How Did Martin Luther Influence The Protestant Reformation
Martin Luther: Leader of the Protestant Reformation
HIST 101
American Military University
Kristin Sawicki
The Protestant Reformation began in Wittenberg Germany in October of 1517 with Martin Luther who was a German Augustinian Monk. Martin Luther criticized the Roman Catholic Church feeling the church had lost its way and openly accused them of corruption and false teachings by posting a document he authored called the “95 Theses”. Martin Luther was the first to stand up to the Catholic Church and singlehandedly set Protestantism in motion and paved the way for others such as Philipp Melanchthon and John Calvin who also left the Catholic Church in 1530 and also later openly criticized the Catholic church for their corruption as well.
The Protestant Reformation was a movement aimed at calling attention to the Roman Catholic Church practices and doctrine …show more content…
at the time. Specifically there were two main ideas: The first idea being that the Bible instead of the Church and its leadership should be the only source of spiritually authority. In other words, that the word written in the bible should be followed rather than the words of the Pope or other church leadership. Second, and more importantly - that the practice of selling of indulgences or paying for sins was a corrupt practice by the Catholic Church ("The Reformation," 2009). At the time the church was allowing people to purchase salvation. Wealthy people could purchase forgiveness for both themselves or friends and family. Also, they could pay ahead and create a bank of good deeds to offset any sin they might commit in the future. This was used by the Catholic Church as a way to raise money. This sale of indulgences was in large part the reason Martin Luther was successful in his challenging the authority of the church (Ekelund, Hébert, & Tollison, 2002).
Martin Luther was a highly educated man who had been in Law School prior to becoming a monk and continued his studies even afterwards earning multiple advanced degrees (McKim, 2003). By all accounts he was very devout and dedicated to his monastic life, but in 1516 the Roman Catholic Church began raising money for rebuilding St. Peter’s Basica church in Rome. To raise money they were selling these “indulgences”. This was the final straw and what sparked Martin Luther to pen his document “The Ninety-Five Theses”. His argument came down to this: Only God can grant forgiveness, not the church or the Pope, and that purchasing indulgences would not grant salvation, or save anyone from God’s wrath or punishment. Martin Luther believed that the church knew this, and his document was an open challenge for debate (McKim, 2003). In fact one of the points in the document states "Why does not the Pope, whose wealth is today greater than the riches of the richest, build just this one church of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the money of poor believers?" (Luther, Jacobs, & Spaeth, 1915).
But it wasn’t simply the concept of purchasing the indulgences, the issues were deeper than that. With these sales of indulgences, the Catholic Church used variable prices depending on the wealth or the ability to pay of the “sinner”. Sometimes the church would initially extract a low price for a sin, only to later raise the price of the sin. Worse was that deterrence of sinful activities was not necessarily the goal for the Catholic Church. If the parishioners were to abstain from behavior that required purchase of indulgences, the church would lose revenue, therefore raising or lowering the prices was necessary (Ekelund, Hébert, & Tollison, 2002).
In October of 1517 Martin Luther approached the steps of the Catholic Church in Wittenburg Germany and posted his document for all to see. It was later translated and widely disseminated. The Roman Catholic Church saw the document and Martin Luther as a threat and attempted to convince him to retract his document (McKim, 2003).
After years of being unable to convince Martin Luther to abandon his cause, he was ultimately summoned to the town of Rhine in April of 1521 where he was to appear before the Holy Roman Empire and answer for his document “The Ninety Five Theses” as well as other similar writings. At that assembly Martin Luther refused to recant any writings or statements and was later labeled a heretic by the church. Furthermore the church banned his literature, and wanted him arrested and punished. The church ruling made it a crime in Germany for anyone to aid Martin Luther in evading the authorities, and permitted anyone to kill him without fear of consequence. Fortunately Martin Luther had friends and supporters in high places. He was being protected by Fredric III - Elector of Saxony which meant Frederick was wealthy, powerful and had a very prestigious title (McKim, 2003).
After being excommunicated from the Catholic Church, Martin Luther went into hiding for a short time and started a project which took him many years to complete. He set to translating the bible from Greek to German. His basic goal was to make the bible more accessible to common people and to remove the difficulties or hindrances than many people faced when studying scripture. Martin Luther continued using the press to further his cause and continued to attack the practices of the Catholic Church. After less than a year in hiding Martin Luther returned to Wittenburg where he had originally posted his ninety-five theses document and began to preach again. Over the next several years, there were violence and revolts against the church, but Martin Luther was against any violence in order to enact change (McKim, 2003).
Eventually Martin Luther set about to forming his own church that was set up very similarly to the Catholic Church, just less oppressive. The new church became known as Lutheranism and has evolved to be known as the Lutheran church today.
People don’t think of Martin Luther as a leader due to his religious affiliation.
However Martin Luther was steadfast in his beliefs and appeared to be quite brave in the face of the very powerful and oppressive Roman Catholic Church. He was quite educated, and though he was very critical and confrontation in his written and spoken words, he was nonetheless peaceful in his actions. His words and works brought about significant change. Depending on religious points of view, some may agree and others disagree with Martin Luther and his specific teachings. However, one thing that few if any would disagree with is that Martin Luther changed the world he lived in for what he believed to be the better. He stood up for his belief system and tirelessly worked toward a goal of change and reform. He had the courage to stand in the face of an empire – one in which he was a part of and put down his foot and say “this isn’t right” and then go on to make things different. In the end that is exactly what being a leader is all
about.
References
Ekelund, J. R., Hébert, R. F., & Tollison, R. D. (2002). An Economic Analysis of the Protestant Reformation. Journal of Political Economy, 110(3), 646-671. doi: 10.1086/339721
H. (2009). The Reformation. Retrieved August 09, 2014, from http://www.history.com/topics/reformation
Luther, M., Jacobs, H. E., & Spaeth, A. (1915). Works of Martin Luther, with introductions and notes (Vol. 1, pp. 29-38). Philadelphia: A.J. Holman Company.
McKim, D. K. (2003). Part I & II Luther 's Life and Context. In The Cambridge companion to Martin Luther (pp. 3-207). Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
HIST 101
American Military University
Kristin Sawicki
The Protestant Reformation began in Wittenberg Germany in October of 1517 with Martin Luther who was a German Augustinian Monk. Martin Luther criticized the Roman Catholic Church feeling the church had lost its way and openly accused them of corruption and false teachings by posting a document he authored called the “95 Theses”. Martin Luther was the first to stand up to the Catholic Church and singlehandedly set Protestantism in motion and paved the way for others such as Philipp Melanchthon and John Calvin who also left the Catholic Church in 1530 and also later openly criticized the Catholic church for their corruption as well.
The Protestant Reformation was a movement aimed at calling attention to the Roman Catholic Church practices and doctrine …show more content…
at the time. Specifically there were two main ideas: The first idea being that the Bible instead of the Church and its leadership should be the only source of spiritually authority. In other words, that the word written in the bible should be followed rather than the words of the Pope or other church leadership. Second, and more importantly - that the practice of selling of indulgences or paying for sins was a corrupt practice by the Catholic Church ("The Reformation," 2009). At the time the church was allowing people to purchase salvation. Wealthy people could purchase forgiveness for both themselves or friends and family. Also, they could pay ahead and create a bank of good deeds to offset any sin they might commit in the future. This was used by the Catholic Church as a way to raise money. This sale of indulgences was in large part the reason Martin Luther was successful in his challenging the authority of the church (Ekelund, Hébert, & Tollison, 2002).
Martin Luther was a highly educated man who had been in Law School prior to becoming a monk and continued his studies even afterwards earning multiple advanced degrees (McKim, 2003). By all accounts he was very devout and dedicated to his monastic life, but in 1516 the Roman Catholic Church began raising money for rebuilding St. Peter’s Basica church in Rome. To raise money they were selling these “indulgences”. This was the final straw and what sparked Martin Luther to pen his document “The Ninety-Five Theses”. His argument came down to this: Only God can grant forgiveness, not the church or the Pope, and that purchasing indulgences would not grant salvation, or save anyone from God’s wrath or punishment. Martin Luther believed that the church knew this, and his document was an open challenge for debate (McKim, 2003). In fact one of the points in the document states "Why does not the Pope, whose wealth is today greater than the riches of the richest, build just this one church of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the money of poor believers?" (Luther, Jacobs, & Spaeth, 1915).
But it wasn’t simply the concept of purchasing the indulgences, the issues were deeper than that. With these sales of indulgences, the Catholic Church used variable prices depending on the wealth or the ability to pay of the “sinner”. Sometimes the church would initially extract a low price for a sin, only to later raise the price of the sin. Worse was that deterrence of sinful activities was not necessarily the goal for the Catholic Church. If the parishioners were to abstain from behavior that required purchase of indulgences, the church would lose revenue, therefore raising or lowering the prices was necessary (Ekelund, Hébert, & Tollison, 2002).
In October of 1517 Martin Luther approached the steps of the Catholic Church in Wittenburg Germany and posted his document for all to see. It was later translated and widely disseminated. The Roman Catholic Church saw the document and Martin Luther as a threat and attempted to convince him to retract his document (McKim, 2003).
After years of being unable to convince Martin Luther to abandon his cause, he was ultimately summoned to the town of Rhine in April of 1521 where he was to appear before the Holy Roman Empire and answer for his document “The Ninety Five Theses” as well as other similar writings. At that assembly Martin Luther refused to recant any writings or statements and was later labeled a heretic by the church. Furthermore the church banned his literature, and wanted him arrested and punished. The church ruling made it a crime in Germany for anyone to aid Martin Luther in evading the authorities, and permitted anyone to kill him without fear of consequence. Fortunately Martin Luther had friends and supporters in high places. He was being protected by Fredric III - Elector of Saxony which meant Frederick was wealthy, powerful and had a very prestigious title (McKim, 2003).
After being excommunicated from the Catholic Church, Martin Luther went into hiding for a short time and started a project which took him many years to complete. He set to translating the bible from Greek to German. His basic goal was to make the bible more accessible to common people and to remove the difficulties or hindrances than many people faced when studying scripture. Martin Luther continued using the press to further his cause and continued to attack the practices of the Catholic Church. After less than a year in hiding Martin Luther returned to Wittenburg where he had originally posted his ninety-five theses document and began to preach again. Over the next several years, there were violence and revolts against the church, but Martin Luther was against any violence in order to enact change (McKim, 2003).
Eventually Martin Luther set about to forming his own church that was set up very similarly to the Catholic Church, just less oppressive. The new church became known as Lutheranism and has evolved to be known as the Lutheran church today.
People don’t think of Martin Luther as a leader due to his religious affiliation.
However Martin Luther was steadfast in his beliefs and appeared to be quite brave in the face of the very powerful and oppressive Roman Catholic Church. He was quite educated, and though he was very critical and confrontation in his written and spoken words, he was nonetheless peaceful in his actions. His words and works brought about significant change. Depending on religious points of view, some may agree and others disagree with Martin Luther and his specific teachings. However, one thing that few if any would disagree with is that Martin Luther changed the world he lived in for what he believed to be the better. He stood up for his belief system and tirelessly worked toward a goal of change and reform. He had the courage to stand in the face of an empire – one in which he was a part of and put down his foot and say “this isn’t right” and then go on to make things different. In the end that is exactly what being a leader is all
about.
References
Ekelund, J. R., Hébert, R. F., & Tollison, R. D. (2002). An Economic Analysis of the Protestant Reformation. Journal of Political Economy, 110(3), 646-671. doi: 10.1086/339721
H. (2009). The Reformation. Retrieved August 09, 2014, from http://www.history.com/topics/reformation
Luther, M., Jacobs, H. E., & Spaeth, A. (1915). Works of Martin Luther, with introductions and notes (Vol. 1, pp. 29-38). Philadelphia: A.J. Holman Company.
McKim, D. K. (2003). Part I & II Luther 's Life and Context. In The Cambridge companion to Martin Luther (pp. 3-207). Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.