History of the Church I: Week 18

A Spiritual Awakening  In his book Christianity and History, Herbert Butterfield observes that human systems rise and thrive and then fall because the processes of time have their own “judgment”  In other words, human systems are built by humans which have a flawed nature  Time exposes those systems and they fail  The Papacy in the Middle Ages was a system built by humans – over time its flaws were revealed

John Wycliffe  From Northern England, he receives his doctorate from Oxford and quickly becomes its leading professor  In 1377, a debate was raging over the idea of dominion  Dominion is the idea of who has authority on earth

John Wycliffe  Oxford professors said no man stood above other man  Wycliffe took it one step farther: he said the state could determine if the church was right and even take the property of corrupt church officials

John Wycliffe  He was promptly excommunicated and would have tried but he had influential friends who kept him from harm  He went on to say in 1378, the Pope was the ant-Christ and he become one of the first Protestants

John Wycliffe  The importance of Wycliffe is enormous  Blazed the path for Luther  Said the Scriptures should be used to refute the Church  Believed the layman should have access to the Bible  Said transubstantiation was wrong

John Hus  The Czech reformer was a student in 1395 when Wycliffe’s career was winding down  He read and promoted Wycliffe’s writing in Bohemia in southeastern Europe  He was excommunicated

John Hus  Unlike Wycliffe, Hus did not receive the support from his government  He was asked to go to the Council of Constance to decide the Great Schism when he was arrested

John Hus  He became a victim of the Inquisition  In 1425, he was burned at the stake  With Wycliffe and Hus gone it looked like the church would be not be reformed – the stage was set for a German reformer