Religion and Theology

Throughout history, many of the major world religions have undergone radical reformations and changes in beliefs that alter the religious practices and customs of the former older religion for each of the major world religions. The key drivers that initiate these radical changes are reform movements that are formed mainly after differing with the parent religion over some of the religious practices for each of the world faiths. The process of reforms in major world religions has continued even to the present leading to formation of many subgroups and pseodoreligions that are different from the parent religion. In Christianity, the major religion movement that had a major impact in the church was the Christian reform movement that began in 1517 by Martin Luther which was responsible for introduced protestant Christianity to the world (Vries, 26). It started after King differed with the catholic religion authorities over some doctrinal practices such as devotion to Mary, corruption in the church and Simony.

This movement ended the domination of the Catholic Church and contributed to establishment of many protestant churches a trend that has continued to the present. In Judaism, the Reform Movement in Judaism which exists even to today is the movement that has been responsible for establishment of pseudo Judaism groups that challenge traditional Jewish practices and introducing its new theological practices and customs that are based on the ideals of autonomy, universalism and modernity as opposed to the ancient parent Judaism. The movement has been responsible for introducing a radical form of Judaism that has spread across Europe and America. In the Buddhism religion, there have been several reform movements that have made the Buddhist religion to differ in practices across the nations in Asia (Vries, 31).The major one is the Santi Asoke Buddhist Reform Movement in Thailand that aims at developing a society that is not influenced by modernity issues like materialism and environmental pollution. The movement aims at growing a Buddhist community that retains the values of the parent Buddhist religion. In another Asian religion the Theravada Buddhism. The reform movement Mahayana. arose with its own interpretation of the ancient Buddhism and led to the development of the Theravada Buddhism which has spread in most of Asia.

The major similarity in the reform movements across most of the religions is that most of the movements arose due to differences in interpretations of the parent religion practices by the reformers. Another similarity in the reform movements in all the religions is that they faced and still face a lot of opposition from the parent religion supporters over the years with some of the clashes leading to even wars like the wars between European countries in the 18th century over the clash over Catholicism and protestant (Vries, 39). This trend has continued even to the present and there is always a clash between the reformers of the religion and traditionalists over their practices. The two opposing groups are always critical and in opposition of each other as   the traditionalists view the reformers as deviating from the ideals of the ideal religion while the reformers view the traditionalists as having religious practices that are questionable

The other similarity in the movement across the religions is that the movements have continued to mushroom in varying degrees for all the religions even to the present. This has led to rise of many versions of each of the above parent religion. However, there are some instances where the reformers and the traditionalists strike a common ground by sharing common religious practices for each of the four religions (Vries, 46).