How Did Martin Luther Influence The World

Ethan Preece
October 26, 2016

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was born on November 10th, 1483. He was baptised as a Catholic the next morning. His family moved to mansfield in 1484. His father got a job as a leaseholder of copper mines and smelters. His father was determined to see Martin Luther become a lawyer. Luther enrolled in law school but dropped out almost immediately because he described it as “hell”. He was deeply influenced by two of his tutors who taught him to test everything with experience and to challenge the knowledge of even the greatest thinkers. Martin Luther first came to faith while begging for his life in a severe thunderstorm. He prayed to God and said that if God spared his life and protected him that he would become a
monk. His father and friends tried to convince him to stick to his law studies. He entered the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt in 1505 and took his monks vow in 1506. In 1507, Luther was ordained as a priest in Erfurt and theology at the university. Martin Luther gave his life to the church and devoted his life to fasting, praying, and confession. He described this time period of his life as spiritual despair. He said, "I lost touch with Christ the Savior and Comforter, and made of him the jailer and hangman of my poor soul.". At this time there was only one denomination of the Church and that was Roman Catholic. Martin Luther was not trying to destroy the Roman Catholic Church or even start his own religion. All he wanted was for them to stop doing acts that he thought were Un-Christian. His main problem was that the church was selling Indulgences. Indulgences were a grant by the pope of remission of the temporal punishment in purgatory still due for sins after absolution. In other words Indulgences were like a get out of hell free card. Luther questioned whether the church had the authority to grant Indulgences. He believed that the only true path to salvation was through faithfulness to Christ and his teachings, not through the ideologies and dogmas of the Catholic church. Pope Leo the 10th wanted to rebuild Saint Peters basilica but didn’t want to spend his own wealth to do so, therefore they started selling indulgences for coin and telling people they were going to hell if they didn’t buy them. In Luther’s eyes, the church was selling salvation and he was not okay with that. Luther could read the bible (Many people couldn’t because the only translations were in latin and greek) and he saw nothing in it that allowed the church to charge people for their salvation. The Roman Catholic Church’s theology states that faith alone cannot justify man. The Roman Catholics believed that the justification of faith was shown by charity and good works and the benefits of good works could be obtained by donating money to the church. Martin Luther witnessed many peasants give up their life savings for an Indulgence and he was furious. He thought the church was supposed to be a spiritual sanctuary, not some marketplace to raise funds for Saint Peters basilica. So after this Luther wrote the 95 theses. The 95 theses were protests against clerical abuses, especially nepotism, simony, usury, pluralism, and the sale of indulgences. On October 31, 1517 Luther nailed the 95 theses to the door of the All Saints Church in Wittenburg. He also sent copies to the higher authorities of the Catholic Church. The posting of the 95 theses is considered the very beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Luther's 95 theses spread across the Europe so fast that within 2 months they were being read in cities across the continent, and within the next year they were translated into German. The Pope was not happy that his scam of indulgences was exposed so he has Luther accused of heresy. In 1520, the Pope wrote a letter to Luther in which he banned any further distribution of Luther’s 95 theses and demanded that Luther recant his works or face excommunication.
Facing excommunication would cause Luther to be cut off from the church and its sacraments. Threats of excommunication were a big deal because basically everybody believed that to get to heaven you needed sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. Since Luther believed that he didn’t need to pay for salvation, he did not care if he was excommunicated. Luther publicly burned the Pope's letter and broke all connections with the Roman Catholic Church. Martin Luther was summoned to a conference of religious leaders in Germany and they demanded him to recant his acts of heresy. Luther refused to recant his acts of heresy and he was condemned. The holy roman emperor Charles the fifth called for Luther's immediate arrest. Luther’s supporters would not let him be imprisoned so they locked him away in Wartburg castle. Luther spent his time in the castle writing letter attacking the Roman Catholic Church. He also translated the Bible into German and that would allow people other than priest to read it. He realized that as long as people couldn’t read the Bible they would fall for the deceptive lies of the Roman Catholic Church. Luther's supporters got ahold of his translation and
soon printing presses across Europe were printing it. All across Germany people began reading the bible and started challenging the Roman Catholic Church. Things began getting out of hand. When Luther returned to Wittenberg he found everyone revolting against the Roman Catholic Church. He kicked out these revolters because he didn’t believe that violence was the answer. He married Katharina Von Bora in 1523. Katharina Von Bora was one of the twelve nuns he helped escape from Nimbschen Cistercian Convent in 1523. At the time of their marriage Luther was 41 and Katharina was 26. Luther's marriage was set the approval for other clerical marriages. Luther's marriage surprised many because two years earlier he wrote "I shall never take a wife, as I feel at present. Not that I am insensible to my flesh or sex (for I am neither wood nor stone); but my mind is averse to wedlock because I daily expect the death of a heretic.". He wrote that statement to George Spalatin on November 30, 1524. Luther and his wife moved into an old monastery that was given to them as a gift by John the Steadfast. Luther then founded his own Lutheran Church in Wittenberg in 1526. Meanwhile the revolters spread across Germany burning down churches and libraries. They all claimed they were doing it in the name of Luther but Luther didn’t believe in the violence. Soon all of Europe was in religious warfare causing mass bloodshed. Protestants fought Catholics all over Europe. The Protestant Reformation was said to have killed 25%-40% of Germany’s population. The Protestant Reformation didn’t end until 1648 when Roman Catholic France allied itself with Protestants against the Habsburg dynasty. Martin Luther and The Protestant Reformation are the reason why we have other denominations of the church today. Without Martin Luther everyone would be catholic and would still be getting scammed by the church into buying indulgences. Martin Luther's translation of the bible into German is the reason why we have so many translations today.