Martin Luther


Martin Luther
   Luther earned a doctorate in theology from the University of Wittenberg in the early 1500's. But instead of becoming a monk or a teacher, he began to develop his own personal theology, which erupted into outright blasphemy when he posted his "95 Theses." They outlined Luther's theological argument against the use of "indulgences," which were basically a money-grab for the Catholic Church. Granted by the pope, they forgave individual sinners not their sins, but the temporal punishment applied to those sins. These indulgences had become big business in much the same way pledge drives have become big business today for Christian cable TV stations.
   But Luther felt that Christianity is fundamentally a phenomenon of the inner world of human beings and had little or nothing to do with the outer world, which makes ideas like temporal punishments seem irrelevant (and, well, a money-grab). Which would have been fine if it hadn't cost the Catholic Church so much money.
   Luther wrote a letter to Pope Leo explaining the substance of his ideas, Von der Freiheit des Christenmenschen, "On the Freedom of the Christian." This work is the theological and ideological core of Luther's thinking; the fundamental term of value, that center around which every other aspect of his thought rotates, is the concept of Freiheit, "freedom," or "liberty." Luther wrote: "A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none, a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one." This is not our concept of freedom, but it will become politicized over time and give rise to the notion of "individual freedom," and later "political freedom," and later "economic freedom." The idea of "liberating" people, so common to the international politics today, comes out of Luther's idea of "freedom."
   In 1521, the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, demanded that Luther appear before the diet of the Holy Roman Empire at Worms. Luther was asked to explain his views and Charles ordered him to recant. Luther refused and he was excommunicated from the church—placed under an imperial ban as an outlaw. He managed to escape, however, and he was hidden away in a castle in Wartburg where he continued to develop a new church independent of the Catholics.
   Luther's ideas irreparably changed the world and pushed it into the modern era. He initially saw himself as a great reformer of the Catholic church, returning Christianity to its roots. But in reality, he divided Christianity into two separate churches. The second division, Protestantism, would divide many more times over the next four centuries. His “Lutheran” followers defied the Catholic Church, and began to spread his teachings. No area embraced Luther more than Hessen and the Palatinate. But the new converts were often persecuted because of their faith. In effect, this division of the church polarized Europe, and began a period of intense warfare between governments and ideologies.