The Protestant Reformation and its historical significance

Martin Luther & Reformation

Introduction to Martin Luther & the Reformation

Martin Luther shook up the Christian world when he boldly challenged - and angered - the Roman Catholic Church, which ruled the political and spiritual lives of many citizens in Luther's time (1517). The reforms that Luther achieved changed the Christian world into Catholics and Protestants. The Reformation is considered one of the most important events in human history, because it challenged and changed a powerful, corrupt institution, and gave ordinary people a chance to worship in ways more suited to their own spirituality.

What were Martin Luther's motives as regards his decision to post his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral? Some very important things need to be reviewed and understood about Martin Luther. In his youth Martin Luther was had many conflicts and yet the young Luther was able to find a solution for those conflicts in the spiritual side of life.

In his mid-twenties, Luther was in choir practice in the monastery (where he was studying to be a monk even though his father wanted him to be a lawyer) and he fell suddenly to the ground. His behavior to some was like he was sort of possessed. The Latin translation of what Luther is said to have bellowed is "I am not!"

On July 2, 1505, while on his way back to college at Erfurt, he encountered a thunderstorm; and when lightning struck the ground near him he was apparently seized by a severe state of terror. "Help me, St. Anne, and I'll become a monk." This is another in the line of amazing things that may be thought of as spiritual awakenings in Luther.

Some theologians and historians believe that these things that happened to Luther may have been the work of God and gave him the spiritual power to reform the Roman Catholic Church. This is important because it may have given him the strength to fight with the Pope.

He later posted the 95 theses because Luther was angry at many things the Church was doing, such as selling "indulgences" as supposedly a way for people to get to heaven. But Luther saw this practice as wrong, He believed truly that the church was becoming corrupt, and that the selling of indulgences did not necessarily guarantee a person freedom and forgiveness from sins. Luther felt that Christianity was more about the inner, spiritual world of people, and he resented that the Catholic Church had made Christianity into a place of money and power, and corruption. The Archbishop Albert was in fact using money (indulgences) that the poor had given the church to pay off bribery debts. This made Luther mad and he saw a need to reform the church, and confront the church through the nailing of the theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg in 1517.

Question Two: What was the church's reaction and how did the 95 Theses become so widespread?

The fact that the printing press had been invented helped Luther's theses become read and understood by a lot of people around Europe. What made Luther's theses even more powerful was the fact that a lot of people also were angry with the way the Church was acting, and there was a nationalistic theme stirred up in what Luther had brought up against the piety and corruption of the Church. People who had no skills, and who worked with there hands and struggled to make a living, were crowding into the cities in hopes of finding a bit more food and a good place to live. Here these people were, hardly surviving, and yet the Church was asking them to give what little money they could so their sins would be forgiven. It made Luther angry that the Church was telling people that unless they paid their indulgences, they would be stuck in purgatory forever. This was a ploy, Luther thought, made up by greedy men who were hiding behind the masks of religion in order to take advantage of people.

But the printing of a long list of criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church, which was all-powerful, made the Church even more angry, and Luther was considered an iconoclast. By the time the Church charged him with heresy. He was brought before Cardinal Cajetan in Augsburg, and the Cardinal demanded he recant what he had written, and in effect, apologize. In 1519, Luther was asked to debate with theologian Johann Eck, and the Church kept demanding he recant, but he ran back to Wittenberg for safety, and his faculty sent a letter to the Papacy saying Luther would not return and be subject to prison of death. Pope Leo declared that 41 of the 95 articles in the theses were heretical teachings, and Luther's books were burned in public in Rome.

In 1520, Luther wrote his views on Christianity again, and accused the Pope of being the antichrist. Luther's main point was that the Holy Bible should be the power that people turn to, not the dogma of a corrupt Catholic Church. In 1521, Luther agreed to appear before the Diet of Worms, and Johann Eck showed Luther copies of Luther's writings and demanded Luther either recant or accept his punishment. Luther refused to back down. He told Eck, "Unless I shall be convinced by the testimonies of the Scriptures or by clear reason...I neither can nor will make any retraction, since it is neither safe nor honourable to act against conscience. God help me. Amen."