{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Reformation before the Reformation","title":"Season 9 - The Reformation before the Reformation - Season Opener","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2675,"description":"On 31st of October 1517 a hitherto unknown professor at the smallish university of Wittenberg published 95 theses. And by doing so, he unleashed a sequence of events that would fundamentally change the face of Europe and still defines communities and nations.\nThe interesting question about the 95 theses is not why Luther rote them, but why they had any impact at all. Martin Luther stands at the end of a mile long queue of learned and sometimes less learned men who railed against the decadence of the church, called for a return to the actual text of the bible and demanded that the clergy lives like the apostles. But somehow the message on that fateful day in 1517 gained traction across the Christian world in a way no previous attempt had.\nWhy? That is a question I believe will be the guiding line through the coming seasons. Something about the social, political, cultural, religious and economic landscape of early modern Germany must have provided the cinder on which protestant ideas could catch fire.\nYou will now ask, why is Dirk talking about the Reformation. The last season ended on the 14th century, a good 150 years before “the day that changed western Christianity”. Aren’t we supposed to go through this chronologically.\nOh yes we are. But as we are moving forward at our accustomed pace we will hit the Hussite revolt that started in 1415. This religious uprising has so many common threads with Luther’s reformation, it may be seen as a dress rehearsal for the actual Reformation. Luther himself declared in 1519 “Ich bin ein Hussite” I am a Hussite.\nSpoiler alert, the Hussite revolt did not lead to the fraction of the catholic church, but that makes it even more interesting. What were the circumstances that led the people of Bohemia and many other parts of the empire to take up arms to defend their convictions, how come they were successful and by what means could a reconciliation be achieved? Knowing that will help us understand why a 150 years later such a...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/s9-kQ7sMyuIP0jX2zDYHCH_bwAHi4JDbSHdSLqn7aIE/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8yYTg4/YzJjMGNmNjY2ZTU4/NTAzODc0M2VmMjU0/ODhmMy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}