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“”For reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of
| Christ died for|
our articles about
|A multi-chef broth|
|Devil's in the details|
|The pearly gates|
“”For reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but—more frequently than not—struggles against the Divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.
|—Martin Luther, Table Talk[Note 1]|
Martin Luther (1483–1546) was a German Augustinian monk and theologian who became a major figure in the Protestant Reformation, founding the Lutheran Church. He helped make Christianity slightly less toxic.
Early life and education
He was born in Eisleben to a Saxon miner, Hans Luther, who sent him to college to become a lawyer. After receiving a master's degree, however, he dropped out of law school, feeling unsatisfied with the profession. In 1505 he was nearly struck by lightning and joined the Augustinian order, infuriating his father.
Luther was subject at this time to much rumination, and his abbot, trying to distract him from this, sent him to the University of Wittenberg to study theology, in which he received a doctorate in 1512. Subsequently he joined the theological faculty at Wittenberg, a position he would hold for the rest of his life.
Four years later, a Dominican friar named Johann Tetzel came through Germany, selling indulgences to raise money for the Archbishop of Mainz, who needed to pay the pope for his appointment to that see.
Luther was outraged because these indulgences appeared to say that the people holding them had purchased their salvation.[Note 2] In response to the indulgence sale, he wrote the 95 Theses, attacking the practice, affirming that salvation and forgiveness are free gifts from God, and inviting a public debate on the subject at his university.
On October 31, 1517, he allegedly nailed a copy of the 95 Theses to the door of the Schlosskirche (Castle Church) at Wittenberg, an event later mythologized as the start of the Protestant Reformation. Whether the event ever happened as described is open to scholarly debate. In any case it would not have been all that controversial, as the common way of initiating a public debate or informing the public at large was usually affixing a paper to that effect onto the church door. What is sure is that he sent his theses to the local church authorities. It helped start a 16th century flame war.
Diet of Worms
In 1520, Pope Leo X wrote a papal bull, Exsurge Domine, in which 41 of the 95 theses were marked as heretical, and Luther was ordered to recant or be excommunicated. Luther held his position and was duly excommunicated.
In 1521, as a result of his excommunication, he was summoned before the diet (council) of the Holy Roman Empire at Worms to give answer for his writings. He again refused to recant them as demanded, and was effectively made an outlaw by the diet's edict, which forbade anyone from offering him support or even feeding him, and recommended that he be arrested and punished for heresy.
... And, yes, it is actually referred to as "The Diet of Worms."
Exile at Wartburg
He had been promised safe conduct to and from the diet, and thus left for Wittenberg as planned. However, on his way home he was kidnapped by his prince, Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, who sympathized with his position.
Frederick had him taken secretly to Wartburg Castle, above the town of Eisenach. Posing as a knight, Luther spent this time translating the New Testament into German and further expounding on the new Protestant theology. One point of particular interest he developed at this time was his position that it was not a sin to break monastic vows which certainly helped protect a lot of vulnerable children.
Meanwhile, in Wittenberg, the Protestant Reformation had kicked off in earnest. It eventually reached the point where zealous reformers such as Andreas Karlstadt were pursuing extremely immoderate policies such as political revolution and iconoclasm. The town council asked Luther to come back to restore order, which Luther did.
Luther preached much in the following years against the use of violence and revolution in spreading Protestantism, both in the initial iconoclasm and then later during the Peasant's War of 1524-5.
In 1525, he married a former nun, Katharina von Bora, whom he had helped escape from her convent two years earlier. This set an example of marriage for all Protestant clergy. The new elector of Saxony gave them a former monastery for a home; they went on to have six children.
Luther dedicated the rest of his life to the organization of the new Lutheran Church. He completed his German translation of the Bible, translated much liturgy into the German vernacular, composed a number of hymns, and wrote two catechisms, the Large Catechism for teachers and clergymen and the Small Catechism for everyone else. His goal in writing the catechisms was to provide a way for people to actually understand key theological concepts, rather than learning verses or concepts by rote. The catechisms remain popular today.
His efforts to gain acceptance for Lutheranism culminated with the Augsburg Confession, one of the foundational documents of Lutheranism, which was submitted to the imperial Diet of Augsburg in 1530. Although the confession was rejected at that time, its proponent