Pantheism And The Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation The origin of religion can be traced back to the Ancient Near East. Religion itself is divided in three basic characteristics -monotheism, pantheism and polytheism. Thanks to these characteristics, many religions and different denominations appeared (“Origin of Religion”). Since around 330 C.E. monotheism was established as the dominant between them. The emergence of Catholicism and its monotheistic belief was supported by the Roman emperor Constantine I (Hunt 198-206). “The emergence of Christianity generated tension” and that tension re-grew after several decades (Hunt 199). Martin Luther, a German theologian, emerged as the leader of a ‘revolution’ against the Roman Catholic Church’s traditions. The Roman Catholic Church’s beliefs and traditions led to tension and disagreement of some scholars and leaders from around the world that eventually generated a ‘revolution’ to reform the church and its structure. In the early 16th century, a diversity of scholars started questioning the Catholic Church, but none of them did it like Martin Luther. Martin Luther was involved with the church since 1505 as an …show more content…
After Christopher Columbus and his crew landed in the American Indies, many other explorers and conquistadors landed in the new continent in search of goods and territory. This new territory was already occupied by the ‘Indians’, who had an already established society. Even though the conquistadors were predominantly Catholic, they got into a new religion, that which the ‘Indians’ were part of. Europeans did not join this religion, but now had knowledge about it. Taking all this new information back to Europe might have influenced how some people see religion. Although the Indians were polytheistic, they did not have to pay for their admission to heaven nor they were summoned by a higher religious authority (Hunt