Introduction
In the early 1500’s, a young German university teacher and monk known as Martin Luther began feeling that major reforms were required in the most famous church at that time, The Roman Catholic Church. There was one particular practice in the Roman Catholic Church that Martin Luther hated and this was indulgences selling. Indulgence selling involved the exclusion or release of individuals from punishment for sin in exchange for money. The individuals were given what was referred to as “letters of pardon”.
In 1957, Martin Luther made a conclusive list of personal objections to the practices of the Roman Catholic Church in a document famously known as the Ninety-Five Theses. One legend claims that Luther actually went and hanged this document on the door of the Wittenberg castle Church (Stepanek 13). Although the Roman Catholic completely disagreed with Luther’s sentiments and even later excommunicated him, this famous document sparked a lot of criticism towards the church and essentially initiated the Reformation process.
Early in his life, Martin Luther had committed himself to a monastic life. This was a life that required a lot of devotion and commitment to prayers, frequent confessions and even fasting. He was ordained into priesthood in the year 1508 and then became a teacher. In 1512, The University of Wittenberg awarded Luther a doctorate and he became a member of its theological faculty. According to the History Guide Website, it was here at the University of Wittenberg that Luther would spend a significant part of his career and where he would begin to examine and explore the very many issues and problems that constantly plagued the Roman Catholic Church.
Luther started to question some of the church’s doctrines. His personal ideas of righteousness and penance as well as his definition of salvation somehow started to undergo alteration from what had been instructed to him while studying for priesthood. This essentially became the “new conversion” basis. From there on Luther began developing a personal set of ideas and later started to formulate the ideas into a justification doctrine. This marked the beginning or the origin to the eventual release of his famous document, the Ninety Five Theses. This document would later come to have a phenomenal historical impact in that it would lead to the eventual split of the Roman Catholic Church (Stepanek 19).
The Roman Catholic Church in the 16th Century had essentially linked church membership with salvation. The church used the “excommunication threat” to keep all its followers in check and to also extend punishments to the individual who supposedly went out of the doctrines and conduct boundaries established by the Church. The Church taught all its followers that it was the sole representative and instrument of God on earth. Consequently salvation was only achievable by the church’s means.
This “authority primacy” was what made Luther began to question and challenge. Luther saw salvation as a spiritual gift from God and not from being a member of the church as the Roman Catholic Church stipulated (Viorst 37). The growing indulgences controversy would eventually set the stage for the spiritual confrontation witnessed. The church had expounded the scriptures to give its own definition of what was actually acceptable for sin remission. The Church stated that the sinful person first had to pray and then carry out a specific sacramental penance. The church then engaged in indulgence selling claiming that it was acting as God’s mediator in the absolution of sin. Luther and some other members started questioning the authority and power by which the Roman Catholic Church based the selling and buying of indulgencies belief.
Martin embarked on a comprehensive writing process condemning the act of indulgence selling and buying. His “Disputation of Martin Luther and the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences” essentially became the primary and the principle Protestant Reformation catalyst. This document later came to be popularly referred to as the Ninety- Five Theses. The document was enclosed and put in a letter addressed to Archbishop Albrecht that Luther wrote to him in October, 1517. Martin Luther questioned forgiveness granting by the church through selling indulgencies in the document. He stated that the whole act appeared as a commercial transaction and not genuine sin repentance activity. Luther observed that repentance had been commercialized by the church. The selling of indulgences was very popular and even Luther’s parishioners traveled to far away provinces to engage in the acts, something that completely outraged him. According to Luther, there was no way that forgiveness could be purchased. I t was an absolutely free gift from God (Collins 23).
One of the things addressed in the Theses was the pope’s authority limits. He questioned the authority of the pope to remit sin guilt and whether it was indeed possible for one to be granted remissions of every penalty (Viorst 54). This is clearly expressed in the fifth theses where Luther states that: “The pope neither desires nor is able to remit any penalties except those imposed by his own authority or that of the canons”.
Martin stated that death freed the dying form earthly penalties. He stated that that the preachers who indulged in indulgences selling were in error “who say that by the pope’s indulgences a man is freed from every penalty and saved”.
According to the Ninety Five Theses, the reward for those felt or believed that their salvation was actually secure after attaining letters of pardon was “condemnation”. In addition, Luther stated that basically every repentant Christian could be fully remitted of guilt and penalty by God’s mercy but not with the pardon letters.
The second part of the Ninety-Five Theses set out clear instructions for all Christians. Martin Luther wanted to make Christians understand the act of buying indulgencies or pardons did not actually compare and was indeed inferior to the Christian acts of helping the needy or the poor. Luther wrote that “works of love not only are beloved in God’s eyes, they help the man to grow toward spiritual purity.” Luther made a suggestion that all Christians were morally bound to first provide for their families and then spare a little that they could for the needy, but not squander any portion on the pardons (Spitz 45).
Martin Luther was summoned to the assembly in Rome in 1521 by Pope Leo who charged him with heresy and consequently excommunicated him from the church. Luther refused to retract his assertions in the Ninety- Five Theses when he was also summoned at an imperial council in Worms, Germany, known as the Diet of Worms. The Roman Emperor Charles V called Luther an outlaw and authorized his death but he was ultimately protected by The Prince of Saxony (Collins 89).
Luther later founded the church known as the Lutheran Church which was actually the first Protestant Church. He led this Protestant movement until he died in 1546.
It is therefore very clear to see the enormous impact that Luther’s Ninety- Five Theses had on the history of the church. The Theses essentially initiated a religious revolution. The Theses made its way to every part of Europe and people started to revolt against the Roman Catholic Church paving way for the establishment of the Protestant revolution. This struggle for Protestant Reformation swept across Europe opposing virtually opposing everything affiliated to the Roman Catholic Church and the pope. This would eventually culminate into the famous Thirty Years War which was a religious war in which the Roman Catholic Church tried to crush Protestantism. This religious conflict eventually ended in 1648 when the declaration known as the Peace of Westphalia ended religious war and granted the Protestants the religious freedom that they had been carving for so long since the publication of the Ninety-Five Theses.
Today, the calendar of the Protestant church is filled with very many “Holy Days”. According to Spitz (78), there is actually none of these Holy Days that is more central to the existence of Protestant church than the one that is celebrated on October 31 and this is the Reformation Day. On his particular day, all Protestants celebrate the Ninety- Five Theses of Martin Luther. This document is actually heralded as a marker of the end of the Roman Catholic’s church total control of religious affairs and salvation.
Works Cited
"Luther's "Ninety-Five Theses" (1517)." The History Guide -- Main. N.p., 12 May 2004. Web. 21 May 2013.
"Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses | The Resurgence." theresurgence.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 May 2013.
Collins, Owen. The Oral History of Christianity: Eyewitness Accounts of the Dramatic Turning Points in the Story of the Church. London: HarperCollins, 2000. Print.
Spitz, Lewis W. The Protestant Reformation. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 2004. Print.
Stepanek, Sally. Martin Luther. New York: Chelsea House, 1986.
Viorst, Milton. The Great Documents of Western Civilization. Philadelphia: Chilton Books, 1965. Print.
