Page 223 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1524 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Europe, the point of its origin, the membership there is to criticize the Catholic church.The Czech reformer Jon
often nominal. In some Scandinavian nations, for Hus (1372–1415), a critic of Catholic practices who
instance, over 90 percent of the population will be listed died for his faith, endeavored to break the hold of the
as Protestant because most children are baptized by the hierarchy and to teach lay people to base their views of
Lutherans, yet church participation is very low. Mean- divine grace on the Bible.
while, in sub-Saharan Africa, where over ten thousand While the English reformers and the Hussites were put
new members are added every twenty-four hours, Protes- out of the Catholic Church or put to death, many other
tants, especially in forms called “Pentecostal” or “charis- reform movements which tested the Roman church of
matic,” are known for their vital and even exuberant the day, denouncing it as legalistic, corrupt, and ineffi-
patterns of worship and are among the chief deliverers of cient as a deliverer of the message of divine grace,
health care and works of mercy. remained within the Church. Typical among this group
were humanists like Desiderius Erasmus (1467?–1536)
Protestant Origins of the Netherlands, a man who satirized the papacy and
in Western Europe monasticism with a savagery unmatched by most of his
While Protestantism did not receive its name until 1529, Protestant-leaning contemporaries. However, Erasmus
historians of Protestantism characteristically date its rise and other humanists in the universities of England and
from sporadic pioneering reform movements in England throughout the Holy Roman Empire on the continent
under John Wycliffe (1320–1384), William Tyndale could not envision carrying their reform to the point of
(1494?–1536), and others. They and their followers a break with the papacy.
combined efforts to translate the Bible into English and Breaks that led to permanent breaches began to occur
then to use biblical teachings, as they interpreted them, in the second decade of the sixteenth century. Most visi-

Norway Area of Western
Christianity
Protestant area
Scotland Sweden 0 400 mi
North Denmark Baltic Sea 0 400 km
Sea
Ireland Netherlands
England Munster Prussia
Amsterdam Wittenberg
London
Germany
Atlant i c Worms
Paris Austria
Ocean
France Augsburg
Geneva Zurich
Italy
Black Sea
Portugal Rome
Madrid
N Lisbon Spain

Mediterranean Sea
PROTESTANT REGIONS
of EUROPE c. 1600