Christian humanism was an intellectual movement that lived between the end of the 1400s and the beginning of the 1500s in Northern Europe. This perspective combined interests in the Renaissance classics with early Christianity and the Gospel. The Lollards were Wycliff's group of followers. He advocated a reform of the papacy and the Catholic Church. He believed in basing the church on what the Bible says, so he didn't agree with sainthood or pilgrimages. Nepotism was a matter of bishops, priests and popes appointing family members to positions in the church and was one of the many causes of corruption in the Church. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay While stranded in a life-threatening storm, Luther promised God that he would become a monk if he survived. He survived and during his time at the monastery he realized that he did not believe that salvation was achieved through works, but only by the grace of God. He was inspired by Renaissance humanists such as Erasmus and Jan Wyclif who believed that the pope was not the final authority, but Jesus was. They were also adamant about translating the Bible into vernacular languages, so that the average man could educate himself. Martin Luther did not defend the Catholic Church, whose clergy sold indulgences as a way of salvation and general corruption of the Church. This fundamental disagreement, along with other conflicting views on the authority and administration of the Catholic Church, were what ultimately led Luther to tack his 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church; this was the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation. He preached on the priesthood of all believers, “sola fide e sola Scriptura” as the path to salvation which means “faith alone and Scripture alone”. He denied belief in transubstantiation and preached that the Eucharist did not transform into the flesh and blood of Christ, but that Christ was still physically present during communion. Zwingli was a prominent Swiss reformer who was minister of Zurich. He put an end to the relics, the icons and many of the things that Luther and Wyclif had denied in Zurich. His movement gained followers and they became the Zwinglians. Zwingli and Luther joined forces to gain the strength to oppose the Catholic Church. Zwingli however did not agree with Luther's belief of consubstantiation and believed that communion strictly served to remember and honor the death of Jesus. During the battle Zwingli was killed and his movement died, but from him came the Anabaptists, who they focused primarily on his view of adult baptism. Anabaptism branched off from Zwinglism and began a movement that discouraged infant baptism and encouraged baptism among people who made the decision to follow Christ. Over the centuries this group produced the Amish and Mennonite people. John Calvin, the man named the true founder of the Protestant church, followed in Martin Luther's footsteps in the 1600s when he broke away from the Catholic Church, moved to Switzerland, and started the Calvinist movement. He broke away from the Catholic Church because he believed in justification by faith, similar to Luther, but he also strongly believed in predestination and other non-Catholic ideas such as the limitation of papal power and the number of sacraments. Calvin moved to Geneva where he tested his ideas and brought them to life in the city. The church has played all the roles that the government would normally play. Calvinism spread to France, England, the Netherlands, Scotland, parts of North Africa, and largely replaced Lutheranism except in countries such as Germany where the royals were still Lutheran. Calvinism encouraged”.