Martin Luther's 95 Theses Of The Protestant Reformation

Martin Luther who lived from 1483 to 1546, is the central figure of the Protestant Reformation. He published his 95 Theses to get the Roman Catholic Church to stop selling indulgences, in 1517. Luther did not think the Church had the authority to grant such indulgences, especially not for money. Luther believed that salvation could be achieved through faith alone. The Church responded by labeling Luther a heretic, forbidding the reading or publication of his 95 Theses, and threatening Luther with excommunication. He refused to recant his beliefs. A reformer is a person who makes changes to something to improve it. Luther was more of a reformer due to him not changing anything but improving on the Catholic Church; he did cause change to occur

He was particularly bothered by the selling of indulgences. An indulgence is a remission of punishment for sins. The church had been in the practice of granting indulgences in exchange for good works. Luther was trying to stop the Church from engaging in some practices that he considered unchristian. He believed that salvation was not something that could be earned through performing outward righteous acts but was rather graciously given to those who internally followed the teachings of Jesus Christ. To protest what he perceived as corruption and incorrect teaching in the Catholic Church, Luther wrote 'Ninety-Five Theses'. This document contained 95 points of disagreement with official Church doctrine. Luther nailed this document to a church door in Wittenberg in 1517, for all to see. Martin Luther's 'Ninety-Five Theses' sparked the Protestant Reformation. The Church decided to hand Luther over to the Holy Roman Empire. In 1521, Martin Luther was summoned to the Diet of Worms, a conference of both religious and secular leaders held in Worms, Germany. Once again, Luther was commanded to recant his heresy. He refused. The upshot was that Luther was condemned. The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, published the Edict of Worms, calling for Luther's immediate arrest. Yet, Luther's supporters would not let him be imprisoned. Instead, Frederick the

But no common person could read Latin which was taught by the church. So, it happened that priests coming from Rome taught people, who had no knowledge, what they wanted people to believe only for their benefit and not for the glory of Jesus Christ. Luther saw nothing in the Bible that gave the Church the right to charge people for their salvation. The church was supposed to be a spiritual sanctuary, not a marketplace. Whilst he was in the Wartburg Castle Luther translated the Bible into German which allowed common people to interpret and have their own views on the ideas in the Bible. The reformer was also the first to use not only the Latin Vulgate but also the original Greek and Hebrew texts. Another decisive factor was that Luther’s theology placed great emphasis on the Bible. Luther’s theological verdict was that God reveals himself through the Bible. You didn’t need a church to have a personal relationship with God. Every believer had direct access to God through the Bible. Therefore, the translation of the Bible allowed uneducated people to read it and recite it, but priests could still read and interpret the Bible for others, making him a