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Roland H. Bainton's Report

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Christopher Hilber Milligan European History 19 August 2024 Martin Luther 1517 marked the beginning of one of the most paramount occurrences in human history; a transition from the public supporting a single, unified Church under the pope to the beginning of a dissemination of the idea that the pope is not supreme. The leader of this movement was Martin Luther, and with the publication of his ninety-five theses, he became the spokesman for the Protestant Revolt. Roland H. Bainton’s biography, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, uncovers Luther’s motives for reforming the Catholic Church. Bainton, writing in chronological order, begins with Luther’s early life. While a young Luther was traveling, a lightning bolt struck near him, throwing him into a panic shouting, “Help! Saint Anne, I will become a monk!”, and so he did (Bainton 5). Through his studies in the monastery, Luther was able to study not only the Bible, but theology and philosophy as well. It appears that Luthers’ largest struggles in these aspects were trying to make sense of salvation. At one point, …show more content…

He figured that only the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist were valid because they were “directly instituted by Christ” (Bainton 129). The other sacraments, such as Marriage, Reconciliation, Confirmation, etc., because they were instituted by the Church and not Christ, only proved Luther’s point that the Church was of man and not Holy. Luther continued on to make a rather bold claim, saying, “all believers are priests” (Bainton 133). The Church believes that only priests can transubstantiate bread into Body, and by making this claim Luther expresses how it is only by the faith of the recipient that this truly occurs; the goal of this claim is to completely discount the validity of the sacrament of Holy Orders while accepting the validity of the Eucharist, which was instituted by

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