John Calvin's 95 Thesis Summary

An essential piece in the second reformation was John Calvin’s, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, also known as John Calvin’s Institutes. These writings had a huge effect on how people came to see religion at the time and has also molded our ideas for religion to this day. To give a better picture it should be said that John Calvin had similar ideas to Martin Luther, in a sense he wanted to take religion back to a pure focus on faith and no outside forces. In fact in 1533 Calvin had what he called a, “sudden conversion,” which is when he first came across Martin Luther’s 95 Thesis. The 95 Thesis was written to make everyone aware of the Catholic church’s corruption and also to get people to see the way religion should truly be practiced.

And I undertook this labor especially for our French countrymen, very many of whom I knew to be hungering and thirsting for Christ; but I saw very few who had been duly imbued with even a slight knowledge of him.” In simpler terms he wanted everyone to be able to worship with equal opportunity. He wanted to make something understandable by common people as well because he believed that if you want to follow the religion there should be no factors to hold you back. Calvin knew that a lot of uneducated people didn’t have the access to information like the higher classes. He wanted to close education gaps like these, especially in religion. The Institutes can also be referred to as the “Principles of Christian Faith” This is because he laid out a systematic theology. He was the only reformer at the time to write out a in detailed description of protestantism. No one had formally written out the ideals of this new reformed theology, Calvin knew this was something that had to happen to make this new concept for religion happen. He was very devout and invested in his religion, so he was willing to take a lot of his time to get more people to understand the