Martin Luther was a monk commonly known throughout history as the one who ignited the protestant reformation, known as the one who translated the Bible from Latin to German, and the one who wrote 95 theses that criticized the Roman Catholic Church which ruled the Christian faith at his time. But what exactly does that mean for Christianity, why were all those contributions important, and the real question, did they have an impact in Christianity, and if so did they impact Christianity solely or did he impact other aspects of history as well?
Martin Luther did not only change the history and the course of Christianity, but he also changed the course of politics, and the way people lived their lives, without ever thinking he was going to have that big of an impact. Luther never imagined what the repercussions were going to be, not only in Germany but in the entire Christian World when he nailed his 95 famous theses in a church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. At a time full of radical ideas, a time in which people even used to pay for the forgiveness of their sins, Martin Luther had the courage to write a document in which he discussed the problems he recognized in the Catholic Church; knowing that he was not only confronting the Catholic Church but he was also questioning directly the Pope and the Vatican for these radical ideas. He did this, despite living at a time were the Roman Catholic Church had an immense power, and knowing the danger he was exposing himself to.
Martin Luther’s impact on Christianity, and the world can still be seen in the modern day. However, in order to understand what moved Martin Luther to make all those contributions in his life, it is necessary to understand his background.
Martin Luther was born in 1483, and his family was into mining. He studied in the University of Erfurt in 1501. His father wanted him to study law and so he did. However, one day when he was riding back to Erfurt, his life took a turn. In the middle of a huge storm was a lightning struck him in 1505. (Schofield, 31)When this happened he realized how close he had been to death, with the idea of death in his mind, he realized he was not ready to die nor to be judged by God, so he decided to become a monk. (Schilling, 28)
It is important to return to the era in which he lived, to understand his reasoning and why he took such a decision. At this point in time, at the end of the Middle Ages and the start of the Modern Age, The Roman Catholic Church ruled the Christian faith. (Schofield, 15-16) People lived their lives, and based everything they did on the rules and the teaching of the the Church; they saw God as a figure to be feared not as a merciful, loving God. They saw him as figure that doesn’t forgive sins, but instead punished sinners. People would believe any sort of personal tragedies, disease, bad harvests, or disaster were consequences of witchcraft or consequences of their sins.
So after Luther realized he was not ready to face death, he became a monk in the order of the Augustinian cloister in Erfurt. As Schofield mentions in page 31 of his book, “Entreaties from parents and friends failed to dissuade him, for he was convinced that this was his divine calling, necessary for the very salvation of his soul.” When Martin Luther joined the order he was fully motivated to find that God was really a loving, merciful God, and hopeful of saving his life after death. Since he began his life in the monastery Luther was a very disciplined and obedient monk, he fasted and prayed for six hours a day; meditated and reflected. “With all solemnity he made his vows to renounce the will, mortify the flesh through fasting, vigils and prayers, and to keep the rules of the order scrupulously.”(Schofield, 34) Before two years had passed as a monk, Luther became a priest in 1507 and his studies were focused in theological teachings.
In 1510, Luther was sent to Rome on a mission of the order of the Augustinians. This trip ended up marking his life. At this time, the Basilica of San Pedro was under construction, and because of its high cost, the Roman Catholic Church needed money. So the ecclesiastical leaders came up with and idea, and they introduced the sale of indulgences as a way to make more money. “Pope Leo X then issued a plenary indulgence designed to fund the new, extravagant St Peter’s basilica in Rome.” (Schofield, 39) From that moment on, the forgiveness of sins could be achieved in two ways: either by acting good, or by paying the Church.
The way indulgences worked was by setting the price of forgiveness according to the person’s income, and even those who had died could be rescued from burning in hell if their relatives paid a few coins. There was even a saying at the time that became very popular that many scholars attribute to Johann Tetzel, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs."
Luther traveled for two months from Germany to the heart of the Catholic Church. He arrived in Rome for the first time, impatient to know the city he considered closest to heaven. However ,what he saw was nothing like he expected, Luther was very disappointed. He saw a church that pointed to money as the root of all evil, but lived around the wealth generated by religion. Wealth that they spent on constructions and absurd feasts, he saw a lack of godliness in the people, and he later even referred to rome “as the seat of the Antichrist.”(Heal, 29)
However ,what disappointed him the most was his encounter with indulgences; which he immediately recognized were solely an object of commerce, for the economical benefit of the church. He saw a church that exploited its monopoly of salvation, and fed from the fear of going to hell that the people had. Luther believed that indulgences made people focus on fearing the punishment of their sins instead of fearing the sin itself and that “real repentance should be lifelong not something negotiable by a payment.” (Schofield, 40)
He returned destroyed and confused to his monastery in Erfurt. However, in 1512, Martin Luther was assigned as a teacher in the University of Wittenberg. He gained the respect and admiration of the other professors and even the respect of his superiors. Despite this, one of Luther’s biggest concerns still remained, what did he have to do to achieve acceptance of God, and to gain salvation essentially. Even though he had been faithfully studying the Bible, and that question was one of the main reasons he became a monk in the first place; he still had not found what he was looking for.
He did not give up, nor did he lose faith, he immersed himself in the Bible. He read it in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and thus found the revelation that changed the course of history. He realized that God was not that figure that was just there to condemn everyone for their sins, nor a figure that opened the doors of heaven to those who had the money to pay for the forgiveness of their sins. He understood that God is a loving father, who sent his son Jesus to pay for the sins of the world. He also found the answer he had been seeking all along: salvation could only be achieved by faith and it is was free gift given by God to his children through grace.
Things began to change for Luther in 1517 when “the indulgence traffic was thriving, backed up by a sustained campaign of preaching and propaganda.” (Schofield, 40) Frederick the Wise, who was the ruler of electoral Saxony at the time, and who later became Luther’s protector was against the sale of indulgences. Because of this the sale of indulgences was prohibited in Wittenberg, so the people “rushed across to Jüterbog.. to get an indulgence letter there.” Luther’s tipping point was when the people were coming up to him expecting to be absolved “without bothering to do much penance or improve their lives in any significant way.” (Schofield, 40)
Angered by that, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg church, on October 31, 1517. The questioning of the power and efficacy of indulgences challenged the papal power and denounced their greed and abuse. The writings sparked a movement that exceeded the scope of his imagination, a reform so powerful that it changed the way millions of men and societies interacted with God.
The printing press made the 95 theses extend in a few months throughout Europe. Luther also argued that people should be able to read the Bible in their vernacular language.
Until that moment, the reading and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures was a monopoly of the clergy. From the moment the reformers began to defend a direct dialogue between humans and God, it became a right of all believers. So he decided to do it himself, he began to translate the Holy Scriptures from Latin into German; these editions were multiplied thanks to Gutenberg's invention, serving as a model for versions in other languages. But above all, it served as a tool to bring the Bible closer to the faithful.
It was not long before “heresy proceedings were opened against Luther, refutations of Luther's theses were published, and demands were issued to have Luther brought to Rome to stand trial in person.” (Appold, 40) The Pope then threatened to excommunicate him, which was a kind of civil death at that point in history; if he did not rectify, the Holy Inquisition would have to burn him at the stake.
It is at this time that Frederick the Wise then decided to protect Luther. Not only did he save his life at the trial in Worms, in 1521, in which the church asked him to rectify his positions, but he also hid him afterwards to prevent the Inquisition from taking him. Even though Rome tried to silence him, his ideas took even more strength.
Luther unleashed a revolution that was at first sight impossible. However as Appold mentions in his article, “We must also differentiate between intended and unintended outcomes. Luther’s impact on his own age is to be held distinct from his historical impact through the ages.”All he wanted was to establish the man-God relationship, and save the Church, not change the social structure. But the events took their own momentum, and both the Christian world and the political world changed forever .
Although the concept of freedom that Luther was sharing was merely theological, the idea of freedom as a negation of subordination had enormous consequences. The challenge to papal authority was matched by the challenge to the imperial power represented in Charles V. Many German princes saw in Luther an opportunity to get rid of the control of Rome, and imperial control itself.
For that reason, "religious freedom" in a Lutheran sense reinforced the medieval principle known as “cuius regio, eius religio”, according to which, the subjects must have the same religion as their earthly lord, and gave legal cover to the German princes to compel to the populations of their territories to become Protestants.
In fact, the designation of "Protestant" comes from the letters sent by several German princes in 1529 in protest of the prohibition of the teachings of Luther. That division would lead to the wars of religion that bled Europe during the XVI and XVII centuries. This became evident in the German Peasant Wars (1523-1526) or the War of 30 years. It was then that this new idea arose, that this definition of freedom should also be understood politically.
“While for many people this innovation meant freedom and salvation, for many others it meant devastation and damnation. Relentless confessional intolerance characterized the period after the Reformation for several generations, producing internal social tensions that erupted in bloody persecution and not infrequently even in the chaos of civil war.” (Schilling, 28) On many occasions there were clashes between Christians, some as bloody as the Night of St. Bartholomew in Paris in 1572. All of which remains as testimony to an era in which tolerance had not yet been reached.
Another consequence of the Protestant Reformation, that was ignited by Luther, was the separation of the church and the State which was however a positive effect. As mentioned by Schilling, “Without doubt Luther made a defining contribution to the secularizing tendencies that emerged in Germany and Europe in the sixteenth century.” This was derived from the principles defended by the Reformation: that religion remains within its proper field, and that the power exercised by the government be directed to maintain order and guarantee harmony and peace among citizens.
In addition to changing the course of politics, Luther also had a huge impact on economics. As Max Weber, a German scholar, wrote in his famous essay "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism," in 1904, the Reformation had an enormous impact on the economic development of the peoples.
One of the effects were the increase in the literacy levels of the "Protestant zones" of Europe. Luther insisted that all Christians should read the Bible for themselves. In this sense, Protestants promoted universal education. Becker and Woessmann in a study in 2009, using data from 452 Prussian counties in 1871, report that Protestant areas showed higher levels of literacy. And not only that, but the same authors, in a 2008 study, also found that the "Protestant areas" had more literate women. This was the result of Luther's emphasis on "each village also having a women's school". Both findings are vital to understand the economic progress of Protestants in Europe; more education means more progress.
Another effect of Protestantism was on the concept of work, which became known as "the Protestant work ethic". Both Luther and Calvin understood work not only as something that pleases God but as a call (vocation) of God himself.
The implications of this idea were monumental. On the one hand, it implies that there is no work or work of inferior dignity. It does not matter what kind of work it is, but that it be done for the glory of God. But in addition, the work is a "call" (vocatio) and implies that God uses each person for His purposes to maintain His creation and serve humanity. Not only the clergy (priests, monks, pastors, etc.) serve God, but every person who works.
Finally, the reform significantly advanced the right to private property and, consequently, the economic progress of the people. Contrary to what many people think, the Bible is not communist in its vision of economics. The commandments of "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not covet …" (Ex 20:15, 17) clearly establish private property as part of the social order that God established through the Law given to Moses. The New Testament recognizes in the same way the right to private property.
The reformers, applying the idea that "only the Bible is the authority in matters of faith and practice of the Christian" (Sola Scriptura), supported the protection of private property in Protestant areas, which gave economic impetus not only to those regions but to the whole world.
Martin Luther also influenced and inspired many famous people later on in history. Some thinkers openly acknowledged having been directly influenced by the ideas of Luther, for example, Goethe, Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche. Others were not able to recognize it but did not escape Luther’s influence like Kant, Fichte, Schiller and in particular, Hegel.
However, if the Protestantism extended until the present day, which turned into the second more important denomination of Christianity, it was thanks to its political importance. As mentioned by Schurb in his article Luther the Reformer, “The Roman Catholic Church and [the rest of Christianity] owes its own debt to Luther. Without the challenges from the Wittenberg reformer, the Church would surely not have freed itself so decisively from the worldliness of the Renaissance papacy and found its way into an age in which faith came first.”
In conclusion, Martin Luther was a monk that motivated by faith, and his wish to share the truth of God, he ignited a revolution that changed the Christian world forever. In addition, he had an immense impact in political and economical matters. His ideas served as the spark that got the people to protest the abuse and imperialism of the Roman Catholic Church, and was the motor that ultimately got the religious freedom that countries enjoy today in Europe and in the American Continent. Moreover, his ideas ultimately resulted in the separation of state and church, the increase in education throughout Europe which then led to economic progress, as well as the idea of private property.