Reformation

Students will analyze the historical developments of the Reformation.

Students will also examine the following:

• the causes for the internal turmoil in and weakening of the Catholic Church.

• the theological ideas of the major figures during the Reformation (e.g. Desiderius Erasmus, Martin Luther, John Calvin, William Tyndale).

• Protestants’ new practices of church self-government and the influence of those practices on the development of democratic practices and ideas of federalism.

• the European regions that remained Catholic and those that became Protestant and how the division affected the distribution of religions in the New World.

• how the Counter-Reformation attempted to revitalized the Catholic Church.

• the impact of missionaries on Christianity and the diffusion of Christianity from Europe to other parts of the world.

• the Golden Age of cooperation between Jews and Muslims in medieval Spain that promoted creativity in art, literature, and science, including how that cooperation was terminated by the religious persecution of individuals and groups.