THEOLOGY

The role of Printing Press and Reformation

The role of Printing Press and Reformation

Introduction

The Protestant Reformation emerged in the medieval symbolic world. In the sixteenth century the "medieval synthesis", which was a strong amalgam of the Roman Catholic Church and the so-called "Holy Roman Empire" was entering the sixteenth century crisis.

Most modern scholars, whether Catholic or not, support the high level of corruption that afflicted the Catholic Church at that time. He had coined a number of terms that showed this sad reality:

"Indulgences" to the purchase of divine forgiveness; was to shorten the time that family members had already left were happening in the "purgatory". There was a certified "legal" on paper, which he had indulged in the purchase of indulgences. "Simony" in memory of Simon Magus interest to buy the gift of God possessed by the apostles was considered "simony" the purchase of religious offices.

"Rotation of clergy" when rotating clergy, a premium for higher money went, so that many clergy were required to rotate every year, to leave that "premium" to their superiors.

Finally, in Rome, the accumulation of wealth obtained from Catholic countries was exceedingly abundant. In the late fifteenth century, had built the Sistine Chapel, and mid-sixteenth century was still decorating. Such luxuries were not come cheap, were financed with money coming from various countries (Collinson, 2004).

Luther and the Reformation

Martin Luther was a German Augustinian monk. He lived between 1483 and 1546. He was a man obsessed with religious duty. He was a strict observer of the rules of the monastery. He lived in agony in the pursuit of holiness-in replay of the Augustinian crisis since Augustine suffered the same disease. Luther's question was "how I can conceive of a merciful God? The face of God he perceived was delineated by lines of the Old Testament. It was a God whose justice was characterized by violence, the violence of a just God. God was just as it penalized. Luther was tormented because of his own strength always failed in the attempt to attain righteousness before God. The ways in which I tried were limited and ineffective: penance, prayer, fasting, abstinence, etc. A series of exercises and prescribing laws and punishing misdeeds by the faithful. But Luther found by reading the letter to the Romans, an answer to your search. In Romans 1:16 Paul says that in the gospel (in message news that means Jesus Christ) the righteousness of God is revealed "by faith”. This is the key: faith is the means to relate to God, and not works. The works of the law produced death, faith produces life. What is the power of faith for righteousness before God? In the grace of God in Jesus Christ operated. God gave his son Jesus Christ and his sacrifice is offered free to man the justification of his life before God. It is possible that humans please God by their very behavior; there must be a basis of faith, faith in the grace of God, who forgives ...