Ninety-Five Theses

Born on November 10, 1483, Martin Luther came from Eisleben, then a part of the Holy Roman Empire. Today, it is a town in the province of Saxony-Anhalt in Northern Germany. Luther’s father wanted him to become a lawyer. Instead, Luther studied theology. When a lightning bolt nearly struck him while he was riding on horseback during a storm, Luther vowed to God that would he become a monk if his life was spared.

At the time he wrote the “Ninety-Five Theses,” Martin Luther was a professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg (Introduction). It was not unusual for a document like the “Ninety-Five Theses” to be written by someone in the clergy and spark debate. However, it was unexpectedly popular. Through the recently developed European printing press, copies were widely translated and published throughout Europe. It inspired other widely published pamphlets that either supported Luther or attacked him. Eventually, Luther and his works were condemned not only by church authorities but also by Pope Leo X and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

As Luther came under increasing attack, his views on religion became more radical. He became a prolific writer who wrote pamphlets and books. Over the course of 1520, he wrote three pamphlets that proved to be hugely influential:

“Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation,” which rejects papal authority and the hierarchy of clergy in the church.

“The Babylonian Captivity of the Church,” in which Luther criticizes the sacraments performed by clergy during Mass.

 “The Freedom of a Christian,” in which Luther argues that good works do not help ensure an individual’s salvation. Instead, doing good works comes naturally from an individual who has truly experienced salvation.

Although Luther did not set out to rebel against the Catholic Church, his works eventually influenced a new denomination of Christianity, Lutheranism. As others followed his path, an entire new branch of Christianity developed, called Protestantism. Today, Protestantism includes a vast number of different groups, although the beliefs they share tend to be rooted in Luther’s original writings. These general precepts of Protestantism include:

• The pope has no special authority over Christendom or spiritual matters.
•  The Bible, not an organized church or other writings, is the most important source of authority in religious matters.
•  The clergy and the regular members of the church have the same privileges and responsibilities, with some Protestant groups having no formal clergy at all.
•  Only faith, not good works, determines salvation.

These ideas changed and were developed over time. Luther would have bitter disagreements with other Protestant founders in his lifetime. Still, he played an essential role in popularizing the ideas that were the seeds for Protestantism as a whole.

Source: MacCulloch, Diarmaid. The Reformation: A History. Penguin Books, 2003, pp. 123-32.