The most important causes of the Protestant Reformation Essay

The most important causes of the Protestant Reformation - Essay Example One of the most important reasons for Protestant Reformation was religious one. The greed to money, drunkenness and fornication became constant companions for Church representatives. The great degradation of the priesthood's and monks' morality took place. Not all priests kept the vow of celibacy, thus they were engaged in sexual intercourse. Such a phenomena was spread not just among the ordinary priests, but also among the papacy. In addition, corruption in Church was common-spread. Popes skillfully played on the religious feelings of ordinary people taking advantage of their ignorance and lack of knowledge of the Scriptures. That is why the sale of indulgences was introduced on various occasions. Finally, there were some doctrinal reasons for reforms (Hillerbrand, 34). It was caused by Church teaching about salvation, which changed rapidly comparing to the early Christian and biblical views. Instead of preaching the gospel that Jesus Christ atoned for the sins of the people and ga ve them the gift of forgiveness and eternal life through faith, the priesthood introduced the indulgences, using which the enter to the kingdom of God was being sold. In addition, some social and economic reasons for the Reformation existed. While the biblical texts, as well as works of Augustine, various pamphlets, leaflets began to spread widely among intellectuals and ordinary people, the discontent grew, because people, while reading the Word of God and comparing it with what the priests taught, found contradictions.