The Radical Reformation was a 16th century response to what was believed to be the corruption in both the Roman Catholic Church and the expanding Magisterial Protestant movement led by Martin Luther and many others. Beginning in Germany and Switzerland, the Radical Reformation birthed many radical Protestant groups throughout Europe. The term covers both radical reformers like Thomas Müntzer, Andreas Karlstadt, groups like the Zwickau prophets and anabaptist groups like the Hutterites and the Mennonites.
Although the proportion of the European population that rebelled against Catholic, Lutheran and Zwinglian churches was tiny, the literature on the Radical Reformation is vast, partly as a result of the proliferation of the Radical Reformation teachings in the United States.
Read more about Radical Reformation: Characteristics, Radical Reformers, Early Forms of Anabaptism, Later Forms of Anabaptism, Other Movements
Famous quotes containing the words radical and/or reformation:
“When we dream about those who are long since forgotten or dead, it is a sign that we have undergone a radical transformation and that the ground on which we live has been completely dug up: then the dead rise up, and our antiquity becomes modernity.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Go on then in doing with your pen what in other times was done with the sword; shew that reformation is more practicable by operating on the mind than on the body of man.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)