The Process of Reformation--by Linden Malki

                        Martin Luther's challenge to the church in 1517 was the match that set off a movement that had been brewing for several centuries in Europe.  One of the first preachers we know of who challenged practices and the authority of the Roman Church was Peter Waldo, in Lyons,  France, who also translated the Bible into the common dialect of  the south of France. He was excommunicated by the Church in 1184, and his teachings condemned in 1215. His followers fled into the mountains of northern Italy.  At about the same time, in England, the Archbishop of the church in England was murdered in his own cathedral in a power struggle with King Henry II. In England, John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English in 1384, which was illegal, and his preaching influenced a Czech priest, Jan Hus, who was burned at the stake by a church council in 1415. His followers became the Moravian church, which still exists. There were others with the same concerns about the sale of indulgences and corruption within the Church organization, who were emboldened by Luther's preaching, in a number of places in Europe, and challenged the authority of Rome. By the end of the century, there were Lutheran churches in Germany, and the Scandinavian countries, who, like the Church of England*,  had similar worship and organization to the Catholic tradition, but with a relationship with their ruling powers but without a relationship to Rome and theology based on their own teachings; there were Reformed churches in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Scotland, who had their own churches without priests and ruled by ministers and laypeople but recognized and shared power with  political authorities.

            The third wing of the Reformation was a number of "free churches" with no central authority, no set rituals, and no political relationships, with the primary distinction of stressing "believers' baptism"--baptism, usually by immersion, of only those who expressed a commitment to the Gospel. This was extremely controversial, because even the other Protestant churches baptised all babies and expected the entire community to be part of the church.  The idea of a church comprised only of baptised self-expressed believers was scary to a lot of politicans and other churches.  The result was voluntary groups of churches that shared a belief in believers' baptism, separation of church and state, and the "priesthood of all believers", which means that all Chrisian believers have the privilege of direct communication with the Father, Son, and Spirit, without any other human beings in the loop.  The major surviving churches of this type include the Mennonites, Amish, and the various Baptist churches. Most of the churches that have developed in the last 200 years--Pentacostals and independent churches--also share these basic principles in addition to the common Reformation principles that go back to the 1500's: Sola Scriptura: the belief that the Scripture alone is the final and only infallible source for matters of faith and practice; Sola Fide: the belief that salvation comes through faith alone; we cannot "earn" it; Sola Gratia:the grace of God alone is the source of salvation; Sola Christus: Christ is the only mediator between God and man; and Sola Deo Gloria: Christians are to be motivated and inspired by God's glory and not their own.

  "The Baptists" by Baron Gustaf Cederstrom was inspired by a baptismal service on Midsummer Night in  1886 in Sweden.

 *notes on the English Reformation

I have heard it said that the only reason for the Reformation was that Henry VIII of England wanted a divorce. It is true that he did, and that it was a factor in the Reformation in England (but nowhere else), but the issue of the divorce came up in 1527, ten years after Luther's original posting of his Theses, and the upheaval was in full bloom by this time. 

There had long been issues between the Church in England, the Vatican in Rome, and the English royal family. There were already an English translation of the New Testament, inspired by Luther's German translation, published by William Tyndale, in 1526.  There was already controversy in England on many of the same issues that were on the table on the Continent, but the political meddling of Rome in English politics and the taxes demanded from England were issues as well, and there were English church officials ready for independence from Rome.   The legal declaration of the independence, declaring that the Head of the Church in England was the King of England in 1534, was the first step in a continuing dispute  that involved two queens, two kings, a Puritan Commonwealth, and two more kings, which was not settled until 1688.