Martin Luther was such an important historical figure in Western Civilization because he is one of the first people to truly show how much power individualism gives us. Martin Luther is mainly known for breaking off from the Roman Catholic Church to create his own religion, which is now known as protestantism. At the time, it was almost unheard of to denounce the church and to stand very strongly in the beliefs that you have. There were many times in history where Luther's beliefs almost got him killed but he stayed headstrong and formed his own religion. This is also very important to American history because much like Luther found issues in the Roman Catholic church, the Puritans found issues in the English church and broke off and formed …show more content…
Not only was Luther very hateful, he was also very aggressive in what he said. He endorsed burning down synagogues and said it would be best for them to do manual labor if they chose not to convert to Lutheranism. In “The Jews and Their Lies” Luther says “Knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer self-glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practice most maliciously and veheming his eyes on them.” In this quote, Luther is literally saying that in synagogues, where Judaism is practiced, it is full of all of these terrible things and he calls the Jews devils, which to a Christian would be one of the worst insults you could have and this is only because of the faith that they are practicing and only because they do not believe in what Luther believes. Luther also says “I shall give you my sincere advice: First set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them." This is a very aggressive thing to