WEBVTT 00:00:00.719 --> 00:00:02.959 Here we are once again. 00:00:03.839 --> 00:00:14.400 In my mind, I'm always trying to sort things out into big segments and big session uh sections in order to keep things in line. 00:00:14.640 --> 00:00:25.199 The time in which it took the Old Testament of the Bible to be written was at least a thousand years, if not around 1,300 years or so. 00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:27.519 And the New Testament about 50 years. 00:00:27.679 --> 00:00:36.399 So between Old and New Testament, the time of the writing of the Bible was probably around 1,500 years, close to that. 00:00:36.640 --> 00:00:42.479 What we're looking at in church history right now is what happens on the other side of Jesus. 00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:48.880 Jesus has come, Jesus has lived and taught and performed miracles. 00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:54.320 He has been sentenced to death, he's been crucified and he's risen from the dead. 00:00:54.560 --> 00:01:00.240 He talks with his disciples and he ascends back to heaven with the promise that he will come again. 00:01:00.719 --> 00:01:05.599 Since that time, about 2,000 years have passed. 00:01:05.920 --> 00:01:18.640 So a little bit more time since Jesus than the Old Testament before Jesus, although Abraham was about 2,000 years before Jesus. 00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:28.319 So the span of time, Jesus was right about at the midpoint of the time of the Bible till our current times today. 00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:38.400 What I'd like to talk about today is uh three major segments, and then we move into something that's very specific to the Reformation. 00:01:38.879 --> 00:02:03.280 We have about 300 years after Jesus goes back to heaven, where the Christian church exists as a kind of leavening influence throughout, particularly the societies of the Roman Empire, and then to the east along the Silk Road, the great caravans, the trade routes that go all the way to India and China. 00:02:03.439 --> 00:02:20.319 So there's this kind of broad band across the center of the earth, from Africa to Europe to Asia, the center section that becomes increasingly influenced by Christianity and the message about Jesus Christ. 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:30.159 After 300 years, something astounding happens, and that happens primarily through Constantine. 00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:46.879 For about 400 years, after that initial 300 years of marginalization and persecution and spread one person to the next, for the next 400 years, Christianity becomes part of the center of the Roman Empire. 00:02:47.439 --> 00:02:55.360 It receives not only legal status, but then it begins to become part of the center governing structures. 00:02:55.599 --> 00:03:06.479 And when Constantine moves the capital city from Rome to Constantinople, his new capital city, basically the church moves into the government of Rome. 00:03:06.639 --> 00:03:17.439 And that will lead eventually to the Holy Roman Empire, even when Constantinople is on the decline and the Muslims take over that later on. 00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:35.680 So we have this 400-year period beginning with Constantine, in which the church moves into the center of particularly European society, and it continues to grow and stretch across the face of that sort of central band of earth. 00:03:36.479 --> 00:03:42.479 Then we have another 400-year period, and this is the period of the rise of Islam. 00:03:42.560 --> 00:03:58.719 So 300 years of marginalization and persecution, and then 400 years of Christianity being at the center, particularly of the old Roman world, and then 400 years in which there's a pushback by Islam. 00:03:59.199 --> 00:04:25.519 What will happen during that 400-year period is that the rather protected area of Central and Northern Europe will remain predominantly Christian, in fact, like more than 95% Christian, and that will move into the northern areas like the Baltic Seas and the regions there of Scandinavia and the British Isles, that will all become Christian and remain Christian. 00:04:25.839 --> 00:04:41.360 But very quickly across North Africa and throughout the Middle East, and then pushing into what's now Turkey or the old Asia Minor, the Muslim world will kind of take over the old Christian realm. 00:04:41.600 --> 00:04:49.600 There's also tension between Rome and what is the ancient Persian kingdom. 00:04:49.839 --> 00:05:00.560 And that will result in some stoppage there, and even along the Silk Road and the caravans that go out to India and China, there'll be a lot of pushback there. 00:05:00.720 --> 00:05:07.680 In other words, there'll be this new band that surrounds the old center part of the Roman Empire. 00:05:07.839 --> 00:05:12.879 This is the Muslim band, which grows for about 400 years. 00:05:13.360 --> 00:05:32.399 During that time, Christianity, in the struggles of the cultures and in the struggles of the nations, and in the struggles of politics, Christianity increasingly becomes knit together, melded together with the heartbeat of the power systems and structures. 00:05:32.639 --> 00:05:40.160 And this will become what we know today as the background to the Roman Catholic Church. 00:05:40.399 --> 00:05:56.319 And that Roman Catholic Church will become something of an institution in society, something that has its own structures and something that has wealth and power and armies and corporate entities. 00:05:56.480 --> 00:06:07.360 And it will kind of exist in the northern and western parts of Europe as sort of the force that holds together all of society. 00:06:07.759 --> 00:06:37.439 During that last 400 years, while the Muslims are pushing from the east and from the south, the Roman Catholic Church will develop its own center of culture and power and strength and identity to the point where it will take on a corporate character similar to any governing society in a strong country, a strong nation where the government really is pervasive in all things. 00:06:38.079 --> 00:07:02.879 Now, in that situation, one of the things that happened was when the Christian church was younger, there were different approaches to how we worship and how we uh form our hierarchies of clergy and the manner in which we teach our children and the manner in which we uh practice the sacraments and those kinds of things. 00:07:03.040 --> 00:07:05.120 There were not major differences. 00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:07.199 Each of us can think about this. 00:07:07.439 --> 00:07:12.959 Each of us can go back in our ancestry charts a generation or two or three. 00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:18.959 If we're able to go back three or four generations, we have an amazing thing taking place. 00:07:19.120 --> 00:07:34.079 If we can know of our great-grandparents or our great-great-grandparents, they generally have a variety of different children who then form their own family units and they in turn splinter into further family units. 00:07:34.319 --> 00:07:40.480 We might know well our first cousins, the children of our sisters and brothers. 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:45.759 We might know some of our second cousins, one more generation removed. 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:56.399 By the time we think about our third cousins, we're talking about families that could be quite different, even though they have descended from the same ancestral parents. 00:07:56.720 --> 00:07:59.040 And this is kind of what happens in the church. 00:07:59.199 --> 00:08:03.920 It's not multiple churches, it's not multiple bodies of Christ. 00:08:04.079 --> 00:08:26.480 There's just one body of Christ, but the family has begun to splinter into different communities, and these communities take on their own kind of character and culture and practices, all related to the original ideas and values and person of Jesus, but all expressing them in a number of different ways. 00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:34.000 What we're going to focus on today is what happened in Europe, because the others are being whittled away. 00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:51.919 There remains a reasonably large but overall very small Coptic church in Egypt, intrinsic to Egyptian society, but kind of functioning on its own because it's increasingly isolated by the Muslim context from the rest of the Christian church. 00:08:52.159 --> 00:08:59.840 There's a small group of Christians in southern India by this time, begun by Thomas, the disciple of Jesus. 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:07.360 And they're continuing to build and develop and grow with a uniquely Indian expression of Christianity. 00:09:07.519 --> 00:09:09.600 There are Christians throughout China. 00:09:09.759 --> 00:09:12.559 China has always had Christians there. 00:09:12.799 --> 00:09:27.519 But because of the pressures of changing governments, this has been sort of a marginalized piece of Chinese society, and it has taken on its own characteristics within the context of the various Chinese dynasties. 00:09:27.840 --> 00:09:42.240 But the big portion of Christianity, the part that retained its kind of central place in society was in Northern Europe, Eastern or Western Europe, Central Europe, all of those places. 00:09:42.720 --> 00:09:53.679 And because it was the dominant shaping force of society, it continued to grow in its ability to control society. 00:09:54.480 --> 00:10:02.559 And in that context, it began to have increasingly a sense of monopolistic self-importance. 00:10:03.360 --> 00:10:06.080 We are the access point to God. 00:10:06.559 --> 00:10:11.120 Jesus, yes, is the savior, but Jesus is not here with us right now. 00:10:11.279 --> 00:10:17.279 Jesus is in heaven, and he has left us behind this corporate structure called the church. 00:10:29.759 --> 00:10:38.879 And the manner in which that was shaped by the end of the Middle Ages was that the church controlled the sacraments. 00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:45.039 With the sacraments, you had access to God, to heaven, to the hereafter. 00:10:45.279 --> 00:10:47.600 Without the sacraments, you didn't. 00:10:47.919 --> 00:11:08.159 This is why, although Jesus only commanded two things that his followers do to remember him, one was baptizing new believers, and the other was to sit at the table and have fellowship around what we have come to know as the communion meal or the Last Supper or the Lord's Supper or the Eucharist. 00:11:08.399 --> 00:11:18.559 The church began to expand that so that at every stage of human life, the church was the one that said, We will process this for you. 00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:21.200 We will help you get through to the next stage. 00:11:21.440 --> 00:11:24.240 You cannot have peace with God. 00:11:24.399 --> 00:11:30.000 You cannot have meaningful connection with God apart from the thing that we provide. 00:11:30.159 --> 00:11:50.240 And so the sacraments grew in importance, which along with them meant the systems of the church grew in importance so that you could not process your spirituality in the dominant Christian era areas except through the monopolistic bureaucracy of the church. 00:11:50.559 --> 00:11:56.000 This becomes the thing against which the next group of people are going to push back. 00:11:56.159 --> 00:12:04.960 And this is where we get things like the Anglican Church and the Lutheran Church and the Reformed and Presbyterian churches. 00:12:05.039 --> 00:12:16.159 And all of those come out of this pushback against the monopolistic development of the structures in Central and Northern and Eastern and Western Europe. 00:12:57.199 --> 00:13:02.719 Now there are three things, three different periods that I'm going to talk about in this session. 00:13:02.879 --> 00:13:06.000 And these are roughly in two century blocks. 00:13:06.239 --> 00:13:18.079 The first one is in the 12th and 13th century, the second is in the 14th and 15th century, and the third is in the 16th and 17th century. 00:13:18.319 --> 00:13:32.079 Of course, these centuries mark the years, the first one, the 11 and 1200s, the second, the 13th and 1400s, and the third, the 15th and 1600s. 00:13:32.319 --> 00:13:41.359 The focus will be on Europe at this time, but this will have an incredible impact on the Church of Jesus Christ globally. 00:13:42.319 --> 00:13:50.239 Within each of these, I'm going to look at four and two and four developments. 00:13:50.479 --> 00:13:54.879 These are basically tied to either individuals or movements. 00:13:55.039 --> 00:14:13.759 So we have three sections: the 12th and 13th century and four specific individuals, the 14th and 15th centuries, and two specific individuals, and then the 16th and 17th centuries and four specific movements. 00:14:13.919 --> 00:14:26.799 So if you can write those things down and maybe take some notes alongside and keep those things in mind, I think the whole thing will become increasingly clear as we move through this rather challenging and changing period of time. 00:14:27.039 --> 00:14:31.120 So let's begin with that 12th and 13th century. 00:14:31.199 --> 00:14:35.039 We're looking at the 1100s and the 1200s. 00:14:35.199 --> 00:14:41.519 And right about the start of the 1100s, we have a man born in northern Italy. 00:14:41.759 --> 00:14:48.479 His name is Arnold, and he's a pious guy, and he wants to be part of the work of Jesus. 00:14:48.639 --> 00:14:49.919 He believes in Jesus. 00:14:50.079 --> 00:14:51.759 He wants to live a simple life. 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:54.639 He becomes a priest in the church. 00:14:54.799 --> 00:14:56.000 There's only one church. 00:14:56.079 --> 00:15:00.719 It's the church that's based in Rome, that's that's structured out of Rome. 00:15:00.799 --> 00:15:02.639 So he becomes a priest. 00:15:02.879 --> 00:15:26.239 But very quickly on, he believes that the church is excessive, that it has stepped into areas where it doesn't belong, that the church has taken over the whole of society, especially with regard to land and wealth and power and manipulation of communities. 00:15:26.559 --> 00:15:37.519 And so he constantly preaches the church should not own property, and priests should not be rulers in the neighborhoods. 00:15:37.679 --> 00:15:49.599 They can be influencers, they can be participants in shaping societies, but they ought not to be the rulers, the civic rulers of society. 00:15:50.159 --> 00:16:06.239 He really goes on this and he starts fighting his own bishop, who is modestly, if that, Christian, but he's the leader of the church, but he's also the one who owns the most property in the district. 00:16:06.479 --> 00:16:14.079 So Arnold is upset with this, saying, how can the priest and through the priest, the church own most of the property? 00:16:14.239 --> 00:16:26.399 And all of the people, they can't live, they can't grow food, they can't participate in society, except they're living in the church's property and they pay taxes to these people. 00:16:26.959 --> 00:16:33.359 It's a system in which their lives are completely controlled by the structures of the church. 00:16:33.759 --> 00:16:42.959 Arnold will go so far as to try to get rid of his bishop, and for a while his bishop is gone on a trip and he takes over and then he's pushed out again. 00:16:43.199 --> 00:17:02.159 And then when the the pope in Rome, the head of the overall Roman Catholic Church, uh, goes on a journey with the Second Crusaders, this is the time of the Crusades, what happens is that Arnold goes to Rome and he gets the old Roman Senate. 00:17:02.319 --> 00:17:14.880 Remember that one time, way back when, when it was not the Roman Empire but the Roman Republic, Rome was ruled by a Senate where there was a representational government. 00:17:15.039 --> 00:17:39.120 And when the Pope, who is now the leader of the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, sort of, alongside of a titled king, when the king, when the pope leaves, Arnold moves in and he tries to reactivate the old Roman Senate, and he becomes actually the ruler in Rome, sort of like the mayor in Rome. 00:17:39.279 --> 00:17:49.200 He kind of pushes his responsibilities in the church to the side, saying, I'm not acting as a priest here, I'm acting as an administrator of the empire. 00:17:49.440 --> 00:18:02.400 And the Roman Senate takes over for about 10 years, and we get back to sort of this Roman republic with ties to the church, but the church doesn't control it or own it. 00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:19.039 Well, it only takes a little while before the Pope comes back and he calls on the other kings of various places, including the king in Germany, Francis Barbarossa, and he comes and he basically takes over and he kills Arnold. 00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:22.400 And that particular incident is in the past. 00:18:22.960 --> 00:18:27.920 A second thing that happens is now let's move over to Eastern France. 00:18:28.640 --> 00:18:31.279 There's a very wealthy businessman. 00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:33.039 We call him Peter Waldo. 00:18:33.920 --> 00:18:39.039 And he has made much of his money in very shady ways. 00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:42.160 Everybody knows he's a cheat and a scoundrel. 00:18:42.320 --> 00:18:49.360 And then very quickly, a number of things happen to him, you know, as a formality, all people go to church. 00:18:49.600 --> 00:18:53.920 But there's a troubadour who sings outside a church gathering. 00:18:54.080 --> 00:19:06.960 And the troubadour sings an amazingly beautiful song about a man named Alexis who gives up everything and devotes himself to the service of others because of Jesus. 00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:18.640 At the same time, one of Peter Waldo's rich friends dies in the middle of a meal they're having together, a sumptuous meal while there are beggars outside. 00:19:18.880 --> 00:19:22.240 This rich man dies while eating food. 00:19:22.720 --> 00:19:30.240 And also, Peter Waldo hears a sermon in which the words are spoken of Jesus. 00:19:30.560 --> 00:19:37.519 If you would follow me, give up all that you have, sell all that you have, give it to the poor, and come and follow me. 00:19:38.240 --> 00:19:41.840 And Peter Waldo thinks, Wow, God is speaking to me. 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:46.640 And Peter Waldo goes to his priest, and his priest says, Well, that's the way of Jesus. 00:19:46.720 --> 00:19:50.160 And Peter Waldo gives up all his stuff. 00:19:50.480 --> 00:19:53.120 He sells everything, he gives the money to the poor. 00:19:53.279 --> 00:19:55.039 He becomes a beggar on the streets. 00:19:55.200 --> 00:20:02.640 His wife has some substance because he didn't sell the home house and he kept some of the property and she works that. 00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:09.600 But she then provides for him and he becomes a beggar and he becomes a traveling preacher. 00:20:09.840 --> 00:20:18.320 And in order to maintain kind of regularity and purity of thought, he says we've all always got to go in teams of two. 00:20:18.560 --> 00:20:30.560 So he begins this movement of preachers and eventually gets the permission of the official church to begin to preach wherever a local bishop allows them. 00:20:30.640 --> 00:20:44.480 And they preach poverty and simplicity, walking with Jesus, everything that we generally know about piety and Christian practices and being the people, the followers of Jesus. 00:20:44.720 --> 00:20:48.880 There's a third person we ought to pay attention to, and this is Dominique. 00:20:49.039 --> 00:20:53.120 There was a song back in the 1960s, Dominique Niki, Nikki Nikki. 00:20:53.360 --> 00:21:00.080 It was in French by a French nun, and it was a very popular song that hit the top of the charts. 00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:08.080 And this Dominique was a very pious young man from northern Spain, the Castile region. 00:21:09.039 --> 00:21:15.279 And he became a priest and he wanted to live for Jesus and live for others. 00:21:15.440 --> 00:21:21.840 And he was sent by the governing officials to look at this kind of crazy band that were called the Cathari. 00:21:22.400 --> 00:21:35.279 They had given up everything and they they worshiped in the spirit and they believed that male and female didn't really matter, but just to serve others and to love others. 00:21:35.600 --> 00:21:40.320 And he was supposed to bring them back into the main structures of the church. 00:21:40.400 --> 00:21:49.279 But the more he was with these people, the more he thought they kind of are living in the way that Jesus might have lived. 00:21:49.519 --> 00:21:51.759 And he was drawn and attracted to them. 00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:58.880 And Dominique eventually asked to become the leader of a group of followers that were called the Dominicans. 00:21:59.039 --> 00:22:04.640 So today we have the Dominicans within the larger orders of the Roman Catholic Church. 00:22:04.880 --> 00:22:12.880 And technically they're called the Order of Preachers, and they're supposed to be preachers of simplicity and of the grace of God. 00:22:13.120 --> 00:22:16.240 So these kinds of reforming things are happening. 00:22:16.400 --> 00:22:18.560 And that spread throughout the church too. 00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:23.920 And one more person, the four in this first section, and that's Francesco. 00:22:24.320 --> 00:22:26.400 His name was an Italian name. 00:22:26.560 --> 00:22:31.519 He was born in central Italy in the town of Assisi. 00:22:32.320 --> 00:22:39.360 But his dad was a wealthy trader, merchant, particularly with goods and silver. 00:22:40.160 --> 00:22:42.880 And clothing and cloth and all of that. 00:22:43.120 --> 00:22:44.720 And he loved everything French. 00:22:44.799 --> 00:22:54.640 So he got married to a French woman, took her back to Italy with him, and their child, the first child, was this guy that his dad called the Little Frenchman. 00:22:54.880 --> 00:22:59.840 And so they continued to call him Francesco, Francesco, the little Frenchman. 00:23:00.080 --> 00:23:02.720 We know him today as Francis of Assisi. 00:23:03.279 --> 00:23:05.120 He was a spoiled brat. 00:23:05.360 --> 00:23:12.880 He was a wealthy and partying sort, and he was with his friends everywhere, getting drunk every night. 00:23:13.039 --> 00:23:21.840 And then when he was 15 years old, war was a big thing, and Assisi was at war with Perugia, just 15 miles away. 00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:26.000 And Francis and his friends went along to war. 00:23:26.480 --> 00:23:28.240 And crazy thing happened. 00:23:28.480 --> 00:23:31.920 Francis was brought into custody. 00:23:32.880 --> 00:23:39.759 He was captured and he was in a jail 15 miles away from home for more than a year. 00:23:40.080 --> 00:23:41.360 I can't imagine this. 00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:43.759 His dad, his family has wealth. 00:23:43.840 --> 00:23:51.039 They have friends over in Perugia, and yet he sat there in a jail cell for more than a year, just 15 miles away from home. 00:23:51.120 --> 00:23:56.640 He could have walked home in a day, but his family didn't get him, and he wasn't able to get out. 00:23:56.960 --> 00:24:01.279 Eventually he was released, but when he came back, he was a different person. 00:24:01.440 --> 00:24:05.039 He was still a very young man, but he became very solitary. 00:24:05.200 --> 00:24:10.560 He wandered alone and he prayed with God and he tried to figure out his life. 00:24:10.799 --> 00:24:20.160 He went back to war, but he got very sick and he came home again, and he was completely disillusioned with everything that his partying friends were about. 00:24:20.560 --> 00:24:23.680 In the end, he moved into a leper colony. 00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:40.320 He had before been so strongly against even any contact with lepers, but now he moved into a leper colony and he started taking care of these people that were completely separated from the rest of society, despised by the rest of society. 00:24:40.560 --> 00:24:43.279 He was their caretaker, caregiver. 00:24:43.840 --> 00:24:45.440 He also wandered around. 00:24:45.600 --> 00:24:48.880 He loved the animals, he loved the birds in particular. 00:24:49.039 --> 00:24:52.560 They said he could whistle like most of the birds in that region. 00:24:52.799 --> 00:24:54.640 He could imitate their sounds. 00:24:54.799 --> 00:25:01.039 And as he was wandering one time, he stumbled across a small, broken-down church building. 00:25:01.279 --> 00:25:08.160 And he wandered through the rubble of that church building and he noticed a picture of Jesus on the cross. 00:25:08.320 --> 00:25:13.519 And he imagined that he heard Jesus say to him, Rebuild my church. 00:25:13.680 --> 00:25:17.360 And he began to rebuild that church building. 00:25:17.519 --> 00:25:19.279 And friends joined him. 00:25:19.440 --> 00:25:23.920 And he used some of the wealth of his family to clothe them and to feed them. 00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:30.720 And then his dad got royally upset and socked him one and hit him and told him he can't do that. 00:25:30.880 --> 00:25:32.080 They had earned his stuff. 00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:33.680 It wasn't for poor people. 00:25:33.840 --> 00:25:38.320 So he stripped off his own clothes and he walked away bare naked. 00:25:38.560 --> 00:25:44.480 And that was the start of what we called the Franciscans, the order of the Franciscans. 00:25:44.640 --> 00:25:57.279 And again, they took vows of poverty and they pledged themselves to meeting the poorest of the poor and those on the streets and those who were sick and who were dying and they looked after people. 00:25:57.440 --> 00:26:06.400 And Francis gave such an impression to those around him that quickly people garnered on and the Franciscan movement grew. 00:26:12.160 --> 00:26:16.560 It was taken from 1 Peter 2, verse 21. 00:26:16.880 --> 00:26:22.560 Peter says, Jesus has left us an example that we should follow in his steps. 00:26:22.799 --> 00:26:31.600 And so the rule of the Franciscans, the rule of Francis was this: we will obey Jesus and we will follow in his steps. 00:26:31.840 --> 00:26:36.320 And Francis lived that out, and the Franciscans began to grow. 00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:44.640 Eventually, Francis would even go to Egypt trying to stop the crusades which were happening at that time. 00:26:44.799 --> 00:26:46.799 Everybody laughed at him. 00:26:47.039 --> 00:26:53.360 The Muslims were so astounded by the craziness of this guy that they sat down to listen to him. 00:26:53.600 --> 00:26:56.000 And many of the Muslims were really taken. 00:26:56.160 --> 00:27:00.799 These were the first Christians that they had met that they could actually respect. 00:27:01.039 --> 00:27:18.960 And because of that, to this day, all of the holy sites of Christians and Muslims and Jews in Palestine are under the care of Franciscans because the Christians said, well, yeah, they are part of us. 00:27:19.120 --> 00:27:22.320 And the Muslims said, We can trust them. 00:27:22.640 --> 00:27:26.640 And the Jews, they didn't have a choice in the matter at that time. 00:27:26.880 --> 00:27:38.320 But the Franciscans could be trusted because they were not in the business of trying to kill people, but trying to help anybody and particularly the lowest classes of society. 00:27:38.640 --> 00:27:44.880 So there are the four in the 13th and 14th or the 12th and 13th centuries. 00:27:45.039 --> 00:27:50.720 They were the ones who said the church shouldn't own property, the church shouldn't rule over society. 00:27:50.880 --> 00:27:54.160 The church should get back to following in the footsteps of Jesus. 00:27:54.240 --> 00:27:56.799 The church should preach the good news. 00:27:57.039 --> 00:27:59.759 And they really practiced these things. 00:28:00.080 --> 00:28:02.880 But still the big church remained. 00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:14.960 And that's where we get into the second of these three eras, the uh 14th and 15th century, this is the 130 and 1400s, and two names in particular here. 00:28:15.519 --> 00:28:19.759 One is in England, and his name is John Wycliffe. 00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.160 Now we know the Wycliffe Bible translators today. 00:28:24.320 --> 00:28:27.200 They take their name from John Wycliffe. 00:28:27.440 --> 00:28:35.519 John Wycliffe again was a devout person who became a priest, and in the church he began to see two things. 00:28:35.840 --> 00:28:46.320 One, that the church was sending the message, you've got to be part of the church, but it seemed to have forgotten the teachings of Jesus. 00:28:46.560 --> 00:28:58.240 And secondly, he said there is no way in the New Testament to affirm the idea that the church rules over society. 00:28:58.720 --> 00:29:03.120 The church is the gathering of those who believe in Jesus. 00:29:03.360 --> 00:29:17.039 And so he said the church is not made up of structures or power or wealth or organization, but it's people who believe in Jesus, who follow the ways of Jesus, who read the scriptures and who pray. 00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:22.080 And for that reason, he wanted to translate the scriptures for the longest time. 00:29:22.400 --> 00:29:24.320 The scriptures were only available. 00:29:24.480 --> 00:29:29.759 Remember, there were no printing presses, there were no books or anything like that. 00:29:29.920 --> 00:29:32.160 What we had were basically scrolls. 00:29:32.320 --> 00:29:39.200 There were books that were being published by this time, but it was a long, hard process and things had to be written out. 00:29:39.360 --> 00:29:48.000 There just wasn't the possibility of uh copying quickly or printing books or anything like that. 00:29:48.240 --> 00:30:09.519 And so what John Wycliffe wanted to do, and when all of the biblical manuscripts were in the Latin language, and people in England didn't read or talk in the Latin language, they didn't have access to the words of Jesus, to the stories of Jesus, except as filtered through the church and its systems. 00:30:09.680 --> 00:30:23.440 And so he wanted them to read the stuff for themselves, and he really worked on translating the Bible into the languages he said of the plowboys, the people who followed the oxen and the plow through the fields. 00:30:23.519 --> 00:30:30.880 He wanted the guy to be there and read the words of Jesus as he was plowing for the commoner, not for the priest. 00:30:31.200 --> 00:30:40.880 And Wycliffe himself was only protected because England was so far from Rome and there was a growing sense of nationalism in England. 00:30:41.120 --> 00:30:45.840 Maybe we not ought not to bend every time the Pope says we should. 00:30:46.080 --> 00:30:52.960 So in the in the British Isles, Wycliffe's influence was was distributed fairly broadly. 00:30:53.120 --> 00:31:04.960 Later on, when the Roman Catholic branch of the church took stronger ownership of things, they actually dug up Wycliffe's bones and burned them, saying he was a heretic. 00:31:05.120 --> 00:31:08.560 But for now, he was someone who was influencing society. 00:31:09.039 --> 00:31:20.000 About the soon after Wycliffe lived, well, about a generation later, there was a guy in Bohemia, which is Hungary today, the center of Europe. 00:31:20.560 --> 00:31:32.000 He made a trip to England, studied at one of the universities, got married to an English woman, came back, and he was just enamored with John Wycliffe's ideas. 00:31:32.240 --> 00:31:39.120 And he basically kind of plagiarized them all in Central Europe. 00:31:39.279 --> 00:31:41.120 His name was Jan Huss. 00:31:41.840 --> 00:32:07.600 And he gave rise to the Czech Republic, a growing sense of nationalism, and he with Wycliffe said the church ought not to be the governing authority, and it ought not to own buildings, and it ought not to have great wealth, and it ought not to command armies, and it ought to encourage people to get back to simple living in the way of Jesus. 00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:13.039 Well, the Pope had grown powerful in his practice of the Crusades. 00:32:13.200 --> 00:32:18.240 Remember that the Crusades were the warring armies of the church from Rome. 00:32:18.480 --> 00:32:26.640 And now he took the failed crusades after the Fourth Crusade, which failed miserably but divided the church even further. 00:32:26.880 --> 00:32:42.240 He took that crusading tactic and five times over hit the Czech Republic, the growing Czech Republic, with armies of the church to break down and destroy everything that Jan Huss was about. 00:32:42.480 --> 00:32:49.920 Huss himself was arrested and in a mock trial with things that he never said or did. 00:32:50.080 --> 00:32:51.759 He was condemned to death. 00:32:52.080 --> 00:32:54.720 He was tied to a pole. 00:32:59.279 --> 00:33:00.799 That's Jan Huss. 00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:12.480 So we have the 12th and 13th centuries, those four people who said, let's get away from the bureaucracy of the church and then let's get back to simple living. 00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:26.080 And then we have the uh 14th and 15th centuries, and two people in particular, one is John Wycliffe in England, and the other is Jan Huss in Central Europe, all saying the same kinds of things. 00:33:26.400 --> 00:33:29.440 And that leads to the Reformation. 00:33:29.680 --> 00:33:37.519 And here we have the 16th and 17th centuries, and we'll look at four branches of the Reformation. 00:33:38.320 --> 00:33:42.240 The first of those, of course, is connected with Martin Luther. 00:33:42.480 --> 00:33:45.440 Martin Luther read the teachings of Jan Huss. 00:33:45.600 --> 00:33:54.560 In fact, he would be accused by the official church structures later on of being a Hussite, a follower of Huss. 00:33:54.799 --> 00:34:01.279 And Martin Luther couldn't really refute that, but he said that Huss was actually on the right track. 00:34:01.519 --> 00:34:09.599 Now, Martin Luther was born into a low middle class family or a high lower class family. 00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:24.079 His ancestors had been dirt farmers in Germany, but they had begun to buy pot uh pieces of property, some of which had tin mines on them, and tin was very, very necessary for build for making bronze. 00:34:24.239 --> 00:34:27.360 And so they had grown in wealth over time. 00:34:27.519 --> 00:34:37.759 And Martin Luther's parents had moved into a range of being sort of into the middle class, but they figured that they could move up. 00:34:37.920 --> 00:34:46.480 They were really upwardly mobile if they could get their kids to get educations and become the next level of people. 00:34:46.639 --> 00:34:52.879 And they wanted Martin to become a lawyer that would raise the family's prominence in society. 00:34:53.039 --> 00:34:59.839 They were really upwardly mobile, and they were looking at the neighbors, and they were always trying to be better than the neighbors. 00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:02.319 They were also very fierce. 00:35:03.279 --> 00:35:17.679 Martin Luther's dad always was speaking down to him and was always sort of condemning him for not performing adequately and not following through and not being the person he should be. 00:35:17.919 --> 00:35:20.960 But Martin Luther's mom was even worse. 00:35:21.199 --> 00:35:26.960 And Martin Luther would write later in life about her whippings. 00:35:27.279 --> 00:35:31.119 She whipped Martin till the blood came out. 00:35:31.759 --> 00:35:37.519 And he was a person who was really oppressed by his parents. 00:35:37.839 --> 00:35:44.719 And he took that also into his understanding of God, our primary parent. 00:35:45.039 --> 00:35:54.480 God must be that same kind of demanding beast who was always on our case and always out to punish us. 00:35:55.039 --> 00:36:01.839 And in that, you know, he took his training to become a lawyer, but eventually several things happened. 00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:07.279 One of his friends got drowned, and another one died of the bubonic plague. 00:36:07.359 --> 00:36:19.440 And he was riding out in the countryside, and all of a sudden a big thunderstorm came up, and the thunder crashed and the lightning flashed, and he was sure that he was going to get struck by lightning and die right there. 00:36:19.599 --> 00:36:22.559 This is what God does to people like him, you know. 00:36:22.719 --> 00:36:27.039 And so he prayed, Oh, Saint Anna, protect me and I will become a monk. 00:36:27.199 --> 00:36:33.919 Well, Saint Anna was the considered patron saint of the Augustinian order of the church. 00:36:34.079 --> 00:36:35.919 Remember Augustine. 00:36:36.960 --> 00:36:39.199 And Martin Luther didn't die. 00:36:39.359 --> 00:36:46.639 And so two weeks later, he was in a monastery, an Augustinian monastery, and went through the motions. 00:36:47.039 --> 00:36:49.440 He still saw God in the same way. 00:36:49.679 --> 00:36:53.440 He tried to please God, could never please God. 00:36:53.679 --> 00:37:01.199 And then he was finally, he got through a couple of master's degrees and a doctorate degree, and he was teaching at the University of Wittenberg. 00:37:01.359 --> 00:37:05.839 He was teaching church theology and he was teaching biblical studies. 00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:21.199 And while he was teaching biblical studies, especially the Psalms and Galatians and Romans, he began to think what the Bible says isn't what the church says. 00:37:21.599 --> 00:37:25.039 The church says you have to process life through the sacraments. 00:37:25.279 --> 00:37:28.480 We hold the monopoly, you can't get in without us. 00:37:29.119 --> 00:37:42.159 And he said, The Bible says, Jesus says, the psalmists say, Paul says, believe in Jesus, trust in Jesus, receive the gift of God's grace. 00:37:42.719 --> 00:37:45.679 And it just went off like a light bulb in his head. 00:37:45.919 --> 00:37:48.000 And he said, things are not right. 00:37:48.159 --> 00:37:53.679 And so he began to teach the possibility that the church wasn't quite on target. 00:37:53.919 --> 00:37:58.480 And then he began to raise issues to be disputed at the university. 00:37:58.639 --> 00:38:09.440 And then one night he decided he would put it all out and he wrote down 95 things that he thought the church needed to discuss and perhaps change its ways. 00:38:09.679 --> 00:38:12.159 Those became the 95 theses. 00:38:12.239 --> 00:38:20.319 And he went out on October 31, 1517, and nailed this to the door of the church in Wittenberg. 00:38:20.799 --> 00:38:27.679 Prior to all social media that we know today, this was the way to get things out in the open. 00:38:27.839 --> 00:38:31.039 It was the night before All Saints Day. 00:38:31.199 --> 00:38:38.480 Most of the great ones had days on the calendar that were assigned to them, you know, Saint Thomas, Saint Jude, etc. 00:38:38.799 --> 00:38:43.119 But then there were all the others, and they were all dumped onto November 1. 00:38:43.359 --> 00:38:51.599 Everybody went to church in Northern Europe on November 1 to give thanks for the saints and to pray for the saints and all of that. 00:38:52.239 --> 00:39:06.000 So on October 31, the night before, nobody was out because everybody knew that was a night of wicked divination where all the witches and the monsters and the ghouls and the goblins and the ghosts were out, and everybody was afraid. 00:39:06.159 --> 00:39:12.639 So Martin knew that he could go and move out in public without anybody seeing him, and he didn't want his name attached to that. 00:39:12.719 --> 00:39:13.919 He didn't sign the thing. 00:39:14.159 --> 00:39:21.919 He just wanted people to think about these things and to discuss them, knowing that everybody would see them as they came to church the next day. 00:39:22.159 --> 00:39:32.079 Well, the thing was they were torn off the door very quickly, but not by people who disagreed with him, but rather by people who agreed with him. 00:39:32.239 --> 00:39:46.000 And the movable type of the printing press was just coming out, and they got it to a printer who took it down and put it in print form and put put out hundreds, even thousands of copies, and they were sent across Europe. 00:39:46.319 --> 00:39:55.199 And suddenly, in a first market in a mass media marketing strategy, Martin Luther's 95 Theses became central to everything. 00:39:55.359 --> 00:40:06.239 Now, if you read Martin Luther's 95 Theses, that you should, but if you read them, you find out that he's really got three major things that he's especially upset about. 00:40:06.399 --> 00:40:13.839 And they are the Pope and his role of rulership and infallibility. 00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:16.159 That's just not biblical, he says. 00:40:16.399 --> 00:40:20.000 Secondly, the whole sacramental system. 00:40:20.559 --> 00:40:25.759 We are not saved through the monopoly of the actions of the church. 00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:35.199 You won't get to heaven if you don't, you know, come to a mass or or have penance or or get baptized or whatever, but we are saved. 00:40:35.359 --> 00:40:37.199 We we have grace with God. 00:40:37.359 --> 00:40:40.719 God's grace comes to us through faith. 00:40:41.039 --> 00:40:44.159 And thirdly, the idea of indulgences. 00:40:44.319 --> 00:40:56.639 Now remember in the crusades from last session, one of the ways that the leaders of the Church of Rome got people from Europe to go off to fight the Muslims was by rewarding them. 00:40:56.799 --> 00:41:03.279 And the greatest reward that was established during the time of the Crusades was the plenary indulgence. 00:41:03.519 --> 00:41:12.799 If you go off to fight, we will grant you a complete forgiveness of all your sins now and for all the future. 00:41:13.039 --> 00:41:13.440 Bam. 00:41:13.919 --> 00:41:17.279 Get into heaven directly, car, just like that. 00:41:17.519 --> 00:41:24.559 No passing, no stopping at go, no passing, go or going through the prison or anything like that, or purgatory. 00:41:24.719 --> 00:41:27.359 Bam, you get a free ride all the way. 00:41:27.919 --> 00:41:35.759 And the church, while it made a mistake in offering that, it was kind of a fluke that it happened. 00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:38.319 They found that people lapped up to that. 00:41:38.480 --> 00:41:42.079 If we can just pay some money, we can get the thing. 00:41:42.319 --> 00:41:44.000 It just comes automatically. 00:41:44.159 --> 00:41:45.119 Here it is. 00:41:45.440 --> 00:41:47.279 And money talks. 00:41:47.599 --> 00:41:56.960 And so the church found that it was good, not necessarily theologically, but it was good for church income. 00:41:57.359 --> 00:41:59.279 People these things. 00:41:59.599 --> 00:42:03.919 And now Rome needed more money because they wanted to rebuild St. 00:42:04.079 --> 00:42:05.359 Peter's Basilica. 00:42:05.440 --> 00:42:11.679 And it's so so it sent priests, really salesmen out into different places. 00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:26.559 And they preached not the gospel of Jesus, but if you buy one of these indulgences, your cousin, your father, your child who died can jump right into heaven. 00:42:26.639 --> 00:42:28.719 And you too, when you die, you can get it. 00:42:28.799 --> 00:42:31.599 And people were buying these things like lottery tickets. 00:42:31.679 --> 00:42:33.919 They were buying these things right, left, and center. 00:42:34.079 --> 00:42:38.399 And Martin Luther said, is that what Jesus is about? 00:42:38.639 --> 00:42:40.079 Certainly it can't be. 00:42:40.480 --> 00:42:51.919 Well, the end result was that the growing nationalization that began during the times of Wycliffe and Huss was taking over Germany too. 00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:58.879 And the German leaders, the German political leaders, were not as under the thumb of the Pope in Rome. 00:42:59.039 --> 00:43:04.319 And they said, you know, we ought to be the ones who support him. 00:43:04.480 --> 00:43:17.919 And so Luther was actually supported by the uh German governing system and hidden sometimes and protected from the advances the church out of Rome wanted to kill him so badly. 00:43:18.079 --> 00:43:26.079 And they tried, but they never succeeded because the Germans increasingly had their own national identity coming and they protected him. 00:43:26.159 --> 00:43:37.119 And Martin Luther, again, translation of the Bible, he translated the Bible into the German language, and it became the standard for German speech and language for centuries to come. 00:43:37.440 --> 00:44:05.199 And out of that, Martin Luther never wanted to form a different branch of the church, but in the forces of the church out of Rome, his people were seen as protesters, and protesters who were no longer Christians, and therefore they became known as Protestants, Protestants, and they were forcibly out of the church and its structures. 00:44:05.359 --> 00:44:07.839 And that was the start of the Lutheran churches. 00:44:08.159 --> 00:44:22.719 And what happened is that Martin Luther wanted to retain all the good stuff of the church and its music and its liturgy, but he said there's only two sacraments, and he said the rest of that is just a business of the church. 00:44:22.879 --> 00:44:28.639 And he said the church can't own plant land and it ought not to be wealthy. 00:44:28.799 --> 00:44:34.719 It's the congregations where they experience the grace of God through liturgy and music and song. 00:44:35.039 --> 00:44:44.239 And because that fit right into the growing middle class and its trade and its Its desire to get off from the shackles of the wealthy and the powerful. 00:44:44.480 --> 00:44:48.480 All around the Baltic Sea, that took hold very quickly. 00:44:48.559 --> 00:45:03.279 And so you have the nations around the Baltic Sea, the Northern Sea, and that would be Norway and Sweden and Finland, and then other nations along there, Germany and some of the Eastern European, Northern, Eastern European nations. 00:45:03.519 --> 00:45:07.440 They become predominantly influenced by Martin Luther's teachings. 00:45:07.519 --> 00:45:12.879 And the dominant expression of Christianity to this day there is Lutheranism. 00:45:13.039 --> 00:45:19.919 It's not a different Christianity, but it's Christianity that's attempting to bring the church back to where it should be. 00:45:20.159 --> 00:45:37.759 Well, following this rise of Lutheranism, there were some more in the lowlands of Europe, that's uh the Netherlands and Belgium today, and in the highlands of Switzerland, who said, Wow, this is good stuff. 00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:41.440 This is the second of the four, and they kept pushing at it. 00:45:41.519 --> 00:45:45.679 And they said, Luther is on the right track, but he didn't go far enough. 00:45:45.839 --> 00:45:52.319 He said, They said nothing of the church as it exists in terms of corporate structures is biblical. 00:45:52.559 --> 00:45:59.279 The only thing that's biblical is people believing in Jesus and living together lives of simplicity. 00:45:59.519 --> 00:46:12.000 They would eventually push back against everything that the church was about: structures, clergy, hierarchies, money, land, possessions, all of that. 00:46:12.159 --> 00:46:18.480 And they said to be Christian is simply to live together in simplicity, following the ways of Jesus. 00:46:18.799 --> 00:46:34.960 These people would even reject all of the sacraments, not just five out of seven, all of the sacraments, saying, Yeah, baptism is a good right, but it's only for those who have come to understand who Jesus is. 00:46:35.199 --> 00:46:40.239 And so they said, when we were baptized as children, that was of no effect. 00:46:40.399 --> 00:46:41.279 It was no good. 00:46:41.359 --> 00:46:48.639 And so they rejected the church's baptism and said baptism was only for adult believers. 00:46:49.359 --> 00:46:54.719 So they became known as Anabaptists, against baptism. 00:46:55.039 --> 00:47:09.759 And today we have them lingering with us in several communities: Mennonites and a particular branch of Mennonites, the Amish, following Jacob Amman, and the Hutterites, those three in particular. 00:47:09.919 --> 00:47:14.879 And they don't hold to confessions and they don't have church structures. 00:47:15.039 --> 00:47:20.879 They're basically kind of communities of communities that try to live peacefully. 00:47:21.199 --> 00:47:28.639 Among the things that they rejected was any war or participation in war, and so they are completely pacifists. 00:47:28.799 --> 00:47:41.679 And you can find the Hutterite colonies in central and western Canada, in particular, some in Mexico and the United States, but most in Canada as they migrated to get away from other persecutions. 00:47:41.919 --> 00:47:50.480 You can find the Mennonites scattered across most nations that have been influenced by German immigration. 00:47:50.639 --> 00:48:11.919 And you can find the Amish, particularly in places like Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, but other places too, Shepshuana in Indiana, in the United States, and places in Brazil, and places in Central America, where they have created sort of communities that are separated from society. 00:48:12.319 --> 00:48:23.839 And they say that the world is out there, and government and power and armies and policing inhere Jesus rules, and we live for Jesus. 00:48:24.799 --> 00:48:34.159 The third of these four in the uh 14th and uh 16th and 17th centuries is John Calvin. 00:48:34.319 --> 00:48:39.039 John Calvin was born about a half a generation after Martin Luther. 00:48:39.279 --> 00:48:45.919 He was a Frenchman, he studied in Paris, he became a lawyer, he was a very scholarly person. 00:48:46.239 --> 00:48:55.119 What he brought to this reforming Protestant movement was sort of a studied biblical grounding. 00:48:55.359 --> 00:49:00.879 Luther tended to be impetuous and he did a few things that were kind of strange. 00:49:01.199 --> 00:49:04.480 For instance, he really was anti-Semitic. 00:49:04.719 --> 00:49:21.039 He was against the Jews because they had killed Jesus, and he wrote some harsh things about the Jews, and that would come later on right into Lutheranism in Northern Europe and become the basis for the anti-Semitism, even of Hitler and the Nazis. 00:49:21.119 --> 00:49:24.559 So that grew out of Luther's own teachings. 00:49:24.879 --> 00:49:33.679 John Calvin was much more of a Bible scholar, a textual scholar, and so he preached sermons on nearly every book of the Bible. 00:49:33.839 --> 00:49:36.799 He never did get around to the book of Revelation, but all the rest. 00:49:36.960 --> 00:49:39.919 And those have become Calvin's commentaries. 00:49:40.159 --> 00:49:46.879 And people actually took down his words and he had manuscripts and all of that, so that's what Calvin's commentaries are about. 00:49:47.039 --> 00:49:53.440 But the other thing is that he wrote a handbook to it all, and it's called The Institutes of the Christian Religion. 00:49:53.679 --> 00:50:05.039 He believed that his commentaries were an attempt to be biblical, and that his institution, Institutes of the Christian religion was the handbook to the scriptures pulling the thing together. 00:50:05.199 --> 00:50:08.319 And it basically followed a Trinitarian format. 00:50:08.639 --> 00:50:11.119 God the Father has created everybody. 00:50:11.359 --> 00:50:22.079 We are all the children of God, and so the best way to live is in reference to God, in obedience to God, but we have blown it, we've become sinful, and so it doesn't happen. 00:50:22.319 --> 00:50:29.359 Therefore, God has come among us in the person of Jesus, our Savior, and salvation is fully through Jesus. 00:50:29.519 --> 00:50:33.519 And so Jesus teaches us the way of grace and life and faith. 00:50:33.759 --> 00:50:39.039 And then when Jesus left, he said, I will return, but in the meantime, he sent the Holy Spirit. 00:50:39.119 --> 00:50:45.919 And the Holy Spirit shapes our lives, helps us to understand the grace of God and how it affects our lives. 00:50:46.159 --> 00:50:57.519 In effect, what Calvin did was to give substance and academic and biblical basis to the kinds of things Luther was looking at. 00:50:58.239 --> 00:51:06.799 Along with that, slightly later was the fourth of these movements, and that's what we call the Anglican movement. 00:51:07.279 --> 00:51:20.319 Over in England, separated by the English Channel, Henry VIII ruled, and he saw what was taking place on the continent with Luther and with Calvin and the others, and he didn't want any of that. 00:51:20.480 --> 00:51:28.799 He was a solid Roman Catholic believer, except that he had a hard time producing a male heir. 00:51:28.960 --> 00:51:41.440 And so he he got a divorce and then he wanted another divorce, but the Pope was in league with Ferdinand and Isabella, who were the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire. 00:51:41.599 --> 00:51:46.879 And so there was this tight coalition, and eventually he was not granted another divorce. 00:51:47.119 --> 00:51:56.719 Early on, he had actually worked with a ghostwriter to write a book which was against Martin Luther, if you can imagine that. 00:52:19.119 --> 00:52:27.440 Now, Henry VIII did not want to change anything except to establish local rule. 00:52:27.599 --> 00:52:37.359 He said, The power structures of the church have taken over, and we ought to have self-determination with our power structures. 00:52:37.440 --> 00:52:44.639