ANSWERS: 1
  • Martin Luther began earlier, and as a priest at a church, attempted to reform the Catholic church -- but was soon ousted. So he established what became the Lutheran church in Germany. He was unwilling to completely break with Catholicism on some things, such as the meaning of the mass -- to him it was more than just a symbol, but actually became Christ's body (con-substantiation). He also contributed greatly to Church music, wrote many hymns which Germans sang to familiar secular tunes; Luther and Lutherans took the view that worship could include anything not expressly forbidden in the New Testament, and so Luther and his followers were open to instrumental music. John Calvin also came from Catholicism, but at some point converted to true Protestant Christianity, and left France due to persecution. He was headed elsewhere when he ended up in Geneva, Switzerland, and the leaders there persuaded him to stay. He ended up making the city of Geneva a Christian church-state government with strict laws for morality and godliness; any who came to Geneva and did not abide by their beliefs were executed, as in the case of Michael Servetus. Calvin and his church understood the mass as being symbolic -- a complete break from Catholicism and from Luther's hybrid view of trans-substantiation. In the area of music, Calvin and his followers took a different view, that only worship explicitly described in the New Testament was allowed -- and thus no instrumental music. Both Luther and Calvin wrote extensively, both held Calvinist views (later named for Calvin, but Luther believed the same) regarding election, limited atonement, pre-destination and so on. Both men created church-states like the Catholic system before them, for their own countries. Neither of them could understand the concept of separate church and state, and they both continued infant baptism. Hence, they persecuted the Anabaptists, who believed in believers' baptism and freedom of conscience, where church and state would be separate.

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