German monk most famously remembered as the man who sparked the Reformation by the posting of his Ninety-Five Theses against the sales of indulgences on the door of his university in Wittenberg in 1517. Though he never intended to split the Church, the aftermath of his actions—coloured by political and religious rivalries, as well as papal incompetencies—divided Europe into two major religious spheres of influence, Protestantism and Catholicism.
There was no particular reason why Luther's name should be so spectacularly associated with the Reformation except perhaps for the law of unintended consequences. There were many other men, of whom it may be honestly said, were far better equipped in office, resources, ability and opportunity than Luther to forment a reformation, men committed to reform in the Church as a matter of personal commitment and calling. One could think, e.g., of Dean Colet of St Paul's, Erasmus of Amsterdam, or even Thomas More of London. Luther didn't. In 1517 he was a relative nobody, a teacher in a recently founded university without yet a reputation in a three-street city. Luther rather stumbled into it with absolutely no such intentions of reforming the Church at all. On the surface of it his 95-Theses were not much "reformative," and it is an open question whether if the Catholic Church—and, in particular, their theologians like Cardinal Cajetan and Johann Eck—had just left him be, his call for debate may just have died a quiet death, a non-event. However, forced to defend himself by their demand to recant of his views, he was forced to review his views afresh, he discovered that, embedded in those theses, there were so many seeds that were alien to biblical faith and their presence had been so central in corrupting the Church for all these centuries past. Because his responses were so public—facilititated, especially later, when his writings were translated into German and the printing press in Wittenberg—suddenly it opened the eyes of many people to them who had been gropping and asking what went wrong with the Church. In an unintended sort of way, then, the 95-Theses switched on theological lights Luther didn't realize were there and they spot-lighted the central issues that became the central issues of the Reformation cause.
Son of a coal merchant, Luther had hoped to study law. Caught in a fear-inspiring thunder storm one day, he made to vow to St Anne (patron saint of miners) that he would become a monk if his life was spared. Enrolling in the Augustinian order, Luther, however, found no rest for his soul—wanting to love God and to obey Him but unable to and hating God for it—despite fulfilling all the spiritual requirements ordered by the church, even as he pursued his theological studies. He was ordained as a priest in 1507 but was transferred to the new Wittenberg University where he earned the doctor of theology degree in 1512. Forced to search the Scriptures as he prepared to lecture, the spiritual breakthrough for Luther came in what he later recalled as his Turmerlebnis ("tower exprience," until today scholars debate what it was exactly, and when it happened) when the full significance of justification by faith dawned fully on him, and he was set free from his struggle with God.
Luther would most likely have remained a nobody except that he decided to raise the subject of the sales of indulgences in the neighbouring state of Mainz, which he saw as an abuse; this he did by pinning on the door of his university chapel a series of propositions on the matter for a university debate (the Ninety-Five Theses). He also sent a copy of it to Albrecht, the Archbishop of Mainz. As it happened, Albrecht's hands were stretched deep into the profits from the sales of the indulgences, and he promptly forwarded Luther's propositions to the pope. Given the complicated nexus of financial and political self-interests in which the Catholic Church was then entrapped, Luther's cry against indulgences was ignored and he was pressured instead to acknowledge the full measure of papal authority, a measure—whether they knew it or not—was sure to press Luther's buttons in all the wrong places. Passionate and impulsive, he would not recant when he was summoned to; the Church had nowhere to go but to split. And when it did, Rome found out to its own surprise and dismay how far northern Europe's had drifted from her. Luther's teaching about the Scriptures (as opposed to the pope) as sole authority in all matters of faith and justification by faith alone as sufficient for salvation swept through the continent sparking reformations—and bringing in its wake, a century and a half of divisions, religious wars and death—where none suspected the field was ripe.
Once he survived the initial onslaught (helped by his own prince who held a vote in the election of the Emperor and keen to protect his own subject) Luther spent the rest of his life teaching, preaching, translating the Bible into German, writing hymns and commentaries, giving counsel over meals (his famous Table Talks) and building up the church in Germany, courted controversies and participated in theological debates, but also married, taking an ex-nun, Katharina von Bora as wife in 1525, and siring a happy family.
Two thoughts are worth noting inconclusion: 1) "Luther was a passionate, impulsive man, who felt his theology rather than beginning with logical questions and answers about God, resulting in a theology full of paradoxes or downright contradictions" (D. MacCulloch, Reformation), and 2)"His greatness can be gauged from the fact that during the four-hundred-plus years since his death, more books have been written about him than any other figure in history, except Jesus of Nazareth" (Carl Meyer, NIDCC).
Chronology of Martin Luther's Life
Further Reading & Resources:
John M. Todd, Luther: A Life (Crosroad Publishing, 1982), published online at Religion Online.
html N 5-6 (Open on Phone)
☰ Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church Vol. VII. Modern Christianity. The German Reformation.
☰ "Martin Luther: The Reformer's Early Years," Christian History Issue 34 (1992).
James Atkinson, "Luther and the Wittenberg Disputation 1535-36," Tyndale Bulletin 34 (1983): 31-57.
Pdf N 6 (Open on Phone)
David V. N. Bagchi, Luther's Earliest Opponents: Catholic Controversialists, 1518-1525. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009.
Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: His Road to Reformation, 1483-1521. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1985.
Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation, 1521-1532. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990.
Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: The Preservation of the Church. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990.
W. D. J. Cargill Thompson, The Political Thought of Martin Luther. Brighton: Harvester, 1984.
Mark Edwards, Luther's Last Battles: Politics and Polemics, 1531-1546. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004.
Mark Edwards, Luther and the False Brethren. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1975.
Adam S. Francisco, Martin Luther and Islam. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Robert Kolb, Martin Luther as Prophet, Teacher, and Hero. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999.
Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.
Steven Ozment, The Serpent and the Lamb: Cranach, Luther, and the Making of the Reformation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011.
Andrew Pettegree, Brand Luther. 1517, Printing, and the Making of the Revolution. New York: Penguin, 2015.
E. G. Schwiebert, Luther and His Times: The Reformation from a New Perspective. St Louis: Concordia, 1950.
Peter Stanford, Martin Luther. Catholic dissidents. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2017.
Elizabeth Vandiver, et al., eds., Luther's Lives: Two Contemporary Accounts of Martin Luther. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
©ALBERITH
030919lch