Protestant Reformation Essay, Research Paper
In the 16th century the Protestant Reformation divided the Roman Catholic
Church. This reform was led by Martin Luther whose original intentions
were to reform the church, but resulted in a split between Protestant and
Catholic. Soon the Protestant Church itself divided resulting in two more
churches, one Protestant, and the other reformed church. The Reformed
Church is better known as Presbyterian, whose conspicuous leader was John
Calvin.
John Calvin had many beliefs which had been adopted by the
Presbyterian Church. His ideas were modified from those in the Catholic
Church. Presbyterians do believe in the Trinity as Catholics do but
differ from Catholicism when dealing with ideas like original sin,
salvation, and the idea of penance. Presbyterians believe that original
sin is rooted in faithlessness which brought man to fall. The idea of
salvation to Presbyterians is that salvation is reached through the grace
of God, rooted in the deep faith of a person. Catholics believe in
penance for sins through reconciliation. Presbyterians believe that
penance is dealt with directly with God. Ultimately, Presbyterians
believe that God’s truth was and is embodied in Jesus Christ, Lord, and
Savior.
One of Calvin’s beliefs included that of which God is God of state
and nation and the state must be guided by his word. This idea is
embodied in the idea of civil government. The Presbyterian government was
originally formen when John Calvin was in Geneva. In a Presbyterian form
of government there are four different officers. There are pastors,
teachers, 12 elected elders, and deacons. The elders are seen to be equal
to the clergy. Through this government the Presbyterian belief in total
life of the community is displayed and put into practice.
The Presbyterian definition of a sacrament is an outward sign by
which the Lord represents and testifies his good will towards us. A
sacrament is a testimony of God’s grace. Presbyterians acknowledge two
sacraments. One is Baptism, and the other Eucharist. Baptism is a symbol
of cleansing, forgiveness of original sin permanetly, and makes us all
share in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It makes us one with
God. The sacrament of the Eucharist is a memory of Christ’s death and a
confession of faith. Through the Eucharist the community is united to God
and one another.
Presbyterians feel very strong about God being in their community.
Everyone is very close and loving. The church service is very relaxed and
laid back. There is not a lot of order or tradition. Current issues
<that the churches are having to deal with are homosexuals in the clergy
and also the rights of women. Presbyterians are similar to Catholics in
many ways, but different in others.
Voting is when a group of people makes a decision on a subject that
concerns them as a whole. In many countries, people vote to choose their
leaders and to decide public issues. People also vote to make decisions
in such groups as juries, labor unions, corporations, and social clubs.
There are many different ways of voting and counting votes. No single
voting method is either universally applicable or the best overall. Some
major voting methods are majority rules, plurality wins, elimination and
runoffs, sequential pairwise comparisons, various weighted or scoring
schemes, approval voting, and a host of various other partitioning schemes
that choose successively between subsets of potential outcomes. The three
ways of counting votes are Plurality, Condorcet, and Borda count.
In the Plurality method of voting, the candidate with the most votes wins.
It is not necessary to have the majority. Strategic or insincere voting
is not uncommon when a group knows the distribution of potential votes in
advance. Lets say there are 3 choices to vote on, a, b, and c. If c
knows that they have the least amount of votes, they will vote for the one
that they definitely do not want to win. Group c does not want a to win
so everyone votes for b so a doesn’t win over b. When everyone votes for
exactly who they want to win, that is called sincere voting. In order to
make sure that the ultimate decision receives a majority vote, it may be
necessary to resort to a runoff election, or to some other type of
sequential voting. This is a procedure that requires a majority vote at
each step. A candidate who wins over every other candidate in a head to
head ballot is called a condorcet winner. Many elections ask for a
preference schedule of everything. This is to a!
rrive at a final group rank ordering of all the contestants that best
express the desires of the electorate. You can also vote insincerely in
this method also by changing the order of your preference schedule.. A
Borda count assigns points in a descending manner to the way each voter
put the choices in order and sums them up to come up with the most popular
ranking. By changing the order of your choices, you can vote insincerely
if you know how others are voting.
It is very hard to get everyone to agree on subjects. That is why there
are so many different ways of voting. They are designed to be as fair as
possible, but with the way the math works, it sometimes is not.