Gutenberg Did It

Who was responsible for the 16th century Reformation in England? Johannes Gutenberg! Well not singlehandedly, of course, but the German entrepreneur and inventor certainly contributed substantially to the perfect storm of political, theological, and social factors that led to the Reformation. Gutenberg died February 3, 1468 and is remembered here for inventing the mechanical movable-type printing press. Gutenberg's 1450 invention was a powerful factor in the spread of information, making the Bible and the writings of Martin Luther and other reformers much more widely available. This, added to the reform movement of Wycliffe (and the Lollards) that earlier got the train rolling, the rise of Humanism that drove scholars back to the original sources (to the original original source: Erasmus’s Greek New Testament 1516), Tyndale translation in English (1526), the awful state of corruption in the church and the resulting anti-clerical cry for reform, Henry VIII’s need for a political solution to an inconvenient marriage and the consequent Church of England (1534), Martin Luther and the continental reformers making their influence known in influential English circles, the rise of nationalism and self-determined nations, and the Renaissance in general that encouraged individualism and the reasonable search for truth. All of this constituted the perfect storm for Reformation. It was an unstoppable force for recovering the Bible as our central authority, and the central teaching of Holy Scripture: salvation by grace through faith alone.