Martin Luther
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
MARTIN LUTHER: THE RELUCTANT REVOLUTIONARY<br />
PROF. M. M. NINAN<br />
PREFACE<br />
The Protestant Reformation was the 16th-century religious, political, intellectual and cultural upheaval that arose<br />
in Europe, which redefined Christianity . The start of Protestant Reformation was not a planned procedure. It<br />
all started with a theologians attempt to discuss some beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church by the<br />
publication of <strong>Martin</strong> <strong>Luther</strong>’s “95 Theses” in 1517 , 500 years ago.<br />
<strong>Martin</strong> <strong>Luther</strong> (1483-1546) was an Augustinian monk and university lecturer in Wittenberg when he composed his<br />
“95 Theses,” which protested the pope’s sale of indulgences. Although he himself only wanted a reformation<br />
within the church, the challenge was taken seriously by the Papacy as a challenge on its authority. <strong>Luther</strong> was<br />
forced into the revolution and he led it with courage. There was no going back possible. “Here I stand, God help<br />
me” was his cry.<br />
He was excommunicated in 1521 in the Diet of Worms. Sheltered by Friedrich, elector of Saxony, <strong>Luther</strong><br />
translated the Bible into German and a real intellectual, cultural and political war broke out and spread like wild<br />
fire all over Europe.and even beyond it . Its ending can be placed anywhere from the 1555 Peace of Augsburg,<br />
which allowed for the coexistence of Catholicism and <strong>Luther</strong>anism in Germany, to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia,<br />
which ended the Thirty Years’ War. It was all made possible by the invention of the printing press and its power of<br />
mass communication..<br />
When German peasants, inspired in part by <strong>Luther</strong>’s empowering “priesthood of all believers,” revolted in 1524,<br />
<strong>Luther</strong> sided with Germany’s princes ordering a massacre of over 1000,000 rebelling peasants based on his<br />
“Doctrine of Two Kingdoms”. He also developed strong anti-semiticism based on his “Dopctrine of<br />
Spercessionalism.” which became the heritage of the Nazism. By the Reformation’s end, <strong>Luther</strong>anism had<br />
become the state religion throughout much of Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltics.<br />
Prof. M. M.Ninan<br />
Normal, IL<br />
August 2017