Martin Luther's 95 Theses: The Invention That Shaped The World

Invention is at the center of all human development. Throughout history, people have gained power and built themselves better lives through invention. These inventions have ranged from something as revolutionary as the wheel, to something as seemingly insignificant as a zipper. The printing press was an invention that spread ideas and knowledge. It connected people and made global communication more possible than it had ever been before. People who spoke any language could share their ideas and read all of the same texts. The Printing Press helped reformers and revolutionaries alike get their ideas to a larger crowd. Their ideas, coupled with the amazing invention that is the printing press, developed our world to the point that it is at today.

Martin Luther knew these were not the Christian way. Martin Luther wrote the 95 Theses - a list of grievances and general statements about Christianity directed at followers of the Catholic Church and the Church itself. Many of these statements related to the inability of humans to forgive sins, the fact that Christians should not fear Hell, but rather be confident that they have a place in Heaven and the realities of indulgences. (95 Theses, Martin Luther) The 95 Theses brought a great deal of attention to the causes of the Protestant Reformation and gained a small following for Martin Luther and his cause. Martin Luther definitely came to some revolutionary conclusions, ones that could even change the world, but he had no way to share them. In order for the ideas of the Protestant Reformation to be spread, there had to be a medium to get it to the people. This is where the printing press came into

He knew that simply nailing his 95 Theses to a church door would not be enough. Some of the stir that was created originally came from the 95 Theses being published in German, rather than the original copy which was written in Latin. Martin Luther learned from his mistakes and began writing his pamphlets in German instead of Latin, avoiding regional vocabulary and scholarly words to make his ideas easily accessible to average people all around Europe. He continued to change up his ideas and make them better to appeal to a larger spectrum of people in more places who spoke more languages. Martin Luther became a media mogul by learning from his mistakes and taking advantage of the printing technology at his disposal. Eventually, his pamphlets, “...were not so much sold as seized” (How Luther Went Viral). In an interesting comparison, he learned to work the media to his advantage like many content creators in the 21st Century have learned to use social media currently and in the past couple of years. The Printing Press had a tremendous impact on the ideas of the Protestant Reformation and it allowed Luther to create himself a huge following of self - titled