Protestantism - An Introduction
Protestantism,
which came from the Protestant Reform, embraces those churches where the
emphasis is placed on personal interpretation of the Holy Bible. The English
reformer John Wycliffe (d. 1384) protested against the power of the pope,
and argued that believers are directly responsible to God. He placed emphasis
on the Bible itself as the source of God's word rather than the Church.
Later the teacher and priest John Huss (d. 1415), inspired by Wycliffe,
lead a reform party in Bohemia that based its theology on Bible interpretation
and called for church reforms. Huss was later burned as a heretic, which
served as a catalyst for further rebellion against the Western church.
The permanent Protestant reform began shortly after the invention of
the printing press and the public availability of the Holy Bible. During
a two-decade period Martin Luther in
Germany, John Calvin and Huldrych
Zwingli in Switzerland, and numerous reformers in the Netherlands, Scotland,
and England broke away from Roman
Catholicism. Within one century Protestantism spread throughout northern
Europe, where it remains the dominant religion today. Later, Protestant
churches entered North America, and today most churches in the West are
Protestant.
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