As the populace grew more educated due to the invention of the printing press, they became skeptical of the long accepted traditions and institutions of the past, and started to challenge them, especially challenging the corruption of the Church. Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses was a devastating critique of the indulgences sold by the Church as a means of salvation and forgiveness from sins that have been committed. With the aid of the printing press, copies spread through Germany within weeks and throughout Europe within two months.
Devoting his time to the Church, Martin Luther wrote 95 theses billeted on the Church door which requested for a disputation. Martin Luther truly was “unhappy with the Church,” and it also reads that “indulgences were payments to the Roman Church in return
Martin Luther King used logos and repetition to persuade and explain his side of the story to his “fellow clergymen”. When MLK said, “There have been more unsolved bombings of negro homes and churches in Birmingham than any city in this nation. These are the hard, brutal and unbelievable facts.” (Page 7 paragraph 1). This persuades the reader by stating facts about what is happening in Birmingham that you cannot disagree with.
As Luther is fighting the corrupt Papacy he writes this, “Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.” Luther writes this to show what true religion is, to show what a truly faithful person should do, believe in their God and give him every bit of faith from someone's person. The Papacy hates Luther not because he is wrong, but because he is right, which means if Luther was right and the masses believed him all the power that was held by the church would crumble into nothing; most importantly though the Papacy members personal power would crumble into nothing. During the early phases of the Reformation, Luther wrote the 95 Theses, which described everything he found wrong with the church at this time. The Theses was the catalyst, which set off the ticking time bomb of corruption and irreverence.
Luther believed the church was corrupt. He challenged the church by producing the 95th
On October 31, 1517 and Martin Luther wrote the ninety-five theses. The ninety-five theses are “ A list of propositions for an academic disputation written in 1517 by Martin Luther, professor of moral theology at the University of wittenberg”. As a member of the Catholic Church I had a bad reaction with Martin Luther becue of the many times he said the Catholic Church was wrong. He only believed in his own ideas, he believed in many thing that the Catholic Church didn’t. He believed that all you needed to go to heaven was faith alone.
"95 Theses," a paper which spoke against the pope using Indulgences for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. His paper spoke of how the Bible should be the main guide for Christians and that faith rather than good deeds was the way to Heaven. He nailed the paper to the door of the Church, making the topic up for debate. Within years Luther had gathered enough followers to begin their own churches in Germany.
The 95 Theses, which were courteously written to the Pope, denounced the sale of Papal Indulgences and attracted the attention of German aristocrats who were tired of paying so much to the Church. Due to the printing press, Luther’s 95 Theses were printed quickly and translated into many different languages so that his writing became available and popular throughout Germany. The Pope responded to Luther’s accusations by mandating that Luther recant. Luther then realized that the Church was far more corrupt than he thought, so he announced that the Pope and Catholic Church had been wrong in the past and were wrong again at that time.
Response Paper 5: Religious Reform Since the fall of the Roman empire, the Catholic church had a reputation for being stable. This gave people a sense of security and made them believe that whatever the Catholic church did, was what God wanted done. Then, in 1378 the Catholic church had three popes, because its rulers were so despite for power, that neither one of them refused to give up the papacy. This greed slowly trickled down to every level of the Catholic church.
Sin seems to be a cyclical representation of the masses’ fear of death and their willingness to delegate backdoors out of the appropriate consequences. Martin Luther realized sin was in fact too much of an ethereal instigator of the dichotomy between what is good and bad and that this system was too simplistic. As a result, money, the most common object in the world, was used as a way to permeate the sins of man and essentially overwrite the infrastructure of true altruism. The notion that money could be used as a conduit to evade God’s punishment from sin was the main issue that encompassed Martin Luther’s work. This urged him to produce his Ninety-five Theses in 1517.
Luther's impact can be seen here, as well, since he told people to read the bible for themselves, which was exactly what the church didn't want. The Church feared any sort of threat that could rise against them. As Document 4 states, “I recognize the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church as the Mother and mistress of all churches; and I vow and swear true obedience to the Roman
The American Dream is something that everybody strives to accomplish throughout their life no matter where they come from. Three people have strived to create the American Dream for other people and not just themselves. These people are Martin Luther King Jr, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott. Martin Luther King Jr. wanted African Americans to achieve their american dream of being considered equal to whites in every aspect. Elizabeth Stanton and Lucretia Mott strived and rallied for women’s right in society.
To which Martin addresses, “The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and according to them, nothing should be imposed on the dying” (Adolph, #8). Then why is the Catholic Church is selling indulgences for those who have since passed? They are insinuating to the living relatives if they paid a few coins, they could save their loved one from the flames of purgatory (Kagan, 325). The church/priests are using guilt/greed to line their pockets with coins while forgetting to abide by their own rules/canons. With that being said there is nothing that the church should charge for, since that person is no longer under canonical penalties according to Martin’s list and should be released from them (Adolph, #13).
Individual Judgment Both Augustine and Luther emphasize individual judgment in their writings of “Confessions” and “95 Theses”, however, Augustine and Luther each have a different viewpoint of individual judgment. For Augustine, his “Confessions” was an autobiography recounting his journey through life. He reflects through his experiences and his return of creation to God.
On All Saints Day, October 10th, 1517, Martin Luther wrote a lengthy letter named as “The Ninety-Five Theses” to the Bishop Albert of Mainz (“Martin Luther”). This letter stated that the Bible is the central authority of the Protestant religion and one can attain salvation by their loyal faith to God. “The Ninety-Five Theses” letter became a huge impact for the Protestant Reformation, and it was one of the major reasons why this religion was spread around Europe; however, it also focused on practices from Catholic churches about baptism and absolution (“Martin Luther”). The Protestants used the letter to form their ideas about God and to start their own church denominations. In addition, Protestantism helped a lot during this movement because its belief is that God saved everyone by His faith to Jesus Christ, himself.
