Challenges to the Roman Catholic Church by Christians Prior to Martin Luther

The first Christians who challenged the doctrines of the Catholic Church had already pleaded their cases long before Martin Luther, the acclaimed founding father of Protestantism, ultimately broke away from the Catholic Church. Prior to the Reformation and official formation of Protestantism, many philosophers, theologians, and logicians who led the inquiry for greater knowledge and education, spoke out against the doctrines of the Catholic Church. Peter Abelard, John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, and Peter Waldo were all great masterminds of the Middle Ages who contributed to the fall of the domineering Catholic Church and the rise of Protestantism. Although they were deemed as heretics, they set precedents for future reformers and gave cultural importance to their new beliefs and ideas.

The spiritual reform that was known as the Waldensian movement was led by a wealthy merchant and a self-taught theologian named Peter Waldo. According to HubPages, Waldo "experienced a religious epiphany that drove him to take a vow of poverty and to preach the gospel" (Who was Peter Waldo?). Shortly after his religious epiphany in 1170, Waldo renounced all worldly possessions in a form of asceticism, and began his journey to become the ideal Christian (Peter Waldo. World History in Context). Waldo helped to translate the first vernacular Bible in Europe, stressed personal interpretation of the Bible, believed in the Holy Trinity and the resurrection, and rejected the original Catholic beliefs in purgatory and papal supremacy (Infoplease). His own belief in expressing his thoughts led to his condemnation at the Third Lateran Council of 1179 and his excommunication in 1184 (Christian History Institute). Waldo retreated to the remote areas of the Alps in ...

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