The scene is dramatic: in 1517 young monk and professor, Dr. Martin Luther, stands barefoot in the snow, leaning against the wind to hold up a roll of parchment with one hand while driving nails into the wooden church door with the other. But today (2013) the small print on a brass plaque at the actual Schlosskirche site issues only a disclaimer, stating: “The historicity of the act is disputed.” Did the historic victory for freedom of conscience ever occur at all? Some scholars dispute it; others defend it based on near-contemporary evidence from Luther’s friends and confidants. Although it is known that Luther sent copies of his 95 complaints (or theses) to the Bishop of Mainz before October 31st, 1517, the modern debate over exactly when and where he made them public has revealed some unexpected turns.
Born to peasant parents in 1483, Luther had been an excellent and serious student of music and Latin, paving the way to his studies at the University in Erfurt. He was on track to study law and pursue a life of public service when he had the terrifying experience of being caught in a violent thunderstorm. He cried out to St. Anne for deliverance and vowed to become a monk if he survived. He did, and made good on that vow, much to the chagrin of his father and his close friends. Joining what was considered a particularly strict Augustinian monastery in 1505, nothing in his prior life would have led anyone to expect him to challenge the authority of the Pope . . . except his extraordinary piety and love of the Bible. He took the biblical injunctions against greed, acquisitiveness, and love of power to heart and was outraged by the corruption he saw in the church of his day. This outrage drove him to invite the Church’s bishops to debate him publically on ninety-five questions concerning the nature of salvation and the role of indulgences: The 95 Theses.
At first Luther hoped only to serve as a corrective voice, a goad to the church’s conscience that would prompt the church to inner reform. In particular, he wanted to see the church put an end to accepting money for religious services, a practice that had led to widespread corruption. What surprised him and drove him to greater and greater antipathy in his disillusionment was that many of the men entrusted with the spiritual leadership of the Church did not want to be challenged to reform. Cardinal Cajetan, who interrogated Luther in Augsburg in 1518, one year after the issue of the theses, began by showing real concern for Luther’s fidelity to the Bible, but became incensed by Luther’s refusal to submit to the Pope’s authority. Rather than reforming the suspect practices, the Pope ultimately denounced the would-be voice of conscience as “The damned heretic Martin Luther, son of Perdition.” Luther, who wrote so eloquently of grace, failed to give any grace when the Catholic Church rejected him. His view of the Pope eroded, changing from his “Blessed Father,” who Luther thought was a persuadable victim of bad counsel from corrupt courtiers, to being “The Anti-Christ in Rome.”
With this turn in his writings, Luther laid the groundwork for centuries of animosity and mistrust between the new Protestant Christians (called ‘Evangelicals’ in his day in Germany), and Catholic Christians. Several of his most important writings, the commentary On Good Works, On the Lord’s Prayer, The Freedom of the Christian, and Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation were issued during a period of intense conflict between November of 1517 and January of 1521, when he was finally excommunicated. The writings of this period show a relentless devotion to the message of salvation through the grace of God, a passionate concern for the spiritual welfare of the everyday man, and an increasingly uncompromising, almost dualistic view of the moral natures of the Reformers who were joining his cause and the Catholic authorities arrayed against them. The lasting good that came from this period is the establishment of freedom of conscience, an element in modern nation-states, while the enduring harm has been the readiness of each group to deny that very freedom to members of the other.
Lamentably Luther’s relationship with the Jews of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation followed a parallel course, so much so that Luther is now viewed by many as “the father of modern anti-Semitism.” His relationship with the Jews of the Holy Roman Empire did not begin with hostility, though. In 1523 he published a best-selling pamphlet entitled That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew, denouncing the degrading and cruel treatment of Jews by Christians in Europe. “If the Jews of the early church had treated us [pagans] the way that we treat the Jews today, no pagan would have ever become a Christian,” he wrote. He called for Christians to treat Jews with love and respect with the aim that they convert.
Encouraged by his pamphlet, Josel von Rosheim, Commander of Jewry of the Holy Roman Empire, wrote to Luther and asked him for a personal meeting. Luther refused brusquely. “It was not my intention to encourage you in your errors,” he wrote, rejecting the request for dialogue. From there, Luther’s attitude toward the Jews deteriorated over the years, reaching its nadir in his last sermon, von Schem Hamphoras und sein Geschlecht, a hate-filled tirade that paved the way for modern anti-Semitism. Again, in Luther’s character, disillusionment and bitterness took and held the upper hand over perseverance in grace, a central irony in the life of the man whose name is synonymous, to many, with the words “sola gratia” (grace alone). In both his relationship with the Catholic leadership and between the Jews of Germany and Christians, his legacy has shaped the world we live in for five centuries now.
Approaching the 500th anniversary of the act that began the Reformation, it is clear that Luther’s undeniable, world-shaping influence has been alternately beneficial and harmful to civilization. The reforms he sought in the church did come, but only later, at great cost, and with no contemporary admission that many of his criticisms had been accurate- these only came later as well. Reparation of the division in Christianity that his preaching brought about has only recently begun, through documents such as the Lutheran-Catholic Statement on the Eucharist from 1967 and the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification from 1999. The work is on-going, and the sincere prayer of this author is that leaders in the Catholic Church and Protestant churches be moved by the Holy Spirit toward the fulfilment of Jesus’ High Priestly prayer of John 17 as they travel together into the next 500 years of Christian witness on earth.
Source: Wittenberg 2017 - "Martin's Story", from the Wittenberg 2017 (US) website, written by John D. Martin
http://www.wittenberg2017.us/martins-story.html
Community of Jesus-followers Living Out John 17
Your Custom Text Here