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.