crash diet 15 days

hi, i’m john green, this is crash courseworld history and today we’re going to talk about the protestant reformation. mr green, mr. green, this is irrelevant for me; i’m an atheist. yeah i know me from the past, because i’m you. although actually you are now episcopalian, a protestantchurch started because a king wanted to get

crash diet 15 days, a divorce.but anyway let me submit that religious history is important regardless of your personal religiousbeliefs, because it helps us to understand the lenses through which people have viewedtheir lives and communities, and given that, the protestant reformation is what properhistorians refer to as a big-ass deal -- which i

will remind you is not cursing if you arereferring to donkeys. so before the reformation, pretty much allchristians in europe were roman catholic. yes, there were other types of christiansin eastern europe, asia, and africa, but roman catholicism was the dominant form of christianityand had been since like the 4th century. the protestant reformation broke so-called“western christendom” in two—then three, then four, --until finally there were uncountabledenominations of christianity--not just lutherans but apostolic lutherans and reformed lutheransand free lutherans and lutherans for just going back to being catholic because thishas become so complicated. this was hugely important--it changed people’sway of looking at themselves and the world,

it led to wider european literacy, and eventuallyforced governments to grant religious freedoms, while also at the same time maybe being moreof a political revolution than a religious one. so, during the european middle ages, the catholic church really dominated european civilization.it’s almost impossible to imagine the scope of the church’s power in the middle ages,but let’s try. first off, the catholic church was the caretakerof the most important thing that christians had, their souls, which, unlike our temporalbodies, were eternal. and then there was the parish priest, whoplayed a pivotal role throughout every person’s life, baptizing them, marrying them, hearingtheir confessions, providing last rites.

the church also provided all of the social services:it distributed alms to the poor, and ran orphanages, and provided what education was available.and most europeans would in their lives meet exactly one person who could read the bible,which was only available in latin - their parish priest.and, the church owned over 1/3 of all the land in europe, which helped make it the mostpowerful economic and political force on the continent. and the pope claimed authorityover all the kings of europe, as the successor to the roman emperor.so this was a very powerful institution, and it was undone by one chronically constipatedmonk. here at crash course, we don’t like to gettoo into like, great man history, but the

reformation really was initiated and shapedby one man: martin luther. no, stan, the martin luther he was named for. no, stan! the martinluther that he was named for. yes. okay, let’s go to the thought bubble:luther studied law, and like most law students, he hated it. then one day a sudden storm blewup, lightning struck him to the ground, and in a panic, he cried, “help me, saint anne!i’ll become a monk!” he survived and in the next two weeks, he withdrew from university,entered an augustinian monastery, took his vows, and sent a message to inform his family,who i’m sure were delighted to have spent all that money on education because monkingis so lucrative. in 1505, luther was sent to rome on a diplomaticmission, and he ignored all the awesome art

and focused instead on rome’s corruption—withprostitutes openly soliciting on the filthy streets, priests who made light of their duties,hurrying through mass so fast that it seemed to mean nothing, and openly deriding churchdoctrine. luther was obsessed with his own sinfulnessand he kept confessing, incessantly. and finally his confessor and teachers sent him to theuniversity of wittenberg, because you know, they were a little bit annoyed with him, andthey figured he’d be good at teaching scripture. these days of course, incessant confessorsare put on the real housewives of new jersey, but back then, you sent them to the universityof wittenberg. anyway, luther finally found his answer inst. paul’s epistles, specifically in one

line that said, “the just shall live byfaith” (bainton 65). in other words, salvation comes through faith, not good works—notthrough prayer, or fasting, or vigils, or pilgrimages, or relics, giving to the poor, or the sacraments,or any action that a person can take. we can’t ever be good enough, through our actions,to merit salvation. we can only have faith. in latin, sola fide, only faith.thanks, thought bubble. so, martin luther’s new interpretation of“sola fide” grew into a full-scale conflict with the catholic church when a friar namedjohn tetzel came to wittenberg, selling indulgences. an indulgence was a donation to the churchthat came with a promise from the pope to reduce a sinner’s time in purgatory. like,to quote from an indulgence that friar tetzel

sold, “[i] replace thee in the state of innocence andpurity in which thou wert at the hour of thy baptism." luther felt like that that wasn’t the sort of thing that, you know, should be for sale. the price of this whole-life complete-forgiveness-of-any-horrible-sin certificate, by the way, was three marks,probably about half a year’s wages for a laborer.so, luther didn’t like seeing his parishioners handing over money they didn’t have fora scrap of paper that he believed to be meaningless, so in response, he wrote 95 theses againstindulgences, and then dramatically nailed them to the church door, for all to see onoctober 31, 1517—or else he mailed them to the archbishop, or possibly both. we don’tactually know.

this led to a series of debates with othermen of the cloth, during which luther’s positions became increasingly radical. startingfrom the statement that christians were saved only through faith and the grace of god, for instance,luther then upped the ante, saying that the church’s rituals didn't have the power to save souls.and then he argued that far from being infallible, the church, and the pope made errors all thetime. that was a pretty bold thing to say, and thenit got even more dramatic when luther ultimately denied that the church and the officers ofit had any spiritual powers. he said that the priesthood was a human invention;and that individual christians didn’t even need priests to receive the grace of god.instead, luther described a “priesthood

of all believers.”so this had gone from a call for reforming indulgences to, to a revolution. so in1521, luther was called to defend his ideas before the holy roman emperor, charles v,at the imperial diet of worms. or in german, worms.also, let me say retroactively, now that everyone has commented on my poor german pronunciation,wittenberg. emperor charles famously said, “a singlefriar who goes counter to all christianity for a thousand years must be wrong.”to which luther was like, “stop flapping that hideous hapsburg jaw of yours.”but there was something to what charles was saying, right? because plenty of radical friarshad criticized the church’s abuses and hypocrisies

over the years; why would luther prove influential?well, one reason was the printing press. now, most people in europe at the time couldn’tread, but a lot of people could, including, of course a lot of priests. and over two thousandeditions of luther’s writings appeared between 1517 and 1526.and his ideas also appeared in pamphlets, and posters, and cartoons that were seen andread aloud, reaching millions of readers and listeners,in short, luther’s ideas were all over, like, the tumblr of the day, which was a towncrier and broadsides nailed to doors. and it caused quite a stir, especially the partabout, like, the pope being the anti-christ sent by the devil. like i said, it got prettyradical.

but maybe the most revolutionary of luther’spublications was his new translation of the bible into german.for the first time ever, non-priests could read the bible for themselves, because lutherused the german that people actually spoke, instead of latin, and his work quickly caughton among common people. hundreds of thousands of copies of luther’sbible were printed; people carried it in their pockets and memorized it. now everyone couldquote scripture and discuss its meaning. now, luther’s theory was that if everyonejust returned directly to the scriptures, they would see the one single truth, and thechurch would be restored to its original simplicity. yeah, no. i have a message to the restorersof history. there is no original simplicity!

the thing is, once you start making scriptureaccessible to everyone and tell them that their opinions are just as good as those ofthe clergy, what happens is that people start, you know, having different interpretationsof what religious truth is. so luther’s protest started creating spinoffs:the zwinglians, and the calvinists, and the anabaptists…and then the spinoffs had theirown spinoffs. it's like how first there was iron man, andthen there was the avengers, and then you know, like an avengers tv show. pretty soonwe’re gonna have ant man get his own movie. the protestant reformation is just basicallythe same thing as the marvel comic universe, but no thor! because he’s pagan.anyway, many of these new denominations will

be familiar to you: the anglicans and puritans,the quakers, the presbyterians, the methodists, the baptists.each of these new protestant churches thought that it knew the one true way to worship god—andthat, you know, everyone else was going to hell, and this led to some fighting.and also some disemboweling. oh, it’s time for the open letter.but first, let’s see what’s in the globe today. oh, that’s nice, i thought it wouldbe disemboweled people, but it’s anabaptists not baptizing their infants.hi there. so, you don’t believe in infant baptism. you believe that like, people shouldcome of age; that they can make their own decision about salvation.other people: catholics, many protestants,

believe that it’s ok to baptize infants,or even that it’s good. i don’t feel like this disagreement shouldlead to disembowelment, and yet it did. the fascinating thing to me, anabaptists, is thatyou never had a state, you never had, like, widespread political say in any community.and yet, your brand of evangelical christianity managed to become incredibly important inworld history. in short, the bad news is that many of youare going to be executed. the good news is that your message will prove surprisinglyresilient stan, who did i even make that open letterfor? the anabaptists are amish now. they’re not watching this. i guess some of them aremennonites. i made it for you mennonites!

ok, so with all these new denominations, therewere years of religious mayhem. clergy preached radical new ideas, and thenother people interpreted them in even more radical ways. people, especially young people,smashed up churches because the bible says no graven images.what started as a doctrinal dispute turned into a social revolt, and in 1525, germanpeasants took up luther’s ideas to give voice to longstanding grievances against landlordsand clergymen. in their most famous revolutionary proclamation,the twelve articles, the peasants echoed luther’s language, proclaiming that serfdom was inventedby men, with no basis in scripture. the peasants rebelled, refused to pay taxes,pillaged church lands, and raised an army

estimated at 300,000 people.and luther was like yes free souls sovereign at last. no, just kidding, he wasn't.luther chose the elite, and said that “christian liberty” was a spiritual concept, not meantto promote equality or freedom in like, the physical world. he then urgedthe faithful to “smite, slay and stab” rebels and kill them like mad dogs.he also gave up his idea that congregations should elect their own ministers and arguedthat kings and princes were put in place by god as caretakers of the church. and thatturned out to be the winning side. for a few hundred years, anyway. the germanpeasants’ revolt, the biggest revolutionary uprising in europe before the french revolution,was suppressed with crushing brutality; an

estimated 100,000 people were killed.so luther chose the princes, in the name of stability and success, but why would princeschoose lutheranism, when the holy roman emperor had forbidden it?let’s look at one example: the first actual ruler who broke with the pope: the heroic,frequently divorced, founder of anglicanism, king henry viii of england... what’s thatstan? apparently it was not king henry viii. it was grand master albert of the teutonicorder of monks, crusaders who’d come to rule parts of what is now poland.so many teutonic knights individually left the order for lutheranism because they likedthe theology. albert started by reading lutheran tracts and he became a fan, allowing lutheranpreachers into his cities, and even traveliing

to meet with luther in person.on luther’s advice, grand master albert dissolved the teutonic state, and foundedinstead the dougy of prussia. i guess that was a country where they all danced the dougie?oh, it’s the douchey of prussia. stan informs me that it is neither the dougynor the douchey of prussia, but the duchy of prussia. anyway, albert established a lutheranchurch there—the first lutheran state church. but it’s unlikely that albert was reallymotivated by a desire to purge the church of corruption. i mean, at the time of hisdecision, the grand master had been in trouble; he was losing a territorial battles againstthe rest of poland and he was running out of money.by breaking with the church, albert was able

to seize the church assets within his territorywhich bolstered his military might and then allowed him to settle the war favorably.in another major plus, now that he was a duke instead of a grand master monk, he couldget married and produce heirs… which he did, founding the house of hohenzollern,destined to unify and rule the german empire a few centuries later.and this points to a huge incentive for princes and kings to break with the pope.what if instead of the church having all of that money and power, i could have it?those are like the two favorite things of monarchs, and protestantism allowed them toconfiscate church land and other wealth, collect church taxes, and use church land for themselves.why is the queen the largest landowner in

england? because the protestant reformation.that said, we shouldn’t minimize the extent to which the reformation really was aboutbelief. i mean, catholics truly believed that protestants were heretics, and protestantstruly believed that the pope and his hierarchy were impostors.if it were only about land and influence, how could we explain the case of saxon electorjohn frederick, for instance? when defeated and imprisoned by his catholicemperor, frederick was given the choice between his lands and his faith. he chose his faith.and then there were the catholics like sir thomas more, who would not sanction henryviii’s break with the pope, and chose execution over sacrilege.so in the end the reformation was both a religious

movement and a political one.now, many argue that the reformation eventually led to more religious toleration in europe,because people just had to learn to live with each other, once they had a bunch of warsand figured out that there were going to be both catholics and protestants moving forward.there were other effects of the protestant revolution. max weber famously called it thefoundation of european capitalism. but for me the most crucial aspect of theprotestant reformation is contained inside the words: protest and reform.these have become two of the central political ideas in recent centuries, and while religionhas justifiably been blamed for much violence and intolerance, we should also remember thatmany of the leaders of the american civil

rights movement, for instance, were protestantclergy. and they saw a history of protest that could fuel real and lasting reform, that includedpeople like gandhi and thoreau, but also people like martin luther. thanks for watching, i’llsee you next week. crash course is filmed here in the chad andstacey emigholz studio in indianapolis. it's made with the help of all of these nice people.and it exists because of your support at subbable.com, an amazing voluntary subscription servicewhere you can get great perks and support crash course directly so we can keep it freefor everyone forever. now that i said all of that over there, ireally have nothing to say over here so thank you for watching, and as we say in my hometown,“don’t forget to be awesome.”