theologian of a younger generation, Jean Calvin. - Jean Calvin's from a
middle class background in a city in southern France. He's very well educated,
he goes to elite schools, he's trained to be a theologian, and eventually he decides
he wants to be a lawyer, so it's actually the
opposite direction of Luther who trains to be a lawyer and
then wants to be a theologian, and Calvin always had
a very legalistic mind. - [Voiceover] Calvin is drawn to the ideas of the Reformation. By 1534, his beliefs
mark him as a Protestant. - It's important to point
out that Jean Calvin is a second generation Protestant. In other words, he comes
to age when there are already people around like Luther and like other evangelicals, whereas Luther was in
a world of Catholics, and he was more of the
pathfinder, the pioneer. For Jean Calvin, once he
decides he's going to follow the evangelical way, the
next decision for him is a very in-depth study of the Bible. - [Voiceover] Calvin's beliefs
make him a target in France. - After Calvin became really convinced that the Reformation
was the way to go, he could not stay very
much longer in France. France was a strongly Catholic country, and people who favored the
Reformation by the 1530s were increasingly under pressure, so Calvin left France.
He actually traveled outside of Paris in France first, then left France all together, went to Basel, a Protestant city, and there published his first edition of "The Institutes of the
Christian Religion" in 1536. - [Voiceover] Almost 20 years
after the Reformation starts, distorted ideas about its doctrines exist among those outside the movement. Calvin's Institutes brilliantly articulate the Reformation's theology. - It really was a work
of doctrine primarily. Calvin had a very clear
mind, a very logical mind, and that allowed him to
present these teachings in a very clear and coherent manner. - When Jean Calvin wrote his famous "Institutes of the Christian Religion," he had a preface dedicating the work to King Francis of France. He was persecuting Protestants, but Calvin wrote this
very winsome treatise indicating to the king that
really what we're doing is restoring the church
to its ancient purity. We're following the example
of the ancient church as well as the New Testament. We're going back to the church before so many doctrinal
and liturgical innovations. We're more Catholic than
those who are persecuting us, and that was a very powerful argument. - [Voiceover] Calvin's dream
is to be a man of theology, writing and living a quiet scholarly life. - Calvin is what I call
the accidental reformer. His original plan was to be a scholar, to write books that would
encourage Christians and further the Protestant cause, but he was way late. - [Voiceover] In August 1536, just months after the Institutes is published, Calvin is traveling
and stops for the night in Geneva, Switzerland. Geneva has recently
converted to Protestantism, but the movement is floundering. - The Genevans adopted the
Reformation by formal vote in May of 1536, and that
sounds very democratic, but we have to understand that not everybody got to vote, right? The only people that
got to vote were males who had voting rights, so
that the number of Genevans that actually adopted the Reformation was quite a small bunch,
and if you didn't like that, you had to leave. It wasn't like you could say, well, I want to be Catholic,
can I just continue being Catholic, thank you very much. No, not really. The whole community
shifted, and wrong belief was seen as very, very dangerous. - [Voiceover] The small
city is in turmoil. Calvin has no intention of
staying more than one night until he is approached
by a fellow reformer. - The man who had really done the most to bring the Reformation to Geneva, a man called Guillame Farel,
found Calvin in his inn, and basically told him
we need you, help us. We have got the Reformation started, but it's not, you know, going so well. Calvin did not want to do this. Calvin was pretty firm in that
he wanted a life of a scholar so he said no. Farel said, you must, and they went back and
forth and back and forth, and Farel finally said, God will curse you unless you stay and help, and apparently Calvin was
so terrified by this threat that he agreed to stay. - [Voiceover] Calvin and
Farel work on a reform program for Geneva. Their ideas will need to be approved by the local government, but
they aren't the only ones with visions of what
Christianity should look like. - Geneva, in declaring
for the Reformation, had also declared its
political independence from its overlord, the Duke of Savoy. The Duke of Savoy, who remained
Catholic, did not really want to lose Geneva and put a lot of military
pressure on the city to get it back. Geneva was defended by other
Protestant Swiss cities, Basel and Bern in particular, and when Basel and Bern came
into defend Geneva militarily, they also thought they should play the older brother for teaching Genevans how to live their faith. - [Voiceover] Calvin and
Farel's plan for reform is rejected in part because of
their ideas on the Eucharist. The council decides that
these pastors are the roots of the city's turmoil. After just 18 months, Calvin and Farel are banished from Geneva. - So Calvin left Geneva, and
he was happy to leave Geneva. He says, I was never happy
here in the first place. I didn't intend to come here. - [Voiceover] Three years later, however, the city council realizes
that Geneva needs Calvin if it wants to remain Protestant. - And Calvin said, if I come back, it's going to be on my terms,
and you're going to accept our reform agenda, and
at this time, they did. (solemn choral music ) - [Voiceover] Calvin begins
preaching most days of the month and twice on Sundays. When he isn't preaching, he lectures. - He preached five times a
week in Geneva typically, five different sermons a week. He married people, he buried people, he did counseling, he did all
the things that pastors do. We actually have some
letters where he reflects upon his role as a pastor. They're very heartwarming,
so the real Calvin was a theologian who was brilliant by almost any measure,
but he was also a person who was a pastor. - [Voiceover] Calvin
also creates a catechism and liturgy for the church. - The way Calvin understood worship was certainly the case that
everything should be focused on God's word and listening to God's word and understanding God's word, and that could be taught in catechism. Catechism you would learn
the Ten Commandments, you would learn the Apostle's Creed, you would learn the Lord's Prayer, and it really was a big
focus on understanding. - [Voiceover] Calvin gives
unprecedented authority to the lay leaders of the
church, elders and deacons. He strips the church of any
religious items that could, in his view, get in the way of learning. - The Bible in Jean
Calvin's mind is very clear about idolatry, and any objects, anything that you put before God are idolatries and need to be gotten rid of, so one of the most immediate
differences you would see between a Lutheran church
and a Calvinist Reform church is the Calvinist Reform
church would probably be bare. It would be whitewashed,
statues are all gone, very simple, and the focus
would be on the pulpit on the word of God. - [Voiceover] Even music is suspect. - The practice in Geneva was
to sing in unison in church. Harmony was for outside of church, so it wasn't that Calvin
disapproved of it, but he thought it might be distracting to have harmony singing in church, and they didn't accompany them. They were unaccompanied. - [Voiceover] Calvin draws
together the key themes of the Reformation. He emphasizes God's
sovereignty over everything from the smallest to the
greatest in the universe. - Sometimes we talk about
the sovereignty of God. I think that really is an
element, a significant element in Calvin's thinking, but
sovereignty is not just about power, it's about glorifying
the God who created you and living in such a way
that it brings glory to God. - [Voiceover] He also follows Augustine in teaching that God has predestined before the beginning of time
who will receive salvation and who will not. - The reason Calvin came to be identified with predestination was because
in the middle of his career, there were some people who
challenged what he thought was a Biblical doctrine,
and so he really develops it mainly in response to challenges. Now let me be clear. Even Calvin felt like the
doctrine of predestination was what he calls a horrible decree. It's scary, and Calvin acknowledged that. He felt compelled, I think,
by virtue of Biblical text such as Romans Chapter 9. I think that compelled him
to articulate the doctrine. - [Voiceover] Though Calvin's
teaching on predestination and divine sovereignty are
controversial in later years, it is his ideas on church discipline, which in his case are
implemented by the consistory, that make him a polarizing
figure in his day. - The consistory met weekly in Geneva. It was the body to whom
Genevans would appeal or appear before if they had
issues with their behavior, and this could include things
like not coming to church, leaving early from church,
coming late to church, having quarrels with their neighbors, having quarrels with their families, continuing Catholic practices. Really what Calvin and his colleagues and the company of pastors wanted was for people's walk of faith to match their faith commitment, and the Genevans, some of them at least, felt that the consistory
was just a busybody, intrusive, and kinda causing problems. - [Voiceover] Some nicknamed
Calvin the Dictator of Geneva. Men set their dogs on him. They coughed loudly to try to
drown him out during sermons. They even threatened his life. - Some people will argue, for example, that Calvin essentially was
the theocratic leader
of Geneva. That's absolutely a misguided notion. He fought with the city
council from day one, and they were always fighting
really up until his death. He wasn't granted citizenship. Remember he's a Frenchman
born and reared in France who took up residence in Geneva, which was an independent sort
of city-state if you will, and he was not granted citizenship until about four or five
years before he died, so the tensions there were very strong. - [Voiceover] Calvin persists
in spite of the controversy. - I think Calvin's relationship
with the city government, his model in his mind was
a model of ancient Israel, so the magistrates of Geneva are like the kings of ancient Israel, and the pastors are like the prophets. The model of prophetic
utterance is one of calling people back to faithful lives, reprimanding them when
they have gone astray, and that meant that at times
the relationship was tense. - [Voiceover] Though
Calvin doesn't back down, he desires peace and is
troubled by the lack of unity among the reformers. In 1548, Calvin works together
with Zwinglian minister Heinrich Bullinger to seek agreement on the divisive issue of the Eucharist. - Calvin's view was that the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is a very important sacrament, and it is not simply a
remembrance, as Zwingli would say, but Calvin did not want
to go the direction of transubstantiation
or consubstantiation, so he said Christ is spiritually present through the Holy Spirit in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, so
that Christ is present in a special way in the sacrament but is not tied to the bread
and the wine themselves. - Calvin described this
as the distance between the sun and the Earth. When the rays of the sun touch you, you're touching the sun even
though the sun is far away, and that's the means of grace
that comes to the believer at the Lord's Supper. - [Voiceover] In a document called "The Consensus Tigurinus,"
Calvin and Bullinger effectively reach a compromise between Calvin's spiritual presence view, and Zwingli's view that
the meal is only symbolic. The agreement appears to signal
hope for a new era of unity. That hope is short lived. The bitter seeds of the
movement are bearing fruit that is drenched in bloodshed. ( ominous music ) In 154 7, England's King
Henry the VIII dies, leaving the throne to
his one surviving son, nine-year-old Edward the VI. - Henry the VIII has
left a rather muddled religious legacy
when he dies. He has deconstructed
many of the key elements of papal power in the church,
its fiscal, juridical powers, but nevertheless, particularly
in the last few years of his reign, he's reasserted
some major elements of conservative theology. - [Voiceover] Though still a boy, King Edward the VI has been tutored by reform-minded theologians like the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. The young king and his
advisors waste no time in embracing changes that resemble Zwingli and the Swiss reformers. - Edward comes to power, and
you have this great change where stained glass windows
have to come out of the church, the statues that your
great-great grandparents donated to the church now
have to be taken down, the altar, the stone
altar, is now taken out, and we have to bring in a table, the priest now has a wife,
which you as the congregation now need to also support. These changes are not received popularly among the regular people. - [Voiceover] King Edward also revises the Book of Common Prayer twice. The later edition supports the Calvinist spiritual
presence view of the Eucharist. His government is on a mission to rapidly reform England. - [Voiceover] They look
at the Old Testament for examples of God
punishing kings and rulers who don't reform quickly enough, and that really explains
why they are so urgent in their zealous changes. - [Voiceover] Their sense
of urgency turns out to be prophetic. In 1553, King Edward the VI dies at the young age of 15. Through a series of political moves, his sister Mary, once
considered illegitimate, secures the throne. Mary has always rejected her
father's break with Rome. For years, she and Henry were estranged as she refused to accept him
as the head of the church. King Henry retaliated
by refusing to let Mary see her mother Catherine,
even upon her deathbed. - Mary Tudor, she was the eldest daughter of Catherine of Aragon,
and she was a devout, some would say fanatical, Catholic, and when Edward died,
it was her primary goal to turn England back
into a Catholic nation because before that,
under Edward the VI, it had become quite distinctly
a Protestant country, and so she's trying to
reverse that intentionally. - [Voiceover] As queen,
Mary now has the authority to restore what has been
lost to her personally, culturally, and spiritually. The queen moves carefully. In the month following her ascension, she issues a proclamation
that she will not compel any of her Protestant
subjects to become Catholic. - The one man that is
significant in this story is Thomas Cranmer because Cranmer
had been her father's advisor, had opened
the door just a little bit to Protestants to gain some
authority and some presence. Under Edward the VI,
Cranmer becomes the architect, the primary architect of bringing
Protestantism to England, and when Mary comes to the throne, many of those Protestant
bishops fled, but not Cranmer. Cranmer was in his early 70s, and he decided to stay. - [Voiceover] Mary's policy
of tolerance quickly changes. Within months, she abolishes
England's Protestant laws and comes to an agreement
with Pope Julius the Third that returns the English
church to Rome's authority. Once again, the people
of England are expected to fall in line, for better or for worse. Queen Mary and the Pope
revive the Heresy Acts and begin executing Protestants. Within five years, 280 people
are burned at the stake, earning the queen the
nickname Bloody Mary. At first, Thomas Cranmer,
who helped King Henry usher in the Reformation defies the queen. - He said, I will stand
for what I have said, and I will die for what I have
promoted over these years. I will defend my record. Well, she throws him into jail. He is treated very badly. He's there for well over a year. At one point, he is forced
to watch the martyrdom of two of his closest friends, other bishops who had failed to flee. After a period of time,
the elderly Cranmer broke, and he signed a confession. In fact he signed six confessions renouncing his Protestantism. He was a man who was broken in spirit. Normally, when a heretic recanted, their life was spared.
That had been the tradition throughout the ages, but remember, Mary had a beef against Cranmer, and even though he recanted six times and signed his name
six times to documents, she insisted that he be put
on trial and be found guilty and executed. So the great day comes,
and the old man, Cranmer, is put on an elevated platform, and he is told, okay, give
us your verbal confession that Protestantism is wrong, and the old man suddenly says, I repent of what I have said. I feared for my life,
and I want to stand tall and affirm Protestantism. And he said, because my right
hand signed those documents, when I come to the flames, I will burn my right hand off first. They grabbed the old man,
took him out to Broad Street in Oxford, and they lit the fires, and in front of everyone,
they could see the old man, Thomas Cranmer, put his hand
out and burn his hand off. And Protestantism began
to spread even more because of the heroic
death of Thomas Cranmer. - [Voiceover] Queen Mary is succeeding in returning England
to its Catholic roots, but her reign is short lived,
lasting only five years. Upon her death, her half-sister
Queen Elizabeth the First takes the throne and once again
reverses England's course. In 1558, at the age of 25, Elizabeth, the daughter of King Henry
the VIII and Anne Boleyn, is crowned queen of England. She quickly restores
England to Protestantism, though perhaps for a pragmatic reason. Under Catholic rule, as the daughter of the Protestant Boleyn, Elizabeth is considered illegitimate. While Protestants welcome
her with open arms, she is well aware that much
of her kingdom does not. - Elizabeth, in the
early years of her reign, is relatively cautious about
antagonizing Catholics. She has to be very
careful about doing this because her throne is insecure. They consider her not only
heretical, but also illegitimate, and both English Catholics
and European ones could potentially challenge
her claim to the throne. - [Voiceover] While fully
Protestant in her beliefs, Queen Elizabeth is
comfortable with many customs of the Catholic church. She keeps a Catholic crucifix and downplays the role of sermons. At the same time, she
takes significant steps to convert the country
back to Protestantism. - In her first Parliament in 1559, she reasserts her place as
supreme ecclesiastically and jurisdictionally over the church. Elizabeth chooses though
to be a supreme governor rather than supreme head of the church. - [Voiceover] In 1563, the Anglican Church establishes 39 Articles of Faith. They're firmly rooted in the Reformation while pulling back from
more radical views. The result is a unique
mixture of Protestant doctrine that embraces many elements of traditional Catholic services. - What's distinctive about
the Church of England is its willingness to
continue with the remains of a number of medieval
Catholic ceremonies such as using a ring when you get
married, such as bowing in church
at the name of Jesus, such as wearing the white surplice, such as making the sign
of the cross in baptism. - And so you have Protestant
doctrine and theology, but really Roman Catholic
styled worship services. You felt like this was
just a middle way for her because many of her
subjects were Catholics, and so she figured out
that this maybe the way to keep the country from civil war, and so it was a very
astute political move. - [Voiceover] The queen's
approach seems to bridge some of the divide between
Catholics and Protestants. - There's actually a great
relief among the people that this compromise was able to happen. - [Voiceover] This compromise
is unacceptable, however, to a new wave of reformers in England who called themselves The Godly, they are known more
commonly as the Puritans. - Just as the reformers
wanted merely to reform
the church, not start from scratch,
the Puritans wanted to purify the church. It hadn't gone far enough in clarifying its doctrine and faith,
it had allowed medieval superstitions
to continue to thrive, and the church needed to
be more purely reformed according to the word of
God, the Puritans argued. - [Voiceover] In keeping
with Calvin and Zwingli, the Puritans refuse to accept as binding anything that is not proven
from the pages of scripture. - Those items are agreed
to be, theologically, unimportant or indifferent,
but nevertheless, the idea that you would
retain what the Puritans call Popish rags, Popish puddles, is something which makes the church
look imperfectly reformed or flawed in many people's eyes. - [Voiceover] The Puritans
are also strongly against any political force
controlling the church. Rather, they want the
church's own offices to purify what is tainted. The Puritans and Queen
Elizabeth are at odds, and the tension is growing. - The Puritans actually emerge
during Elizabeth's reign, principally in opposition to her, and so she crushed them. She marginalized them and really was not particularly friendly to the Puritans. They used to do something
called prophesyings. Pastors would come
together on a weekly basis in these Bible studies, and
they would talk about the Bible in order to prepare to
preach the following Sunday, and she told her archbishop to stop them because she feared they could
become hubs of conspiracy. - [Voiceover] Though most
Puritans want to reform the Church of England from within, others, known as Separatists,
want to leave it altogether. True to form, the Reformation
continues to cause controversy across Europe, particularly
over the relationship between church and state. That tension is about to
reach a breaking point with unimaginable costs. - There's a certain kind
of tragic element to what happened
in the 16th century, and, of course, the aftermath in terms of continued misunderstanding
and beyond that, to actual fighting among Christians that even broke out in
times into actual combat. - [Voiceover] In 1618, one of the longest and most destructive conflicts
in the history of Europe, the Thirty Years War,
begins in Bohemia, Austria. Emperor Ferdinand the
Second, a devout Catholic, closes one Protestant
church and destroys another. The mostly Protestant population revolts, storming the royal palace. They attempt to install a new emperor, but Ferdinand gets help
from his Spanish cousins. Before long, all of
Europe explodes into war as countries jockey for power. - It was devastating. I mean, Europe was utterly,
universally shut down, the economies were
destroyed throughout Europe. Some people think it was one
of the most devastating wars in the history of Europe. ( men shouting) I sometimes wonder, would
Luther have inaugurated the Reformation had he
known that it would lead to 100 years and many thousands of
people losing their lives? I think he was following what he felt like the Lord had led him
to do, but one wonders in the wake of all those lives being lost, was it worth it? - [Voiceover] In 1620,
tired of being persecuted and desperate for religious freedom, a small group of Puritans and Separatists set sail from the
southern coast of England on a ship called The Mayflower. - [Voiceover] They came
looking for freedom to pursue what they believe was the
true established church. - [Voiceover] They are quickly followed by other religious groups that are seeking religious freedom, including the long persecuted Anabaptists. - [Voiceover] European
Anabaptists had a long tradition of knowing what it
was to suffer, either martyrdom or
to being sold as
galley slaves or to be dispossessed
from their land. The possibility of
moving to North America -- William Penn's experiment in
Pennsylvania, gave an opportunity. One of the parts of that
opportunity was that they were able to get on good land, so as they had the opportunity
to come to North America, they were able to be quite
successful as farmers working with agriculture here. - [Voiceover] Yet by now, the Reformation has a long tradition of persecuting those who believe differently. In New England, Congregational
Puritanism is the official and only
religion in the mid-1600s. When a new sect of Protestants
called the Quakers arrive, they are subjected to harsh
and cruel punishments. They are flogged, whipped,
and in some cases, have holes drilled through their tongues. Ironically, it's the King of
England, Charles the Second, who ends the persecution in 1660 with an order known as
"The King's Missive." - One of the ironies of history --
history is full of them -- is the same people who
came to the New World looking for freedom denied
that same freedom to others. So we can be happy that sometime later that the Baptists in
Virginia actually enunciated for the first time what
became the First Amendment to the Constitution. - [Voiceover] In 1791, the newly formed United States of America
adopts an amendment to its Constitution barring
Congress from impeding the free exercise of any religion. It is a revolutionary moment
ushered in by the Reformation. - I think we have to say
that the First Amendment, freedom of religion,
was a natural evolution from the Reformation itself. All of the reformers
would have been appalled at the idea that you could
have competing churches in one state. Many of their doctrines supported that. - [Voiceover] In this
atmosphere of relative freedom, all of the major branches
of the Reformation give birth to other denominations, each fueled by its own
doctrinal and cultural beliefs. It is the ultimate heresy. - It was the sort of thing
that was kind of shocking to the rest of the world
that you could have a place where people of different
religions could co-exist after there had been so many
decades, and even a century, of bloodshed in Europe over
confessional differences. - I think once you allow for
people to read the Gospel and be edified in certain ways, based on their own history
and own cultural knowledge, you are bound to get
very many denominations, and this is what has happened. - [Voiceover] Over time,
the Lutherans, Reformed, Anabaptists, Anglicans, and
Presbyterians are joined by Charismatics,
Congregationalists, Moravians, Methodists, Pentecostals, Baptists. The list is endless. Each claims to have the truth, and though their lives
are no longer in danger, they continue to suffer for their beliefs. - I am tremendously aware
of the ways that conviction that this is the one right
truth and the way to live creates damage. My own grandparents were ex-
communicated from their regional denominational body because they participated
in starting a Sunday school in eastern Pennsylvania. These days, that is seen
as the way we do church. Sunday school is not
a controversial thing, but in their day, in the
1930s, that was considered a problematic move, and so
they were excommunicated. - Reforms are trying to
make the Gospel clear, not clutter it, and our
divisions can, at least, make an excuse for people not to believe. - Christ wanted one church. The current situation is
not the intention of Christ. Not the intention of Christ
is another word for sin. - [Voiceover] It has been
this way for 500 years. 2000 years after the
resurrection of Christ, the Christian church is far from unified. Fierce debate continues
within the Catholic church about how to respond to the modern
world, and Protestant schism abounds. - At the last official sort of count, 35,000 plus denominations
and growing, but no one knows for sure. There could be tens of thousands more because they're little
groups, independent groups. - [Voiceover] While some see this as part of the church's natural diversity, others see it as a regrettable
result of the Reformation. - Is that a problem for me? It's a significant problem because the message it
sends to the world, again, is when we can't get along,
we simply form new groups. When we don't agree on, not just theology, but methodology, the way we do
evangelism, the way we do worship, the style of music, we split churches at the drop of a hat. - Interestingly, none of
the reformers looked on what they had done as
a success in getting at what they were after, so
it's mistaken on our part to look back on the
Reformation as a success, not least because the
Reformers didn't want to split the church, they
wanted to straighten it out, and now we have multiplied
thousands of denominations by our day. - [Voiceover] So did the
Reformation go too far in its zeal to confront corruption and promote doctrinal purity? Did it also cause unnecessary division? - I was at a national
workshop on Christian unity, and one of our speakers is a very
esteemed Jewish New Testament
scholar, not a Christian, a Jewish woman professor at Vanderbilt named Amy Jill Levine,
and she talked about Christians and Jews,
and she said, you know,
it's nice to speak at the National Workshop on
Christian Unity, she said, because you folks really
don't know much about unity. What you know is that
when you have an argument, you disagree, you go home at night, and you start three new
churches or denominations when you argue. She said, we Jews argue
far more vociferously and aggressively and passionately than you ever dreamed of, and we go
home and have a meal together,
and we're still Jews the next morning when we get up. And she said, what is it with you people? Why don't you get your act together? Your rabbi Jesus would
have never thought of this kind of way of
handling disagreements. - There are elements of the Reformation that are deeply to be lamented. There was a tremendous
amount of accusations, judgmentalism, not to mention
just merciless killings of one another over
doctrines we recognize now are not worth killing one another over. - So these things are to be lamented, but nonetheless, the Reformation had this sterling light shine on the church and on the world, really,
that God accepts us as we are, that He died for the world, that He came to us in Christ
to reconcile the world to himself and that this
could be apprehended, acknowledged, and
incorporated in one's life by something as simple as faith. - Luther's biggest theological mistake was his assumption of a
competitive relationship between God and us. In other words, for God
to get all the glory, we have to get no glory. If God is exalted, we
have to be denigrated. I would go back to Saint
Irenaeus of Lyon who said, Gloria Dei homo vivens. The glory of God is a
human being fully alive. Our full humanity gives glory to God. It's not an either, or. It's a both and. And to speak very generally, I would say Luther tended
to fall into an either or, and you see it then on issue after issue, where the Catholic view
is very much a both and, and I’m not putting all
the blame on Martin Luther, I mean both sides fell
into polemics and all that, but if we had just found a way to take in Luther's great legitimate
insights, there could be a Lutheran order within Catholicism. - [Voiceover] There are
signs that some 500 years after the Reformation began,
we are entering a new era marked by better understanding
between Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox traditions. - Can I envision a day of unity, and certainly, I’m theologically
obligated to envision it because Christ prayed for it that you might all be one. It was dear to the heart of the Lord the night before he dies,
and so I’m really obligated to hope for it, to dream of it. - People don't realize that
the modern ecumenical movement was created by missionaries. They all start talking
about the biggest obstacle that they faced, and
that was when they went into a new mission
situation, they would say, Hi, we want to tell you about Jesus Christ, and people say, that's
great, we'd like to hear, now which Christ is it? Is it the Protestant
Christ, the Catholic Christ, the Methodist Christ? And they realized, we have a problem. - These missionaries began
to look around and say, this is a scandal. This is an offense. This is a hindrance to the mission, and it actually is stopping or hurting the mission of Christ. They're here to preach
Christ to the people who had never heard of Jesus, and so it was in that context that the early ecumenical
movement had its origins. It was an attempt to answer the question, how can we pursue unity in such a way that we can advance the
Gospel more effectively and more fervently? - [Voiceover] In 1948, the
World Council of Churches, the WCC, is formed as a
fellowship of churches seeking the visible
unity that Jesus prayed for his followers in John Chapter 17. - It had a marvelous beginning. One of the tragedies, however,
was at the very beginning, many evangelical Protestants did not want to be a part of it. They were suspicious. - [Voiceover] Critics charged that the WCC focuses too much on
political and social issues at the expense of a clear
proclamation of the Gospel. Another major shift begins in the 1960s when the Roman Catholic church
undertakes its first major self-examination since the Council of Trent in 1545. Under the leadership of
Pope John the Twenty-Third and Pope Paul the Sixth, the Second Vatican Council invites Eastern Orthodox and
Protestant churches to attend. The Pope repeatedly insists
that the council should work not only for spiritual renewal
within the Catholic church, but toward the reconciliation
of all Christians. - In Vatican II, there is a decree passed called, in English, The
Decree on Ecumenism. It's a binding, official, doctrinal decree obligating Catholics everywhere to engage with non-Catholics in the
pursuit of Christian unity. - Look at Vatican II's
great stress on the priesthood
of all believers. We would call that the
universal call to holiness. The fact that baptism draws every person into Christ's priesthood,
his prophecy, his kingship. Well, those are certainly
gesturing toward Luther's idea of the priesthood of all believers. - [Voiceover] The Pope
also speaks about Scripture in a way that rings
familiar to Protestants. - Vatican I I is dripping with the Bible, with Biblical language. It insists upon the primacy
and centrality of the Bible. That's certainly a
gesture towards Reformers. - The Second Vatican
Council in its decree,
Dei verbum, on the word of God,
really stressed that Catholics need to appropriate a
spirituality of the Bible. They need to know the
Bible, they need to have a relationship with
Christ through the Bible, they need to make the Bible central in their spiritual life. Scripture's named as the authority. Tradition is named as
essential for interpretation. - [Voiceover] For the first
time since Martin Luther was excommunicated, Protestants
are no longer considered formal heretics, though their beliefs are still considered incorrect. - We went from being declared heretics to separated brethren. I think that's the famous
language of Vatican II. We were brothers now,
brothers and sisters. - Does that mean in the next two years that everything was resolved? No, absolutely not, but
it means a process began that we can't go backwards. - [Voiceover] In 1999, the
Lutheran Catholic Commission releases an unprecedented
joint declaration stating that the churches
share a common understanding of God's grace through faith in Christ. - What's interesting
is that after 500 years of either ignoring one another
or lambasting one another, the Lutherans and Catholics said, we understand what you are saying, and we kind of get it, and
especially from the Catholic side they were telling the Lutherans, we think that in a lot of respects you are absolutely right
about this doctrine of justification by faith. - [Voiceover] The Joint Declaration is a significant new point of agreement though it has its limits. - It was a document only
about justification by faith. There are other things that divide Protestants and Catholics,
the authority of Scripture, the authority of the
Pope, church tradition, but this was about justification by faith. - One of the really important things that both the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic church were able to say is that neither of our churches, today, are teaching the things
which we anathematized in each other. Now that doesn't change the anathemas. Truth is truth, and it
always remains that, but that's not what we're
teaching about each other today, and so there's an important separation that I can call my
Protestant Christian friends brother and sister and mean
that we are brothers and sisters in Christ. - The problem with the Joint Declaration is the conclusion it reached. Yes, there's a lot in the
Joint Declaration on grace and faith and Christ, but
what's missing, again, is the sola, the only. In Christ alone, through
faith alone, by grace alone, with no merits involved whatsoever. - Have we come to complete agreement? No, are there things that
Roman Catholic bishops or even Roman Catholic popes
of the last 30 years have said that I don't agree with? You will bet there are. Does that mean we give up on
conversations or say that they are
ipso facto bad or evil? I don't think so. - [Voiceover] How Christ
intended for his followers to handle theological differences without sacrificing
truth remains a mystery. - Love must sustain it at every level, but love should sustain a very
serious quest for the truth. In that truth, we're going to find unity, but there's a lot of tough ground between where we are and that dream. - One approach is to
say well, we should all just get together and then
talk about our differences. The other is to say, how
can we just get together when we haven't talked
about our differences? Isn't that throwing truth under the bus? - I think that trying
to understand the way in which Jesus might
have wanted one church is very important, but I
don't think the solution is to kind of try and squish
everybody back into one box. I don't think that's healthy, I don't think that's honoring
of different traditions that you have to do things all my way is not a very good strategy. - Now there can be no
real unity without truth. To say that doctrines
ultimately are of
no importance or consequence is to
settle for a sham unity. - I think the real work
that needs to be done is going forward in a
way that takes seriously all of the centuries of the church. Learning from its mistakes
and treasuring its riches, wherever we find them
in the Christian east, the Christian west. - So I think the call
here is not to one method, one liturgy, or one structure. I think the call is for
renewal across the board so that we are very
clear that what it means to be a Christian is to be on this journey toward following Christ
and that the result of this is measured individually
in different lives and different ways 'cause
we're not all the same people, but what you see is empathy
and unconditional love in a person's life emerging
because of this relationship, and if you don't, then
the whole thing's wasted. - [Voiceover] Others work towards unity by emphasizing a shared mission as opposed to focusing on
the doctrinal disputes. - Folks want a Christianity
that looks like Jesus again. When our theology
gets in the way of loving our neighbor,
as it often has in church history, like, we've
gotta rethink our theology. In the end, all of our
arguments about theology may not amount to a hill of beans unless it comes to really move us to love the world around us. - The heart of evangelism is with us. The only way anyone
will believe what we say about Jesus Christ is if
they can see Jesus Christ living in us. - Sooner or later, essential
crucial questions will arise. Who is Jesus Christ? Is he truly human? Do the sacraments convey grace
or are they mere symbols? Where is the church of Christ to be found? Is holy communion truly
his body and blood, or is it a symbol? Should we pray for the dead? Should we invoke the saints? These questions are
inevitably going to arise. Truth unites, but truth also divides. - We have to struggle with
those hard hard questions precisely 'cause Jesus wants one church for the sake of proclaiming the Gospel in a credible way to the world. - [Voiceover] One solution is focusing on the essential points of agreement between Catholic, Orthodox,
and Protestant traditions. - Faith, sacraments,
and ordained ministry. We have to have unity in those things. If I can't recognize my fellow Christian as being ordained in the same way I am, then I can't recognize the
sacraments he performs. In a sense, I can't
recognize that the faith is being fully transmitted in that case. So those are the three non-negotiables. - I think the thing we
are doing better together over the last 20 years
than we've ever done is read the Bible together. I believe that reading of the Scripture has the power to create a new reformation that would unimaginably change
what Christianity looks like in the world. (solemn choral music ) - [Voiceover] The
Reformation set into motion extraordinary events that
reverberate even now. Protestants believed it
stripped away the veil obscuring the good news of
grace through faith alone, pointing the church towards
its historic Biblical roots. Undoubtedly, it overthrew
the old political order, set people free from
oppressive hierarchies, and paved the way for
religious liberty, democracy, and expanding economic freedom. It made marriage a choice based on love, church membership a personal decision. It expanded roles for women
and encouraged literacy for commoners. The Reformation provoked
endless division and bloodshed. It destroyed thousands of lives, but one could argue it
liberated millions more. - What seems to me to
be God's way of working is that in every generation, there are people who come
up who really are interested in going back to the
roots of what faith means, and how you live it out faithfully. It is not just captured
in one denomination. You see faithful
expressions of what it means to be followers of Christ in
many Christian denominations, and it is one of the reasons why churches need to continue to be in
conversation with each other and continue to learn from each other because none of us have captured
the essence of the Kingdom, and none of us are alone
faithfully living that out. - In the end, I’m not called to follow the great theologians. I’m not even called to follow,
you know, Martin Luther, I’m not called to follow Augustine, I’m called to follow Jesus. - The Reformation debates
therefore must continue in the right way, but they must continue in the spirit of oneness and relationship that values the other because of love that says, we can have this discussion, we can even disagree
and treasure diversity while we continue to pursue oneness, which is relational unity
rooted in God the trinity. - I think of the whole
range of ethical issues that we as Christians take seriously. To create a culture of
life, as John Paul ll said, to battle a culture of death, we can all do that right now together, and so I would stress that as well. Common ground, common ground
abounds, and we should seize it together. - If we can have fraternity and service, that will add up to witness to a world that desperately needs to know Jesus. - [Voiceover] The questions
the reformers raised continue to influence and challenge every branch of Christianity, even as Christians wrestle with Christ's seemingly impossible command
to be known by unity. It is to Him, we must look. (solemn music ) ( religious choral music )
