PROTESTANT REFORMATION @500 YEARS QUO VADIS?: – Episode 1 – The Very German Protest

Titled “The Very German Protest,” Episode One of PROTESTANT REFORMATION @500 YEARS: QUO VADIS follows historians as they explain the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.

The episode begins setting the stage by looking at the practices of the Roman Catholic Church at that time. Relics and indulgences are a major part of the church culture. Church-goers felt at peace knowing they were close to remains or artifacts of saints and that they could buy their way out of Purgatory, which according to Catholic theology at the time was a limbo area between Heaven and Hell.

Martin Luther, the German monk turned-reformer, rejects those ideas by posting his 99 Theses on the walls of a Catholic church. Luther rejected the idea of buying “indulgences” to avoid Purgatory. He also rejected the Catholic teaching of transubstantiation that the elements in communion or the Lord’s are transformed into Christ’s body and blood. Instead, he believed it was consubstantiation which was both a way to remember His sacrifice on the Cross and a reality, as opposed to Calvin who held that it was only a way to remember the real presence.

His biblical views send him into hiding but later begins to take root, changing the church as the people at the time knew it. For all the changes Luther wrought, the episode rightly highlights his much later Anti-Semitism and other animosities.

Episode One of THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION @500 YEARS is rather dry but highly informative and extremely thorough. It has a very strong Christian, biblical worldview, with little to no objectionable content.