This is the third post in a five-part series titled 25 Influential figures in Church History.
Christianity wouldn’t be what it is if not for several men who labored faithfully to lay the foundation and build the pillars of the Church. To remember and appreciate their legacy, I have compiled a list of twenty-five men whose works still influence us today. This list is neither exhaustive nor comprehensive, so I encourage you to check out the sources in the footnotes for more information.
Onward we go with the agents of the Protestant Reformation!
Agents of the Protestant Reformation (AD 1300 – 1600)
From the death of the Church Fathers to the middle ages, Christianity went through many changes. The most notable one was the formal separation of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the rise of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Roman Catholic Church was teaching new doctrines like the transubstantiation of Christ, purgatory, justification by works, and indulgences. They believed their authority was on par with the Holy Scriptures because of the apostolic succession— a claim that all the popes could be traced back in an unbroken succession to Peter.
However, many people protested the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and its teachings. And this protestation eventually led to the reformation in 1517.
Here are a few of the protestants.
13. John Wycliffe 1330 – 1384
John Wycliffe was an English theologian, Oxford professor, and scholar. Although he lived and died a hundred years before the official start of the protestant reformation, he played a significant role, and he is one of its forerunners.
Wycliffe was a student of the Word and believed many teachings of the Roman Catholic Church did not align with Scriptures. He was especially against the Church’s monopoly of Scriptures and thought all Christians should have a copy of the sacred text in their mother tongue. (At the time, The Roman Catholic Church only authorized texts in Latin, and very few people could read it.)
Although the Roman Catholic Church vehemently opposed it, Wycliffe decided to translate the Bible in English. With the help of his followers called the Lollards, he began translating the Latin Vulgate into English. However, Wycliffe died before it was complete. The Council of Constance posthumously charged him with heresy. They dug out his bones from the holy ground, burned them, and scattered the ashes in a river.
One of Wycliffe’s followers named John Hus continued promoting Wycliffe’s idea of making the Bible accessible to everyone. He even encouraged people to rebel against the tyranny of the Roman Catholic Church. Consequently, the Church burned Hus at the stake, and they used Wycliffe’s manuscript Bibles to kindle the fire.
According to tradition, Hus last words were “in 100 years; God will raise up a man whose calls for reform cannot be suppressed.” 1
Almost a hundred years later, Martin Luther began the Protestant reformation.
14. Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Germany. When he was thirteen, Luther became interested in monastic life. However, his father, Hans, wanted him to be a lawyer. So Luther attended the University of Erfurt, where he obtained his master’s degree.
One day in 1505, a bolt of lightning nearly struck Luther and knocked him to the ground. He called Saint Anne for help and vowed to become a monk should he survived the storm. Luther survived and made good on his vow. He quit his law studies and moved into an Augustinian monastery.
While there, Luther became the exemplary monk. He once said, “if ever a monk got to heaven by his monkery, it was I.”2
Despite his good behavior, Luther was not at rest. As a lawyer, he understood the demand of God’s law, was afraid of his wrath, and did not know how he could escape it. But one day, as he read the epistle of Romans, God opened his eyes, and he understood the gospel for the first time. Romans 1:17 notably marked him, and it became the battle cry of the reformation.
After His spiritual breakthrough, Luther began to question some practices of the Roman Catholic Church that didn’t align with Scriptures. Most significantly, the sale of indulgences.
Indulgences are “the remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sin whose guilt has already been forgiven.”3 The Catholic Church affirmed that there was a place between heaven and hell called purgatory. And people could go there to purge their sins so they could go to heaven. One way of doing that was by giving a certain amount of money to the Church.
Luthe opposed this idea and said, “this is wrong! You can’t buy your way nor your loved one’s way to heaven.”
So on October 31st, 1517, he posted 95 theses addressing his concerns on the door of the All Saints Church at Wittenberg. Luther was only seeking to open a debate about the subject. But his arguments quickly spread throughout Germany and eventually reached Rome. It caused considerable controversy and quickly became about the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.
Consequently, they had Luther appear before an assembly in Germany to recant his views in 1521.
But Luther said, “Unless I am convicted by Scriptures and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. I can do no other. God, help me! Amen.” 4
This response did not please the Church, and they excommunicated Luther. He fled before being charged with heresy and hid in Eisenach, Germany. And while there, he wrote the German translation of the Bible.
In 1525, Luther married Katharina von Bora, who was a former nun, and together they had six children. Luther spent the remainder of his life teaching and writing. He also wrote numerous hymns, including a Church favorite “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”
He died in 1546.
Martin Luther remains one of the most influential figures in Church history. His beliefs and teachings on the authority of Scriptures and salvation by faith helped turn thee Church from darkness to light.
15. William Tyndale (1494 – 1536)
William Tyndale was a scholar, Bible translator, and reformer from Gloucester, England. He is most famously known for translating the Bible into the English language.
Tyndale was influenced by the works of John Wycliffe, Erasmus—a Dutch theologian who produced printed copies of the New Testament in Greek, and Martin Luther. Like them, Tyndale also believed the Bible was the final authority in the believer’s lives and hence should be accessible to the ordinary people in their language.
So in 1523, Tyndale sought permission from the Bishop of London to translate the Bible in English. However, his request was denied. Since Tyndale couldn’t find favorable support in England, he moved to the free European cities of Hamburg, Wittenberg, Cologne, and Hamburg. And in July 1525, Tyndale translated the Greek New Testament into English. He then printed six thousand copies and smuggled them to England. But it did not receive universal acclaim.
The Church of England and the English crown were furious at Tyndale’s translation. Bishop Tunstall preached against it and publicly burned copies, while the Archbishop of Canterbury tried to buy all the texts to burn them.
As a result, Tyndale continued to hide from the King of England (Henry VIII) and moved to Antwerp. And while there, he revised the New Testament translation and began translating the Old Testament in English. But a betrayal prevented Tyndale from finishing his work.
A man named Henry Phillips feigned friendship with Tyndale and turned him over to the authorities in 1535. Tyndale was imprisoned for a year and a half before being charged as a heretic. He was strangled and burned alive on October 6th, 1536.
His last words were, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!”
God answered his last prayer. Three years later, King Henry VIII required every church in England to have an English Bible and to make one available to every parishioner.
Tyndale’s work greatly influenced future English translations of the Bible. The KJV is about 90 percent similar to Tyndale’s version.
16. John Calvin (1509 – 1564)
John Calvin, born Jean Calvin was a French theologian, pastor, and leader of the reformation. His teachings and works, chiefly the Institutes of Christian Religion, played a significant role during the reformation and still influences many Christians today.
Calvin grew up in a devout Roman Catholic family, and his father initially wanted Calvin to become a priest. So Calvin attended the University of Paris in 1523 to prepare for his priesthood. But then Calvin’s father changed his mind and decided that his son would become a lawyer.
So in 1528, Calvin moved to Orleans to study civil law. During his studies, Calvin became exposed to Renaissance Humanism—a movement that sought to reform the Church through a study of the Bible in its original language. This movement encouraged Calvin to study Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and it deepened his interest in classic Literature. By 1532, he finished his studies and published his first book, which was a commentary on Seneca’s DeClementia.
A year later, Calvin had to flee Paris because of his association with the reform movement and found refuge in Basel. And it was there that he fully turned from Roman Catholicism to Protestantism and began to work on The Institutes, which is a theological defense of the reformation.
The first edition was published in 1536 and became an instant hit. It made Calvin so famous that when he was passing through Geneva while fleeing France, a William Farel, convinced him to stay and teach though he wasn’t a priest. Calvin agreed, and they both started making changes in the local church that was not universally popular. And by 1538, they were removed from Geneva.
Calvin went on to preach in Strasbourg, where he had a happy and peaceful stay. He spent a lot of time writing and revising the Institutes, which he expanded from six chapters to four books.
But in 1541, the city of Geneva invited him to return. And Calvin agreed to return but with a heavy heart. He spent the remainder of his life there and overworked himself with preaching, teaching, and writing. When people urged him to rest, he replied, “What? Would you have the Lord find me idle when He comes?”
An illness eventually got the best of him, and he died in 1564.
John Calvin remains one of the most influential theologians in history. His works had so much impact that his system of theology was named after him.
Grace and peace to you!
