why were the 95 theses considered to be grievances

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This Day In History : October 31

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Martin Luther posts 95 theses

On October 31, 1517, legend has it that the priest and scholar Martin Luther approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation .

In his theses, Luther condemned the excesses and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, especially the papal practice of asking payment—called “indulgences”—for the forgiveness of sins. At the time, a Dominican priest named Johann Tetzel, commissioned by the Archbishop of Mainz and Pope Leo X, was in the midst of a major fundraising campaign in Germany to finance the renovation of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Though Prince Frederick III the Wise had banned the sale of indulgences in Wittenberg, many church members traveled to purchase them. When they returned, they showed the pardons they had bought to Luther, claiming they no longer had to repent for their sins.

Luther’s frustration with this practice led him to write the 95 Theses, which were quickly snapped up, translated from Latin into German and distributed widely. A copy made its way to Rome, and efforts began to convince Luther to change his tune. He refused to keep silent, however, and in 1521 Pope Leo X formally excommunicated Luther from the Catholic Church. That same year, Luther again refused to recant his writings before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Germany, who issued the famous Edict of Worms declaring Luther an outlaw and a heretic and giving permission for anyone to kill him without consequence. Protected by Prince Frederick, Luther began working on a German translation of the Bible, a task that took 10 years to complete.

The term “Protestant” first appeared in 1529, when Charles V revoked a provision that allowed the ruler of each German state to choose whether they would enforce the Edict of Worms. A number of princes and other supporters of Luther issued a protest, declaring that their allegiance to God trumped their allegiance to the emperor. They became known to their opponents as Protestants; gradually this name came to apply to all who believed the Church should be reformed, even those outside Germany. By the time Luther died, of natural causes, in 1546, his revolutionary beliefs had formed the basis for the Protestant Reformation, which would over the next three centuries revolutionize Western civilization.

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The Protestant Reformation, explained

Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther changed Christianity — and the world.

by Tara Isabella Burton

This week, people across the world are celebrating Halloween. But Tuesday, many people of faith marked another, far less spooky, celebration. October 31 was the 500-year anniversary of the day Martin Luther allegedly nailed his 95 theses — objections to various practices of the Catholic Church — to the door of a German church. This event is widely considered the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

The event was celebrated across Germany , including in Luther’s native Wittenberg (T-shirts for sale there proudly proclaim, “Protestant since 1517!”), as well as by Protestants of all denominations worldwide. As the inciting incident for the entire Reformation, Luther’s actions came to define the subsequent five centuries of Christian history in Western Europe and, later, America: a story of constant intra-Christian challenge, debate, and conflict that has transformed Christianity into the diffuse, fragmented, and diverse entity it is today.

This week, Twitter has been full of users discussing Reformation Day. Some have used the opportunity to post jokes or funny memes about their chosen Christian denomination. Others are debating Luther’s legacy, including discussing the degree to which he either created modern Christianity as we know it or heralded centuries of division within Christian communities.

While Reformation Day is celebrated annually among some Protestants, especially in Germany, the nature of this anniversary has brought debate over Luther and the Protestant Reformation more generally into the public sphere.

So what exactly happened in 1517, and why does it matter?

What started as an objection to particular corruptions morphed into a global revolution

While the Catholic Church was not the only church on the European religious landscape (the Eastern Orthodox Churches still dominated in Eastern Europe and parts of Asia), by the 16th century, it was certainly the most dominant. The church had a great deal of political as well as spiritual power; it had close alliances, for example, with many royal houses, as well as the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, which at that time encompassed much of Central Europe, including present-day Germany. 

The church’s great power brought with it a fair degree of corruption. Among the most notable and controversial practices of that time was the selling of “indulgences.” For Catholics of that time, sin could be divided into two broad categories. “Mortal sin” was enough to send you to hell after death, while “venal sin” got you some years of purifying punishment in purgatory, an interim state between life on earth and the heavenly hereafter.

By the 16th century, the idea that you could purchase an indulgence to reduce your purgatorial debt had become increasingly widespread. Religious leaders who wanted to fund projects would send out “professional pardoners,” or quaestores, to collect funds from the general public. Often, the sale of indulgences exceeded the official parameters of church doctrine; unscrupulous quaestores might promise eternal salvation (rather than just a remission of time in purgatory) in exchange for funds, or threaten damnation to those who refused. Indulgences could be sold on behalf of departed friends or loved ones, and many indulgence salesmen used that pressure to great effect.

Enter Martin Luther. A Catholic monk in Wittenberg, Luther found himself disillusioned by the practices of the church he loved. For Luther, indulgences — and the church’s approach to sin and penance more generally — seemed to go against what he saw as the most important part of his Christian faith. If God really did send his only son, Jesus, to die on the cross for the sins of mankind, then why were indulgences even necessary? If the salvation of mankind had come through Jesus’s sacrifice, then surely faith in Jesus alone should be enough for salvation.

In autumn 1517 (whether the actual date of October 31 is accurate is debatable), Luther nailed his 95 theses — most of the 95 points in the document, which was framed in the then-common style of academic debate, objections to the practice of indulgences — to a Wittenberg church door.

His intent was to spark a debate within his church over a reformation of Catholicism. Instead, Luther and those who followed him found themselves at the forefront of a new religious movement known as Lutheranism. By 1520, Luther had been excommunicated by the Catholic Church. Soon after, he found himself at the Diet (council) of the city of Worms, on trial for heresy under the authority of the (very Catholic) Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. At that council, the emperor declared Luther to be an outlaw and demanded his arrest.

Political, economic, and technological factors contributed to the spread of Luther’s ideas

So why wasn’t Luther arrested and executed, as plenty of other would-be reformers and “heretics” had been? The answer has as much to do with politics as with religion. In the region now known as Germany, the holy Roman emperor had authority over many regional princes, not all of whom were too happy about submitting to their emperor’s authority.

One such prince, Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, “kidnapped” Luther after his trial to keep him safe from his would-be arrestors. In the years following the trial, and the spread of Luther’s dissent as the basis for a Lutheranism, Protestantism often became a means by which individual princes would signal their opposition to imperial power. And when a prince converted, his entire principality was seen to have converted too. This led, for example, to the catastrophic Thirty Years’ War from 1618 to 1648, in which conflict between pro-Catholic and pro-Lutheran German princes morphed into a pan-European war that killed up to 20 percent of Europe’s population.

As it happens, the term “Protestant” began as a political rather than theological category. It originally referred to a number of German princes who formally protested an imperial ban on Martin Luther, before becoming a more general term for reformers who founded movements outside the Catholic Church.

Meanwhile, Luther was able to spread his ideas more quickly than ever before due to one vital new piece of technology: the printing press. For the first time in human history, vast amounts of information could be transmitted and shared easily with a great number of people. Luther’s anti-clerical pamphlets and essays — which were written in German, the language of the people, rather than the more obscure and “formal” academic language of Latin — could be swiftly and easily disseminated to convince others of his cause. (The relationship between Luther and the printing press was actually a symbiotic one : The more popular Luther became, the more print shops spread up across Europe to meet demand.)

Luther’s newfound popularity and “celebrity” status, in turn, made him a much more difficult force for his Catholic opponents to contend with. While earlier would-be reformers, such as John Hus, had been burned at the stake for heresy, getting rid of someone as widely known as Luther was far more politically risky.

Luther’s success, and the success of those who followed him, is a vital reminder of the ways politics, propaganda, and religion intersect. Something that began as a relatively narrow and academic debate over the church selling indulgences significantly changed Western culture. Luther opened the floodgates for other reformers.

Although Luther can be said to have started the Reformation, he was one of many reformers whose legacy lives on in different Protestant traditions. Switzerland saw the rise of John Calvin (whose own Protestant denomination, Calvinism, bears his name). John Knox founded the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Each denomination of Protestantism had its own specific theology and approach. But not all Protestant reformations were entirely idealistic in nature: King Henry VIII famously established the Church of England, still the state church in that country today, in order to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.

Nearly all Protestant groups, however, shared Luther’s original objections to the Catholic Church — theological ideals that still define the Protestant umbrella today.

The most important of these is the idea that salvation happens through faith alone. In other words, nothing — not indulgences, not confession or penance, not even good works — can alter the course of a person’s salvation. For Protestants, salvation happens through divine grace received through faith in Jesus Christ. The second of these is the idea that biblical Scripture, and a person’s individual relationship with the Bible, is the most important source of information about God and Christian life. (This is in stark contrast with the Catholic Church, in which a wider body of church teaching and church authority play a major role.)

While it would be too simplistic to say that Protestants as a whole favor individualism and autonomy over established tradition, it’s fair to say that most Protestant traditions place a greater premium on individuals’ personal religious experiences, on the act of “being saved” through prayer, and on individual readings of Scripture, than do Catholics or members of orthodox churches. 

Other differences between Catholic and Protestant theology and practice involve the clergy and church. Protestants by and large see the “sacraments,” such as communion, as less important than their Catholic counterparts (the intensity of this varies by tradition, although only Catholics see the communion wafer as the literal body of Christ). Protestant priests, likewise, are not bound by priestly celibacy, and can marry.

That said, for many Christians today, differences are cultural, not theological. Earlier this fall, a study carried out by the Pew Research Center found that average Protestants more often than not   assert traditionally Catholic teachings  about, among other things, the nature of salvation or the role of church teaching.

Protestantism today still bears the stamp of Luther

Today, about 900 million people — 40 percent of Christians — identify as Protestant around the world. Of these, 72 million people — just 8 percent — are Lutherans. But Lutheranism has still come to define much of the Protestant ethos.

Over the centuries, more forms of Protestantism have taken shape. Several of them have had cataclysmic effects on world history. Puritanism, another reform movement within the Church of England, inspired its members to seek a new life in the New World and helped shape America as we know it today. Many of these movements classified themselves as “revivalist” movements, each one in turn trying to reawaken a church that critics saw as having become staid and complacent (just as Luther saw the Catholic Church).

Of these reform and revivalist movements, perhaps none is so visible today in America as the loose umbrella known as evangelical Christianity. Many of the historic Protestant churches — Lutheranism, Calvinism, Presbyterianism, the Church of England — are now classified as mainline Protestant churches, which tend to be more socially and politically liberal. Evangelical Christianity, though, arose out of similar revivalist tendencies within those churches, in various waves dating back to the 18th century.

Even more decentralized than their mainline counterparts, evangelical Christian groups tend to stress scriptural authority (including scriptural inerrancy) and the centrality of being “saved” to an even greater extent than, say, modern Lutheranism. Because of the fragmented and decentralized way many of these churches operate, anybody can conceivably set up a church or church community in any building. This, in turn, gives rise to the trend of “storefront churches,” something particularly popular in Pentecostal communities, and “house churches,” in which members meet for Bible study at one another’s homes.

The history of Christianity worldwide has, largely, followed the Luther cycle. As each church or church community becomes set in its ways, a group of idealistic reformers seeks to revitalize its spiritual life. They found new movements, only for reformers to splinter off from them in turn.

In America, where mainline Protestantism has been in decline for decades, various forms of evangelical Protestantism seemed to flourish for many years. Now evangelicals — particularly white evangelicals — are finding themselves in decline  for a variety of reasons, including demographic change and increasingly socially liberal attitudes on the part of younger Christians. Meanwhile, social media — the printing press of our own age — is changing the way some Christians worship: Some Christians are more likely to worship and study the Bible online or attend virtual discussion groups, while in other churches, attendees are encouraged to “live-tweet” sermons to heighten engagement.

What happens next is anyone’s guess.

But if the history of Lutheranism is anything to go by, we may be due for another wave of reformation before too long.

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The Igniting of the Protestant Reformation – Martin Luther’s 95 Theses

Martin Luther’s 95 Theses by Ferdinand Pauwels, 1872. Luther (1483-1546) was a church reformer who nailed his 95 grievances against the Roman Catholic church to the Wittenburg Cathedral door in Germany on October 31, 1517.  His bold act sparked the Protestant Reformation.

The Protestant Reformation ignited in Europe in 1517 when German monk and professor Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany.  Luther’s 95 Theses was a list of grievances against the Catholic Church.  Luther, who had read the Bible, sought Bible-based reform by means of academic debate of what had become, in his view, a corrupt church. Read Luther’s 95 Theses in modern English here . 

Luther criticized the church for its excessive clerical wealth and power, burdens on the poor, false teachings, and heretical sale of indulgences and pardons to the people to take away God’s judgment of their sins.  He defended the authority of the Bible over human institutions in matters of faith, salvation by faith alone, and peace with and access to God through Jesus Christ.  

(Martin Luther [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Luther’s Theses was copied, translated, and spread quickly throughout Europe.  Since the Bible at that time was only available in Latin, a language which only the clergy knew; the people, who spoke other regional languages, had a limited understanding of the Bible’s content apart from what the clergy taught.  Upon reading Luther’s Theses , people were angered by what they saw as the church’s exploitive, heretical practices and doctrines and sought to do away with them.  

Religious civil wars broke out in Europe.  Reformers rose up all over Europe—including Luther of Germany who translated the Bible into German, John Calvin of France, Ulrich Zwingli of Switzerland, John Knox of Scotland, and William Tyndale of England who translated the Bible into English.  Many reformers became martyrs.  Due to the invention of the printing press in the 1440s in Germany, affordable Bibles and books were able to be mass-produced for the public.

As a result of the Protestant movement, some reforms occurred in the Catholic Church, and many new Protestant church groups emerged. Many from these Protestant and Catholic groups later migrated to America in the 1600s and 1700s.

Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.

Source:  Kamrath, Angela E.   The Miracle of America:  The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief .  Second Edition.  Houston, TX:  American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015.

Related Articles/Videos: 1.  The Context of the Protestant Reformation 2.   The Key Tenets of the Protestant Reformation 3.   The Key Political Thinkers & Writings of the Reformation Era 4.  The Reformation Led to the Translation and Printing of the Bible Into People’s Common Languages 5.   The Catholic Counter-Reformation 6.  Three P’s That Led to Freedom in the West:  Printing Press, Protestant Reformation, & Pilgrims

Activity:  Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 1, Part 1, Activity 3:  Causes and Effects of the Reformation, pp. 56.  HS.

Read Luther’s 95 Theses in modern English here .

This unit is available to download from the Member Resources at www.americanheritage.org .

Copyright © American Heritage Education Foundation.  All rights reserved.

Dr. Danilo Petranovich is an Advising Scholar for AHEF.  Dr. Petranovich is the Director of the Abigail Adams Institute at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. Previously, he taught political science at Duke University and Yale University.  His scholarly expertise is in nineteenth-century European and American political and social thought, with a special emphasis on American culture and Abraham Lincoln.  He has authored a number of articles on Lincoln and is currently writing a book on nationalism and the North in antebellum America.  He is a member of Harvard’s Kirkland House.  He holds a B. A. from Harvard and a Ph. D. in Political Science from Yale University.

Dr. Richard J. Gonzalez (1912-1998) is Co-Founder of AHEF.  Dr. Gonzalez served as Chief Economist and a member of the Board of Directors for Humble Oil and Refining Company (later Exxon Mobil) in Houston, Texas, for 28 years.  Later, he served as an economic consultant to various federal agencies and studies including the Department of Defense and the National Energy Study. 

He consulted with the Petroleum Administration for Defense and the Office of Defense Mobilization. In 1970, he was appointed by the U. S. Secretary of the Interior to the National Energy Study.  In addition, Gonzalez chaired and directed many petroleum industry boards and committees.  He served as director of the National Industrial Conference Board, chairman of the Economics Advisory Committee-Interstate Oil Compact Commission, and chairman of the National Petroleum Council Drafting Committee on National Oil Policy.  Gonzalez also held visiting professorships at the University of Texas, University of Houston, University of New Mexico, Stanford University, and Northwestern University.  From 1983-1991, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Texas IC2 Institute (Innovation, Creativity, and Capital).

Gonzalez authored many articles and papers on topics ranging from energy economics to the role of progress in America. His articles include “Economics of the Mineral Industry” (1976), “Energy and the Environment: A Risk Benefit Approach” (1976), “Exploration and Economics of the Petroleum Industry” (1976), “Exploration for U. S. Oil and Gas” (1977), “National Energy Security” (1978), and “How Can U.S. Energy Production Be Increased?” (1979).

Born in San Antonio, Texas, Gonzalez earned his B.A. in Mathematics, M.A. in Economics, and Ph.D. in Economics (Phi Beta Kappa with highest honors) from the University of Texas at Austin.  He was and still is the youngest candidate ever to earn his Ph.D. from UT-Austin at the age of 21 in 1934.

In 1993, Dr. and Mrs. Gonzalez were recognized by the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (NSSAR) with the Bronze Good Citizenship Medals for “Notable Services on Behalf of American Principles.”

Selected Articles: 1.  “What Makes America Great? An Address before the Dallas Chapter Society for the Advancement of Management” (1951) 2.  “Power for Progress” (1952) 3.  “Increasing Importance of Economic Education” (1953) 4.  “Federal Spending and Deficits Must Be Controlled to Stop Inflation” (1978) 5.  “What Enabled Americans to Achieve Great Progress? Keys to Remarkable Economic Progress of the United States of America” (1989) 6.  “The Establishment of the United States of America” (1991)

Eugenie Gonzalez is Co-Founder of AHEF. Mrs. Gonzalez was elected to the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board of Trustees with Dr. Herman Barnett III and David Lopez from 1972-1976 and was a key designer and advocate for HISD’s Magnet School program.  With HISD and AHEF in 1993, she designed and implemented HISD’s annual American Heritage Month held every November throughout HISD. 

Jeannie was recognized in 1993 by the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (NSSAR) for “Notable Services on Behalf of American Principles” with the Bronze Good Citizenship Medal and in 2011 by the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) for “Outstanding Achievement through Education Pursuits” with the Mary Smith Lockwood Medal.  In 2004, she was honored to receive HISD’s first American Heritage Month Exemplary Citizenship Award.

Jeannie was a volunteer, participant, and supporter of M. D. Anderson Cancer Hospital, St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, Gethsemane United Methodist Church, Houston Grand Jury Association (board member), League of Women Voters, Houston Area Forum, the Mayor’s Charter Study Committee, Vision America, Houston Parks Department, and Houston Tennis Association.  She was instrumental in the founding of the Houston Tennis Association and Houston Tennis Patrons.

In her youth, Jeannie was the leading women’s tennis player in the Midwest Section of the US Lawn Tennis Association and competed at the U. S. National Championships.  She attended by invitation and became the first women’s tennis player at the University of Texas at Austin.  In 1932, 1933, and 1934, Jeannie was women’s finalist at the Houston Invitational Tennis Tournament which became the River Oaks Invitational Tennis Tournament and is now the USTA Clay Court Championships.  She was instrumental in bringing some of the nation’s top amateur tennis players to that event.  Jeannie became the first teaching tennis professional at Houston Country Club and River Oaks Country Club, starting active junior programs at each.  Jeannie and her father, Jack Sampson, were jointly inducted into the Texas Tennis Hall of Fame in 2012.

Claudine Kamrath is Outreach Coordinator, Office Manager, and Resource Designer for AHEF. She oversees outreach efforts and office administration. She also collaborates on educational resource formatting and design.  She has served as an Elementary Art Teacher in Texas as well as a Communications and Design Manager for West University United Methodist Church in Houston. She also worked as a childrens’ Camp Counselor at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston.  She holds a B.A. in Art and a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Texas at Austin as well as Texas Teacher Certification from the University of Houston. She has served in various children’s and student ministries.

Dr. Brian Domitrovic is an Advising Scholar for AHEF.  Dr. Domitrovic is a Senior Associate and the Richard S. Strong Scholar at the Laffer Center for Supply-Side Economics. He is also Department Chair and Professor of History at Same Houston State University.  He teaches American and European History and Economics.  His specialties also include Economic History, Intellectual History, Monetary Policy, and Fiscal Policy.  He has written articles, papers, and books–including  Econoclasts –in these subjects.  He is a board member of the Center for Western Civilization, Thought & Policy at the University of Colorado-Boulder and a trustee of the Philadelphia Society.  He has received several awards including the Director’s Award from Intercollegiate Studies Institute and fellowship grants from Earhart Foundation, Krupp Foundation, Princeton, Texas A&M, and SHSU.  He holds a B. A. in History & Mathematics from Columbia University, an M. A. in History from Harvard University, and a Ph. D. in History, with graduate studies in Economics, from Harvard University.

Jack Kamrath is Co-Founder and Vice-President of AHEF.  A Texas state champion and nationally-ranked tennis player during his high school and college years, Kamrath is the Co-Founder and Principal of Tennis Planning Consultants (TPC) in Houston, Texas, since 1970. TPC is the first, oldest, and most prolific tennis facility design and consulting firm in the United States and world.  Mr. Kamrath is also the founder and owner of Kamrath Construction Company and has owned and managed various real estate operating companies.  He worked with Brown and Root in construction and human resources in Vietnam during the Vietnam War from 1966-1970. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin.  He is a member of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston.  In 2008, AHEF President Mr. Kamrath and AHEF received the Distinguished Patriot Award from the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (NSSAR) for leadership in preserving America’s heritage and the teaching of good citizenship principles.

Essays: 1.   1776:  From Oppression to Freedom 2.   FUPR:  The Formula for the American Experiment 2.   In Support of Our Pledge of Allegiance 3.   A Summation of America’s Greatest Ever Threat to Its Survival and Perpetuation 4.   A Brief Overview:  The Moral Dimension of Rule of Law in the U. S. Constitution  (editor)

Dr. Michael Owens is Director of Education of AHEF. He has served as a Presenter/Trainer of AHEF teacher training workshops. Owens has taken on a number of administration leadership roles in Texas public education throughout his career–including Superintendent in Dripping Springs ISD, Assistant Superintendent in Friendswood ISD, and Associate Executive Director of Instruction Services for Region IV Education Service Center. He has also served as Director of Exemplary Programs for the Texas Education Agency, Director of Curriculum and Instruction for College Station ISD, and Director of Elementary and Secondary Education for College Station ISD. Owens has led many professional development worships for the Texas School Boards Association, Texas Assessment, Texas Education Agency, and others. He has specialization in educational technology systems and educational assessments, and has Texas teaching experience. He currently serves as Texas Technology Engineering Literacy (TEL) test administrator for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for part of Texas. He holds a B.S. and a M.Ed. from Stephen F. Austin State University and a Ed.D. from the University of North Texas.  He retired in 2021.

Angela E. Kamrath is President and Editorial Director of AHEF.  She is the author of the critically-acclaimed  The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief . She is editor and co-contributor of AHEF’s widely-distributed teacher resources,  America’s Heritage: An Adventure in Liberty ,  America’s Heritage: An Experiment in Self-Government , and  The Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide . In addition, she is editor and contributor for  The Founding Blog  and AHEF websites. Kamrath has taught, tutored, and consulted in writing and research at the University of Houston, Belhaven College, and Houston Christian University.  She also served as a Secondary English Teacher in Texas and as a Communications Assistant for St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston.  She served as a Research Assistant intern in the Office of National Service during the George H. W. Bush administration.  She holds a B.A. in Government from the University of Texas at Austin, a M.A. in Journalism from Regent University, and a M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction as well as Texas Teacher Certification from the University of Houston.  She has served in various children’s and student ministries.

Dr. Steve Balch is an Advising Scholar for AHEF.  Dr. Balch is the Principal Founder and former President of the National Association of Scholars (NAS). He served as a Professor of Government at City University of New York from 1974-1987.  Dr. Balch has co-authored several NAS studies on education curriculum evolution and problems including  The Dissolution of General Education:  1914-1993 ,  The Dissolution of the Curriculum 1914-1996 , and  The Vanishing West .  He is the author of  Economic and Political Change After Crisis:  Prospects for Government, Liberty and Rule of Law  and numerous articles relating to issues in academia.  Dr. Balch has also founded and/or led many education organizations including the Institute for the Study of Western Civilization at Texas Tech University, Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, Association for the Study of Free Institutions, American Academy for Liberal Education, Philadelphia Society, Historical Society, and Association of Literary Scholars.  He has also served on the National Advisory Board of the U. S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE), Educational Excellence Network, and New Jersey State Advisory Committee to the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights.  Dr. Balch was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush in 2007, and the Jeanne Jordan Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award by the Bradley Foundation and American Conservative Union Foundation in 2009.  He holds a B. A. in Political Science from City University of New York and a M. A. and Ph. D. in Political Science from the University of California-Berkeley.

Dr. Rob Koons is an Advising Scholar for AHEF.  Dr. Koons is a Professor of Philosophy and Co-Founder of The Western Civilization and American Institutions Program at The University of Texas at Austin. He teaches ancient, medieval, contemporary Christian, and political philosophy as well as philosophy of religion.  He has authored/co-authored countless articles and several books including  Realism Regained ,  The Atlas of Reality, Fundamentals of Metaphysics,  and  Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science .  He has been awarded numerous fellowships and is a member of the American Philosophical Association, Society of Christian Philosophers, and American Catholic Philosophical Association.  He holds a B. A. in Philosophy from Michigan State University, an M. A. in Philosophy and Theology from Oxford University, and a Ph. D. in Philosophy from the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA).

Dr. Mark David Hall is an Advising Scholar for AHEF.  Dr. Hall is a Professor of Political Science in the Robertson School of Government at Regent University and a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy at First Liberty Institute.  He is also a Distinguished Scholar of Christianity & Public Life at George Fox University, Associate Faculty in the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, and Senior Fellow in the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. His teaching interests include American Political Theory, Religion and Politics, Constitutional Law, and Great Books.  Dr. Hall is a nationally recognized expert on religious freedom and has written or edited a dozen books on religion and politics in America including  Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land:  How Christianity Has Advanced Freedom and Equality for All Americans ,  Did America Have a Christian Founding? Separating Modern Myth from Historical Truth ,  Great Christian Jurists in American History ,  America’s Wars: A Just War Perspective ,  Faith and the Founders of the American Republic ,  The Sacred Rights of Conscience ,  The Founders on God and Government , and  The Political and Legal Philosophy of James Wilson .  He writes for the online publications Law & Liberty and Intercollegiate Studies Review and has appeared regularly on a number of radio shows, including Jerry Newcomb’s Truth in Action, Tim Wildman’s Today’s Issues, the Janet Mefferd Show, and the Michael Medved Show.  He has been awarded numerous fellowships and the Freedom Project Award by the John Templeton Foundation in 1999 and 2000.  He holds a B. A. in Political Science from Wheaton College and a Ph. D. in Government from the University of Virginia.

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What was the significance of the 95 theses.

What were the 95 Theses?

According to historic legend, Martin Luther posted a document on the door of the Wittenberg Church on the 31 st October 1517; a document later referred to as the 95 Theses. This document was questioning rather than accusatory, seeking to inform the Archbishop of Mainz that the selling of indulgences had become corrupt, with the sellers seeking solely to line their own pockets. It questioned the idea that the indulgences trade perpetuated – that buying a trinket could shave time off the stay of one’s loved ones in purgatory, sending them to a glorious Heaven.

It is important, however, to recognise that this was not the action of a man wanting to break away from the Catholic Church. When writing the 95 Theses, Luther simply intended to bring reform to the centre of the agenda for the Church Council once again; it cannot be stressed enough that he wanted to reform, rather than abandon, the Church.

Nonetheless, the 95 Theses were undoubtedly provocative, leading to debates across the German Lands about what it meant to be a true Christian, with some historians considering the document to be the start of the lengthy process of the Reformation. But why did Luther write them?

Why did Luther write the 95 Theses?

In particular, Luther was horrified by the fact that a large portion of the profits from this trade were being used to renovate St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. His outrage at this is evident from the 86 th thesis: ‘Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St Peter with the money of the poor rather than with his own money?’ Perhaps this is indicative of Luther’s opinion as opposing the financial extortion indulgences pressed upon the poor, rather than the theology which lay behind the process of freeing one’s loved ones from purgatory.

It is interesting to note that Luther also sent a copy of his 95 Theses directly to Archbishop Albrecht von Brandenburg. It appears that he legitimately believed that the Archbishop was not aware of the corruption inherent in the indulgence trade led by Tetzel. This is something which can be considered important later on, for it indicates that Luther did not consider the Church hierarchy redundant at this point.

Why were the 95 Theses significant?

Though the document itself has a debateable significance, the events which occurred because of its publication were paramount in Luther’s ideological and religious development. Almost immediately there was outrage at the ‘heresy’ which the Church viewed as implicit within the document. Despite the pressure upon Luther to immediately recant his position, he did not. This in part led to the Leipzig debate in summer 1519 with Johann Eck.

This debate forced Luther to clarify some of his theories and doctrinal stances against the representative of the Catholic Church. The debate focused largely on doctrine; in fact, the debate regarding indulgences was only briefly mentioned in the discussions between the two men. This seems surprising; Luther’s primary purpose in writing the 95 Theses was to protest the selling of indulgences. Why was this therefore not the primary purpose of the debate?

Ultimately the debate served to further Luther’s development of doctrine which opposed the traditional view of the Catholic Church. In the debate he was forced to conclude that Church Councils had the potential to be erroneous in their judgements. This therefore threw into dispute the papal hierarchy’s authority, and set him on his path towards evangelicalism and the formulation of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Yet it is important to bear in mind that, had the pope offered a reconciliation, Luther would have returned to the doctrine of the established Church.

An interesting point to consider about the aftermath of the 95 Theses is the attitude of the Catholic Church. It immediately sought to identify Luther as someone who had strayed from the true way and was therefore a heretic; it refused to recognise that Luther had valid complaints which were shared by many across Western Christendom. The 95 Theses could have been taken at face value and used as an avenue to reform, as Luther intended. Instead, the papal hierarchy sought to discredit Luther, and keep to the status quo.

What made the 95 Theses significant?

A document written in Latin and posted on a door like most other academic debates, it does not seem obvious when considering the 95 Theses alone to see just how they became as significant as they did.

The translation of the Latin text into German also helped make the document significant. Translated in early 1518 by reformist friends of Luther, this widened the debate’s appeal simply because it made the subject matter accessible to a greater number of people. ‘Common’ folk who could read would have been able to read in German, rather than Latin. This therefore meant that they would be able to read the article for themselves and realise just how many of the arguments they identified with (or did not identify with, for that matter). The translation also meant that these literate folk could read the Theses aloud to a large audience; Bob Scribner argued that we should not forget the oral nature of the Reformation, beginning with one of the most divisive documents in history.

Finally, the 95 Theses can be considered significant because they were expressing sentiments that many ordinary folk felt themselves at the time. There had been a disillusionment with the Church and corruption within it for a great deal of time; the Reformatio Sigismundi  of 1439 is a prime early example of a series of lists detailing the concerns of the people about the state of the Church. By the time of the Imperial Diet of Worms in 1521, there were 102 grievances with the Church, something overshadowed due to Martin Luther’s presence at this Diet. Many of the issues Luther highlighted were shared among the populace; it was due to the contextual factors of the printing press and the use of the German language that made this expression so significant.

It would not be surprising if, when posting his 95 Theses on the door of the chapel on the 31 st October 1517, Luther did not expect a great deal to change. At the time, he did not know what such an act would lead to. The events which occurred due to the Theses led to Luther clarifying his doctrinal position in a manner which led to his eventual repudiation of the decadence and corruption within the Catholic Church and his excommunication.

Yet we must remember that whilst the 95 Theses can be considered to constitute an extraordinary shift in the mentality of a disillusioned Christian, they are very unlikely to have achieved the same significance without the printing press. If the 95 Theses had been posted on the 31 st October 1417 , would the result have been the same?

Written by Victoria Bettney

Bibliography

Dixon, Scott C. The Reformation in Germany . Oxford  : Blackwell, 2002.

Dixon, Scott C ed. The German Reformation: The Essential Readings . Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.

Lau, Franz and Bizer, Ernst. A History of the Reformation in Germany To 1555 . Translated by Brian Hardy. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1969.

Lindberg, Carter. The European Reformations . Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.

McGrath, Alister. Christian Theology: An Introduction . Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.

McGrath, Alister. Reformation Thought: An Introduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1998.

Scribner, Robert. ‘Oral Culture and the Diffusion of Reformation Ideas,’ History of European Ideas 5, no. 3 (1984): 237-256.

“The 95 Theses,” http://www.luther.de/en/95thesen.html , accessed 29.10.15

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Post navigation, 3 thoughts on “ what was the significance of the 95 theses ”.

Interesting article! You rightly argue that the Theses were not the finished product but just a step in Luther’s theological development. That makes you think; should we really be celebrating 31 October 2017 as the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, or should we be remembering a different date?

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Thinking Kids

Teach Your Kids the Bible and Christian History

Martin Luther and the 95 Theses

September 23, 2023 By Danika 97 Comments

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Teach your teen about Martin Luther and The 95 Theses — A pivotal moment in time during the Reformation that changed the world!

On October 31st, 1517, a German monk by the name of Martin Luther protested the Roman Catholic practice of selling plenary indulgences (a slip of paper that excused the purchaser from paying the debt owed for all of their sins) by writing out a list of 95 concerns. In Latin. This monk, who was also a priest, a district vicar, and a professor, happened to be a student of Scripture and a brilliant man. He took his list to a printer to have copies made and then nailed it to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church.

It was like posting an issue for debate on the university bulletin board. Luther didn’t expect that anyone other than Church officials and university professors would see his list. The document wasn’t a secret–he sent a copy to Albert, the Archbishop of Mainz. He truly wanted to open a debate and inspire change. Martin Luther was certain that if Church officials knew what was happening in his little area of Saxony in Germany, they’d fix it. Immediately.

The thing is, the Church did know. Selling plenary indulgences in Germany was a scheme that Albert of Mainz and Pope Leo X cooked up. They split the money earned to pay for the ongoing work on Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome–and Albert owed Leo X some money after he purchased his archbishopric. It seems Leo X had spent quite a bit of the Church’s treasury in a big party when he was elected. Neither Albert nor Leo X had an issue with a little simony, either, it seemed.

Martin Luther, of course, knew none of that. He just knew that Scripture is clear–we don’t pay for our salvation.

We are saved by grace through faith.

Martin Luther and the 95 Theses would have been a small local issue, or perhaps a broader academic debate among scholars, had it not been for the printer. That sneaky printer.

He translated Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses into German. That document was distributed throughout Germany, then across Europe–translated into the languages of the local common people by printers along the way.

And that changed everything.

Make your own Martin Luther and the Ninety-Five Theses!

Listen to me read the first chapter of  When Lightning Struck! .

Martin Luther and the Reformation

The Roman Catholic Church had been in need of reform for quite some time. Church officials had long complained of issues of simony, corruption, broken celibacy vows at all levels of the Church leadership, and plenary indulgences.

Martin Luther’s study of Scripture led him to take issue with more and more teachings of the Church. A prolific writer, he taught Scriptural concepts in books, pamphlets, and sermons. The response was an all out battle. Reformers and adherents to the Roman Catholic Church chose sides and fought over who and what was supreme. It could either be the Pope or Scripture. But not both.

The Reformation of the Roman Catholic Church had been tamped down for about two hundred years before Martin Luther came on the scene. Reformers were often labeled heretics and publicly martyred. But Reformation could not be held back any longer by the time Martin Luther published The Ninety-Five Theses.

Martin Luther’s work and life led to both the eventual reform of the Roman Catholic Church, and the development of the Protestant Church. From there, Christians fought for a continued return to the teachings of Scripture.

Though Protestants don’t always agree on doctrinal issues, we do agree that we’re saved by the grace of God alone, through the faith that He gives us. We agree that Scripture is the Word of God, and the Bible can be trusted to reveal His will to us. We can have a personal relationship with God our Father through the atoning work of Jesus Christ our Savior and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Fun Reformation Resources!

When Lightning Struck!: The Story of Martin Luther

When Lightning Struck!: The Story of Martin Luther   is an historical novel for teens . In it, I tell Martin Luther’s story in an exciting narrative (written with my adventure-loving boys in mind!).

Teens will learn about the important theological debates and central events of the Reformation, and be introduced to a number of the key players. They’ll come to know Martin Luther, the Father of the Reformation. By the time they finish the book, your teens will understand how God used Martin Luther to change the world. His fight for Scriptural truth reverberated across all areas of life–political, religious, and personal. Teens will also recognize that Martin Luther was a man like all other men–imperfect and a sinner. Martin Luther clung desperately to the truth that he was saved by God’s grace through faith.

When Lightning Struck!: The Story of Martin Luther is written for a teen audience, / it makes a great family read-aloud .

Martin Luther and the Reformation Lapbooks!

The When Lightning Struck! Discussion Guide is perfect for:

• Youth Groups
• Sunday School Classes
• Family Read-Alouds
• Homeschool Christian History

Each chapter has discussion questions and timeline dates to add to the 4-page timeline I’ve included at the back of the guide. There are also short biographies of important figures, and relevant Scripture passages to consider with discussion questions.

Want to download that Discussion Guide? It’s free! Just check out through the store.

Martin Luther Unit Study

• Martin Luther’s life
• Timeline dates
• Biographies of important people
• Relevant Scripture
• Art history

The 12-week unit study for middle and high school students is ideal for use in homeschools or co-ops. Each week covers discussion questions on the biography chapters, timeline dates (there’s a timeline included at the back of the unit study), related Scripture to study with discussion questions, and a short biography on an important figure.

The assignment schedule page for each weeks tells students what to study or write in each subject. In addition to the timeline, there are also vocabulary worksheets and maps at the back of the unit study. Each subject includes book suggestions that should be available at most libraries. Students can also just research subject matter online. There is no purchase in addition to When Lightning Struck! required to use the unit study.

There are notebooking pages available for the history and science subjects. These include both subject-related notebooking pages and biographical pages.

The art history section for each week’s study includes a biography page for an artist, and three notebooking pages with five art pieces by that artist. Students will be able to write about how each piece impacts them, how they feel about the work, and why.

Each week, students will have a writing assignment. There are two pages available for this assignment. Students will also have weekly copywork, either from Scripture (both ESV and KJV are cited so you may choose the version you prefer), or a quote from Martin Luther.

Learn more about the Who What Why series   and get your FREE Abolition Lapbooks here.

Bible Resources for Your Kids

Teach your teens about Martin Luther and the Reformation in an exciting, new way with  When Lightning Struck!: The Story of Martin Luther ! The book also makes a wonderful family read-aloud.

As Luther’s understanding of the spiritual corruption within the Church grew, and he despaired of true salvation, Luther (now a scholar and priest) sought the Bible for answers. Following his discovery of the true gospel in Scripture, Luther began to preach spiritual freedom to his congregation, and to teach biblical (rather than philosophical) theology at the University of Wittenberg.

It was on October 31, 1517 that Martin Luther penned his Ninety-Five Theses  in Latin in response to the abusive indulgence sales practices of the monk Johann Tetzel in a nearby town. Luther nailed the Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church, the scholarly bulletin board of his day, and mailed a copy to the Archbishop of Mainz. Luther hoped to start a scholarly debate about the practice of selling salvation through plenary indulgences. The response he received was greater–and more dangerous–than he imagined it would be.

Luther’s story is exciting. There are death defying moments, epic spiritual battles, narrow escapes, a kidnapping, revolution, and war. As the “Father of the Reformation”, Luther is a vital figure in Church history. His sacrifice and willingness to wage battle against the spiritual, religious, and political powers of his medieval world allowed Christians throughout time to embrace the truth of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone as explained by Scripture alone once again. May all glory be to God alone!

Read portions of the first eight chapters of When Lightning Struck! :

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September 1, 2017 at 4:37 am

I’ve been looking for a read-aloud for my 1st and 7th graders to lead up to the 500th anniversary! This will be perfect! (Even better if we win the Playmobil Martin Luther for the 1st grader to play with while we read! 😀 )

September 1, 2017 at 4:41 am

Can’t wait to read When Lightning Struck! We so appreciate your quality products.

September 1, 2017 at 4:55 am

I’m so excited to read this! I’m looking at new class options to teach at my kids co-op, and a class on this book would be amazing!

September 1, 2017 at 4:56 am

I would love to use this as a read-aloud for my crew of four.

September 1, 2017 at 5:11 am

We love Luther too for speaking out when he saw something that wasn’t right.

September 1, 2017 at 5:41 am

Wwe are studying the Renaissance and Reformation this year in our homeschool and this would be perfect to go along with it! Thank you for sharing your passion for Christian history, Danika!

September 1, 2017 at 5:50 am

We just read about Martin Luther and his 95 theses in our Mystery of History lesson yesterday. This would be great to read for a more in depth study!

We studied Martin Luther last year in history, and I cannot believe I didn’t connect the timeline for myself! 500 years! That’s will be great to discuss this year on Halloween along with our sin/pumpkin carving.

September 1, 2017 at 6:04 am

I think my older two kids would love this – and honestly I would too 🙂

September 1, 2017 at 6:07 am

I have been planning to purchase your book to read next month with my boys. How fun it would be to win it & that delightful little toy!

September 1, 2017 at 6:22 am

We are celebrating this this year, and our year’s history studies revolve around this!

September 1, 2017 at 6:28 am

My lo is very little, but I’ve been contemplating purchasing this book for myself. I’d love to win and use them as she grows.

September 1, 2017 at 6:36 am

So great to be able to focus on this pivotal point in history!

September 1, 2017 at 6:40 am

we haven’t covered MLKJ yet and would love this resource in order to do so

September 1, 2017 at 7:25 am

I am excited to teach my kids more about the Reformation

September 1, 2017 at 7:27 am

I’m excited to share the details of the story and Luther’s passion for truth with my kids.

September 1, 2017 at 7:42 am

Last year was the first time we learned about Reformation day, and I’m excited to celebrate this year for the 500th anniversary!!

September 1, 2017 at 7:47 am

Thank you again Danika for a great giveaway and for all the wonderful resources that you have reviewed on church history. We have purchased many of them and have not been disappointed. It is a precious gift to learn church history alongside my children and be inspired by the saints who have gone before us. Blessings on you and your family.

September 1, 2017 at 8:47 am

This book looks great!

September 1, 2017 at 9:46 am

I love living history books, and church history is even more exciting! I don’t have teens yet, but I would love to start this as a read aloud.

September 1, 2017 at 9:52 am

We are just so excited to celebrate the anniversary of the reformation! Our church has been talking about it a lot, and I would love this resource to continue the conversation at home.

September 1, 2017 at 10:38 am

I’m so excited about this!!!! Church history is something that I didn’t study much of growing up but I have been now for a while. I want my kids to know the importance of the Reformation as well as the kids I teach at our Church. 500 years!!!!!

September 1, 2017 at 10:55 am

This book looks great! We want to read it up till October 31st and celebrate a real holiday

September 1, 2017 at 2:46 pm

We love Martin Luther and how he took a huge stand to defend our faith and tell the truth. We also love his hyms, writings, and commentaries. This looks like a great resource and great timing for the 500th anniversary!

September 1, 2017 at 6:24 pm

What an engaging resource

September 1, 2017 at 6:58 pm

This book sounds wonderful! Looking forward to reading it!

September 1, 2017 at 7:20 pm

Would be an awesome way to begin our school year!

September 1, 2017 at 7:40 pm

I like books about Martin Luther, so this would be great. Would love to have a Playmobil Luther as well.

September 1, 2017 at 8:46 pm

Playmobil is such a great way to help children bring learning to life and what better way to celebrate Oct 31st than learning about those who went before us. I hope we win!

September 1, 2017 at 9:33 pm

Martin Luther is someone that I want my family to know about and the changes that came about in part because he read his Bible. Someone will be blessed with this, so thank you for the give away.

September 1, 2017 at 10:58 pm

Looking forward to having a 500th anniversary party!!

September 3, 2017 at 11:52 am

I’m excited about this important anniversary. Thank you for the chance.

September 3, 2017 at 5:29 pm

Martin Luther is a really important person in church history so a good biography of him would be great.

September 3, 2017 at 10:09 pm

500 years! I didn’t even know that.

September 4, 2017 at 4:46 am

Looks like such a wonderful book in which we could learn a lot 🙂

September 4, 2017 at 5:08 am

I would love to read this book! I also want to use it to teach my kids how important it is to think for themselves and not simply accept what the leadership says.

September 4, 2017 at 5:36 am

I need all the help I can get when it comes to teaching History so this would be a great addition!

September 4, 2017 at 6:25 am

I have been hunting for reformation resources! We are planning a big party on Oct 31 to celebrate this historic event, and I need all the help/ideas I can get!

September 4, 2017 at 6:32 am

I enjoyed learning about Luther when I was a kid. I’m excited to teach my kids about him and all he did.

September 4, 2017 at 6:44 am

What an awesome read aloud to explain the Reformation. Thank you for the chance!

September 4, 2017 at 8:18 am

We love learning more about church history. Martin Luther’s life is very interesting. We love reading your book.

September 4, 2017 at 8:57 am

Good article above. I was always under the impression that Martin Luther wanted to break away from the catholic church and not that he wanted them to fix the problems and stay catholic. You truly do learn something new every day, thank you. Thanks for the chance at winning your book, it would make a great read aloud for anyone’s home.

September 4, 2017 at 9:05 am

Love to learn more about our Christian history and am very interested in learning the whole story behind Luther and the break from the Church— thank you for this opportunity!!

September 4, 2017 at 9:46 am

My middle baby is in love with learning things that happened before she was born so this is perfect for her. It’s hard to find anything engaging for her but history is a favorite of hers.

September 4, 2017 at 12:21 pm

I have been wanting to have a chance to read this book. I love hearing about Christian history.

September 4, 2017 at 1:24 pm

I am looking forward to this because I love any kind of history. This book “When Lightning Struck” is going to be interesting and educational to read. Thank you Danika for all these great and generous giveaways. Marion

September 4, 2017 at 2:06 pm

What a great time to learn about Martin Luther and celebrate the 500 year anniversary.

September 4, 2017 at 5:16 pm

Thank you for this giveaway and for the lesson. I had no idea about this at all.

September 5, 2017 at 4:34 am

This would be a great help. After reading, I feel like what we have studied of Martin Luther has only sratched the surface and we should study more for the coming days. We need to understand his prompting and timing for doing such as he did.

September 5, 2017 at 5:58 am

I want to teach my children about the reformation and about Martin Luther.

September 5, 2017 at 8:28 am

What a neat giveaway. My husband and I have been wishing each other a Happy Reformation Day on Halloween for years but I thought we were just odd! How fun that other people do it too! I love that there is a Playmobil Luther too! Thanks for this giveaway.

September 5, 2017 at 9:20 am

I would love to use your resource to teach my children about the reformation. Thank you for taking the time to write about Martin Luther to help us to better teach our children!

September 5, 2017 at 9:34 am

As a born, baptized, and confirmed Lutheran, there is still more that I can learn. I find that even as I get older, I want to get more and more information. My daughter is in the 7th grade at a Lutheran School, and I work part time at our church. I think this would be a great asset to her school and/or our church library. Thanks! 🙂

September 5, 2017 at 10:10 am

Books sounds engaging for a range of ages! Always in need of a book that all my children can learn from.

September 5, 2017 at 6:16 pm

Such an important figure in history! We’d love to read this!

September 5, 2017 at 8:00 pm

This looks like a great resource!

September 6, 2017 at 1:56 am

My 5 year old is in Classical Conversations and one of his favorite parts of his history timeline song is about the Protestant Reformation. It’s a bit odd to have a 5 year old who sings about Martin Luther in the grocery store, but I love it! LOL. This would be a great supplement as he gets older and a the play mobile is a fun way to strengthen his natural curiosity sparked by his timeline song!

September 6, 2017 at 4:26 am

Oh, I’d love to win this resource! It looks like a fun yet thorough way to introduce my kids to a major faith based historical event.

September 6, 2017 at 5:31 am

This would go well with our TOG studies 🙂

September 6, 2017 at 6:08 am

I would love to cover this with my daughters!

September 6, 2017 at 8:01 am

I have your book as an e-book (and thought it quite good when I read it last year — planning to reread it for the 500th anniversary again!) and would love a hard copy that I could share with friends! 🙂 And the playmobil figurine would be lots of fun for my daughter, who is also interested in history and has read several simpler books about Luther — and might be ready for yours, soon, too.

September 6, 2017 at 4:51 pm

I would love to use this information with my 3rd-6th grade Sunday School class.

September 6, 2017 at 4:56 pm

I’m excited that my library will be ordering this book. Looking forward to reading with my daughter!

September 7, 2017 at 7:53 am

Thank you for the fun giveaway!

September 7, 2017 at 1:46 pm

I am so excited for this giveaway.

September 8, 2017 at 5:17 am

This is perfect! We just started a study of Martin Luther yesterday.

September 8, 2017 at 5:18 am

My family and I love learning about history especially church history.

September 8, 2017 at 6:11 am

Great giveaway!

September 8, 2017 at 9:52 pm

I’m excited to know more about the life of Martin Luther!

September 9, 2017 at 10:38 am

Wonderful! I haven’t seen this before, but I am going to have to explore!

September 9, 2017 at 10:40 pm

This would be great for our lessons on Martin Luther! 🙂

September 10, 2017 at 2:53 pm

This is the History time period we are studying this year and wanted to dig into Martin Luther as our in depth person to study! Can’t wait to read this book and add to our lessons!

September 11, 2017 at 4:15 am

This looks amazing. I’d love to have my whole family listenas a read aloud to prepare for the 500th anniversary. And little ones would enjoy the Pplaymobil figure to go along with it.

September 11, 2017 at 4:16 am

I’m excited about When Lighting Strikes because I don’t know much about Martin Luther myself and would love to learn right along with my children!

September 11, 2017 at 4:30 am

Great idea! I’d love to give this to my 11 year old son to read. We are celebrating the 500 anniversary as a family – a great way to add to that celebration

September 11, 2017 at 6:14 am

We are new to your site, and I had not heard of the book: When Lightning Strikes! Kids are excited to hopefully win, so we can add that this year to our study. Thank you so much for the free Reformation materials too!!!

September 11, 2017 at 7:39 am

I would love to win this to use in my homeschool. I recommend your resources to others and love your website!

September 11, 2017 at 7:41 am

I have a great love for truth. This book looks intriguing!

September 11, 2017 at 7:44 am

Teaching history in storybook format is the best! And my son would love the little Martin Luther!!!

September 11, 2017 at 8:17 am

Great idea, thanks for sharing! I will probably get the book even if I don’t win

September 11, 2017 at 8:57 am

I thought I entered! I hope I win! My mom was raised Catholic and I was raised Lutheran. 🙂

September 11, 2017 at 2:21 pm

seriously Playmobil has a Martin Luther figure??? Wow!!! I meant I’d love to win it to give to you are faster who’s actually teaching a weekly course on Martin Luther up to the Reformation anniversary and we’d love to have this book as part of our Bible course for kids

September 12, 2017 at 1:13 pm

My Kids would love this book. We’ve been studying different missionaries and people in church history this year.

September 12, 2017 at 7:59 pm

It sounds really interesting and I don’t know much about the details of the story.

September 13, 2017 at 10:48 am

Great book! Read it with my daughter this summer. We both enjoyed it!

September 13, 2017 at 10:59 am

I don’t know much about the story, but we are always excited to learn new things and play with Playmobil!

September 13, 2017 at 11:20 am

September 13, 2017 at 1:17 pm

It seems like a nice book

September 13, 2017 at 1:37 pm

500 YEARS!!! We need to celebrate!!

September 13, 2017 at 3:33 pm

We have been studying about Martin Luther and the Reformation this year. So excited to find a new book.

September 13, 2017 at 4:00 pm

This looks amazing! What a fun way to learn.

September 14, 2017 at 4:27 am

I have eyed this resource for a long time and I know my children would love it!!

September 14, 2017 at 9:19 am

We study the Reformation this year! Would love this book!

September 14, 2017 at 8:24 pm

We can’t wait to read this book.

September 15, 2017 at 8:45 am

Can’t wait to read it with my grandkids.

September 15, 2017 at 8:46 am

Cant wait to read it.

September 15, 2017 at 8:42 pm

We are just coming to this time period in our studies!

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by Dr. Martin Luther, 1517

Disputation of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences by Dr. Martin Luther (1517)

Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed at Wittenberg, under the presidency of the Reverend Father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and of Sacred Theology, and Lecturer in Ordinary on the same at that place. Wherefore he requests that those who are unable to be present and debate orally with us, may do so by letter. In the Name our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam agite, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance. 2. This word cannot be understood to mean sacramental penance, i.e., confession and satisfaction, which is administered by the priests. 3. Yet it means not inward repentance only; nay, there is no inward repentance which does not outwardly work divers mortifications of the flesh. 4. The penalty [of sin], therefore, continues so long as hatred of self continues; for this is the true inward repentance, and continues until our entrance into the kingdom of heaven. 5. The pope does not intend to remit, and cannot remit any penalties other than those which he has imposed either by his own authority or by that of the Canons. 6. The pope cannot remit any guilt, except by declaring that it has been remitted by God and by assenting to God's remission; though, to be sure, he may grant remission in cases reserved to his judgment. If his right to grant remission in such cases were despised, the guilt would remain entirely unforgiven. 7. God remits guilt to no one whom He does not, at the same time, humble in all things and bring into subjection to His vicar, the priest. 8. The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and, according to them, nothing should be imposed on the dying. 9. Therefore the Holy Spirit in the pope is kind to us, because in his decrees he always makes exception of the article of death and of necessity. 10. Ignorant and wicked are the doings of those priests who, in the case of the dying, reserve canonical penances for purgatory. 11. This changing of the canonical penalty to the penalty of purgatory is quite evidently one of the tares that were sown while the bishops slept. 12. In former times the canonical penalties were imposed not after, but before absolution, as tests of true contrition. 13. The dying are freed by death from all penalties; they are already dead to canonical rules, and have a right to be released from them. 14. The imperfect health [of soul], that is to say, the imperfect love, of the dying brings with it, of necessity, great fear; and the smaller the love, the greater is the fear. 15. This fear and horror is sufficient of itself alone (to say nothing of other things) to constitute the penalty of purgatory, since it is very near to the horror of despair. 16. Hell, purgatory, and heaven seem to differ as do despair, almost-despair, and the assurance of safety. 17. With souls in purgatory it seems necessary that horror should grow less and love increase. 18. It seems unproved, either by reason or Scripture, that they are outside the state of merit, that is to say, of increasing love. 19. Again, it seems unproved that they, or at least that all of them, are certain or assured of their own blessedness, though we may be quite certain of it. 20. Therefore by "full remission of all penalties" the pope means not actually "of all," but only of those imposed by himself. 21. Therefore those preachers of indulgences are in error, who say that by the pope's indulgences a man is freed from every penalty, and saved; 22. Whereas he remits to souls in purgatory no penalty which, according to the canons, they would have had to pay in this life. 23. If it is at all possible to grant to any one the remission of all penalties whatsoever, it is certain that this remission can be granted only to the most perfect, that is, to the very fewest. 24. It must needs be, therefore, that the greater part of the people are deceived by that indiscriminate and highsounding promise of release from penalty. 25. The power which the pope has, in a general way, over purgatory, is just like the power which any bishop or curate has, in a special way, within his own diocese or parish. 26. The pope does well when he grants remission to souls [in purgatory], not by the power of the keys (which he does not possess), but by way of intercession. 27. They preach man who say that so soon as the penny jingles into the money-box, the soul flies out [of purgatory]. 28. It is certain that when the penny jingles into the money-box, gain and avarice can be increased, but the result of the intercession of the Church is in the power of God alone. 29. Who knows whether all the souls in purgatory wish to be bought out of it, as in the legend of Sts. Severinus and Paschal. 30. No one is sure that his own contrition is sincere; much less that he has attained full remission. 31. Rare as is the man that is truly penitent, so rare is also the man who truly buys indulgences, i.e., such men are most rare. 32. They will be condemned eternally, together with their teachers, who believe themselves sure of their salvation because they have letters of pardon. 33. Men must be on their guard against those who say that the pope's pardons are that inestimable gift of God by which man is reconciled to Him; 34. For these "graces of pardon" concern only the penalties of sacramental satisfaction, and these are appointed by man. 35. They preach no Christian doctrine who teach that contrition is not necessary in those who intend to buy souls out of purgatory or to buy confessionalia. 36. Every truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without letters of pardon. 37. Every true Christian, whether living or dead, has part in all the blessings of Christ and the Church; and this is granted him by God, even without letters of pardon. 38. Nevertheless, the remission and participation [in the blessings of the Church] which are granted by the pope are in no way to be despised, for they are, as I have said, the declaration of divine remission. 39. It is most difficult, even for the very keenest theologians, at one and the same time to commend to the people the abundance of pardons and [the need of] true contrition. 40. True contrition seeks and loves penalties, but liberal pardons only relax penalties and cause them to be hated, or at least, furnish an occasion [for hating them]. 41. Apostolic pardons are to be preached with caution, lest the people may falsely think them preferable to other good works of love. 42. Christians are to be taught that the pope does not intend the buying of pardons to be compared in any way to works of mercy. 43. Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does a better work than buying pardons; 44. Because love grows by works of love, and man becomes better; but by pardons man does not grow better, only more free from penalty. 45. 45. Christians are to be taught that he who sees a man in need, and passes him by, and gives [his money] for pardons, purchases not the indulgences of the pope, but the indignation of God. 46. Christians are to be taught that unless they have more than they need, they are bound to keep back what is necessary for their own families, and by no means to squander it on pardons. 47. Christians are to be taught that the buying of pardons is a matter of free will, and not of commandment. 48. Christians are to be taught that the pope, in granting pardons, needs, and therefore desires, their devout prayer for him more than the money they bring. 49. Christians are to be taught that the pope's pardons are useful, if they do not put their trust in them; but altogether harmful, if through them they lose their fear of God. 50. Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the pardon-preachers, he would rather that St. Peter's church should go to ashes, than that it should be built up with the skin, flesh and bones of his sheep. 51. Christians are to be taught that it would be the pope's wish, as it is his duty, to give of his own money to very many of those from whom certain hawkers of pardons cajole money, even though the church of St. Peter might have to be sold. 52. The assurance of salvation by letters of pardon is vain, even though the commissary, nay, even though the pope himself, were to stake his soul upon it. 53. They are enemies of Christ and of the pope, who bid the Word of God be altogether silent in some Churches, in order that pardons may be preached in others. 54. Injury is done the Word of God when, in the same sermon, an equal or a longer time is spent on pardons than on this Word. 55. It must be the intention of the pope that if pardons, which are a very small thing, are celebrated with one bell, with single processions and ceremonies, then the Gospel, which is the very greatest thing, should be preached with a hundred bells, a hundred processions, a hundred ceremonies. 56. The "treasures of the Church," out of which the pope. grants indulgences, are not sufficiently named or known among the people of Christ. 57. That they are not temporal treasures is certainly evident, for many of the vendors do not pour out such treasures so easily, but only gather them. 58. Nor are they the merits of Christ and the Saints, for even without the pope, these always work grace for the inner man, and the cross, death, and hell for the outward man. 59. St. Lawrence said that the treasures of the Church were the Church's poor, but he spoke according to the usage of the word in his own time. 60. Without rashness we say that the keys of the Church, given by Christ's merit, are that treasure; 61. For it is clear that for the remission of penalties and of reserved cases, the power of the pope is of itself sufficient. 62. The true treasure of the Church is the Most Holy Gospel of the glory and the grace of God. 63. But this treasure is naturally most odious, for it makes the first to be last. 64. On the other hand, the treasure of indulgences is naturally most acceptable, for it makes the last to be first. 65. Therefore the treasures of the Gospel are nets with which they formerly were wont to fish for men of riches. 66. The treasures of the indulgences are nets with which they now fish for the riches of men. 67. The indulgences which the preachers cry as the "greatest graces" are known to be truly such, in so far as they promote gain. 68. Yet they are in truth the very smallest graces compared with the grace of God and the piety of the Cross. 69. Bishops and curates are bound to admit the commissaries of apostolic pardons, with all reverence. 70. But still more are they bound to strain all their eyes and attend with all their ears, lest these men preach their own dreams instead of the commission of the pope. 71. He who speaks against the truth of apostolic pardons, let him be anathema and accursed! 72. But he who guards against the lust and license of the pardon-preachers, let him be blessed! 73. The pope justly thunders against those who, by any art, contrive the injury of the traffic in pardons. 74. But much more does he intend to thunder against those who use the pretext of pardons to contrive the injury of holy love and truth. 75. To think the papal pardons so great that they could absolve a man even if he had committed an impossible sin and violated the Mother of God -- this is madness. 76. We say, on the contrary, that the papal pardons are not able to remove the very least of venial sins, so far as its guilt is concerned. 77. It is said that even St. Peter, if he were now Pope, could not bestow greater graces; this is blasphemy against St. Peter and against the pope. 78. We say, on the contrary, that even the present pope, and any pope at all, has greater graces at his disposal; to wit, the Gospel, powers, gifts of healing, etc., as it is written in I. Corinthians xii. 79. To say that the cross, emblazoned with the papal arms, which is set up [by the preachers of indulgences], is of equal worth with the Cross of Christ, is blasphemy. 80. The bishops, curates and theologians who allow such talk to be spread among the people, will have an account to render. 81. This unbridled preaching of pardons makes it no easy matter, even for learned men, to rescue the reverence due to the pope from slander, or even from the shrewd questionings of the laity. 82. To wit: -- "Why does not the pope empty purgatory, for the sake of holy love and of the dire need of the souls that are there, if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a Church? The former reasons would be most just; the latter is most trivial." 83. Again: -- "Why are mortuary and anniversary masses for the dead continued, and why does he not return or permit the withdrawal of the endowments founded on their behalf, since it is wrong to pray for the redeemed?" 84. Again: -- "What is this new piety of God and the pope, that for money they allow a man who is impious and their enemy to buy out of purgatory the pious soul of a friend of God, and do not rather, because of that pious and beloved soul's own need, free it for pure love's sake?" 85. Again: -- "Why are the penitential canons long since in actual fact and through disuse abrogated and dead, now satisfied by the granting of indulgences, as though they were still alive and in force?" 86. Again: -- "Why does not the pope, whose wealth is to-day greater than the riches of the richest, build just this one church of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the money of poor believers?" 87. Again: -- "What is it that the pope remits, and what participation does he grant to those who, by perfect contrition, have a right to full remission and participation?" 88. Again: -- "What greater blessing could come to the Church than if the pope were to do a hundred times a day what he now does once, and bestow on every believer these remissions and participations?" 89. "Since the pope, by his pardons, seeks the salvation of souls rather than money, why does he suspend the indulgences and pardons granted heretofore, since these have equal efficacy?" 90. To repress these arguments and scruples of the laity by force alone, and not to resolve them by giving reasons, is to expose the Church and the pope to the ridicule of their enemies, and to make Christians unhappy. 91. If, therefore, pardons were preached according to the spirit and mind of the pope, all these doubts would be readily resolved; nay, they would not exist. 92. Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Peace, peace," and there is no peace! 93. Blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Cross, cross," and there is no cross! 94. Christians are to be exhorted that they be diligent in following Christ, their Head, through penalties, deaths, and hell; 95. And thus be confident of entering into heaven rather through many tribulations, than through the assurance of peace.

This text was converted to ASCII text for Project Wittenberg by Allen Mulvey, and is in the public domain. You may freely distribute, copy or print this text. Please direct any comments or suggestions to:

Rev. Robert E. Smith Walther Library Concordia Theological Seminary.

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Nailed It? The Truth About Martin Luther, the Ninety-Five Theses, and the Castle Church Door

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther strode confidently to the door of Wittenberg’s Castle Church, nailed up his Ninety-five Theses, and in one swing of his hammer started what later became known as the Protestant Reformation. The defiant monk, enraged by the sale of indulgences that promised forgiveness apart from repentance, sought to overthrow the Roman Catholic Church with his teaching of justification by grace through faith alone.

Or so the story goes.

This story, however, is not without its holes. Consider the “nail,” the theses themselves, and Luther’s intention.

The “Nail”

The image of Luther nailing the Ninety-five Theses to the door of Castle Church is powerful, and as Protestant heirs of his theological convictions, we appreciate the sense of confidence and finality the image carries.

Unfortunately, this story first shows up over a hundred years after the event. The first image of Luther with a hammer appeared in 1697.

The first image of Luther with a hammer came in 1697.

By contrast, the first historical accounts of the theses-posting date to the 1540s, and they say nothing about Luther nailing the Ninety-five Theses to the door. Peter Marshall* quotes Philip Melanchthon , Luther’s chosen successor, who recounted that the German monk, “burning with eagerness and piety, issued Propositions concerning Indulgences, which are recorded in the first volume of his works, and these he publicly affixed to the church next to the castle in Wittenberg, on the eve of the Feast of All Saints in the year 1517.”

Melanchthon didn’t report that Luther specifically nailed the theses, but affixed them.

Practically speaking, nails were tremendously valuable prior to the industrial revolution. A blacksmith had to make each one individually. Moreover, from other publicly posted documents that have survived, we know documents were typically glued up. Daniel Jütte recounts how in 1521, officials in Antwerp forbade the posting of anti-Catholic material in public places, and they were specific about how things were typically posted: “Slanderous libel, rondels, or ballads directed against those who are not followers of Luther shall not be written, distributed, or pinned and pasted to church doors or any archways.”

For these reasons, it’s unlikely Luther used a hammer and nail. But that’s the picture that survived. Why? Because an image of the reformer marching through town with a glue pot doesn’t seem as world defining.

Why does this matter? Understanding how Luther affixed the Ninety-five Thesis helps us to make sense of what Luther intended that day 505 years ago. And to answer that question fully, we ought to turn to the source in question: the theses themselves.

From the start, Luther didn’t intend to rend the Catholic Church. His goal was to be a faithful Catholic theologian and to clarify Catholic teaching on an issue he saw within the Church. In 1545, reflecting on his life, Luther stated that in 1517, he was a faithful Catholic who would have murdered in the name of the Pope.

It’s fascinating that the Ninety-five Theses are as famous as they are, as the publication of theses like these was tremendously common. But for reasons Luther never really understood, the Theses became wildly popular, propelling him to international fame. Nevertheless, the theology contained in the Theses ought not to be celebrated as beacons of Protestant light.

It’s at least problematic to date the Protestant Reformation as starting on October 31, 1517, because the theses themselves contain no distinctively Protestant doctrine. Michael Reeves writes : “If the ninety-five theses were meant to be a Reformation manifesto, they were a pretty poor effort: they contain not a mention of justification by faith alone, the authority of the Bible, or, indeed, any core Reformation thought.”

An image of the reformer marching through town with a glue pot doesn’t seem as world defining.

Before Luther, other reform-minded Catholics existed throughout medieval Europe: Jan Hus, John Wycliffe, and others. Bernard of Clairvaux sought to encourage reform in his own day, as did Thomas Aquinas and Anselm of Canterbury. It was common for theologians within the church to be frustrated with its leadership and to call the church to holiness. So, we must conclude that a reformation movement began within the Catholic Church in 1517, but it was later that this movement brought about the Protestant split.

By my judgment, April 26, 1518, was the day Protestantism began. On that date, Luther presented the Heidelberg Disputation , writing,

He is not righteous who does much, but he who, without work, believes much in Christ. For the righteousness of God is not acquired by means of acts frequently repeated, as Aristotle taught, but it is imparted by faith. . . . The law says, “do this,” and it is never done. Grace says, “believe in this,” and everything is already done.

Only then was the heart of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone clearly seen.

Luther’s Intention

Luther certainly posted the Ninety-five Theses to the door of Wittenberg’s church. Yet no evidence from his era implies he nailed them. “Nail, glue, pin—these are minor differences in the historical narrative,” we might say. Why does this question even matter?

Ultimately, getting the details right matters because this guards us against highlighting the wrong parts of the story. By the end of his life, Luther was a valiant defender of the truth. But in 1517, he was an obscure monk who was striving to be faithful to Catholic teaching.

It’s easy for those of us who are sympathetic to Luther, myself chief among them, to think his posting the Ninety-five Theses was intended from the start to be revolutionary. But it wasn’t. The chapel door was nothing more than the community noticeboard. There was likely no fanfare or gathered audience. Posting a series of disputations was the normal course of events for professors in German universities to make the public aware of points of debate he intended to address. Luther simply made use of a common practice.

Painting Luther in 1517 as more heroic than he was does him a disservice. To say he considered the Ninety-five Theses as his great rejection of Catholic teaching doesn’t do justice to how revolutionary his later teaching actually was.

It was when he was forced into a corner after posting the Ninety-five Theses that he found confidence in the gospel. The theology of the theses didn’t bring him that confidence. Rather, the beautiful truth of being justified by faith in Christ alone, as he stated in the Heidelberg Disputation, made him into the reformer we remember. That truth is worth its weight in nails.

*I disagree with Peter Marshall’s conclusion that Luther did not post the theses on October 31.

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

Forrest Strickland (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is an adjunct professor of church history at Boyce College and a member of Hunsinger Lane Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky.

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• Why 1517? The Ninety-Five Theses in Context (Y. Petry)
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Why 1517? The Ninety-Five Theses in Context

By Yvonne Petry

Introduction

Any list of historic events or people includes Martin Luther (1483–1546) and the beginning of the Reformation in 1517 as one of the top ten historic changes in world history. The spark that Luther struck with the Ninety-Five Theses lit a fire across Western Europe, found a receptive audience among fellow clergymen and scholars, but also knights, urban middle class, and unhappy peasants. The German Reformation began in Wittenberg, where Luther taught, but within a few years spread throughout Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, then to England and Scandinavia. Over the next forty years, entire nations broke from the authority of the Roman church and redrew the map of Europe.

Martin Luther himself recognized the impact of the events of 1517. Looking back to that year thirty years later, by which time Luther was in his sixties, he wrote that

I was a preacher, a young Doctor of Theology, as they say. I began to dissuade the people from lending an ear to the shouts of the indulgence-sellers. I told them that they had better things to do and that I was sure that in these matters I had the pope on my side. … What I did toppled heaven and consumed earth by fire. [1]

One of the big questions historians ask about the history of church reform is: why did Martin Luther succeed when others before him had failed? One of the most common answers to this question is that, by 1517, European society had begun to change in fundamental ways, but the church as an institution had not.  

Late Medieval Christianity

In order to understand what happened in 1517, it is vital to begin by examining the social history of the Christian Church prior to the Reformation. Medieval Christianity was vibrant in many ways. For the peasants, who comprised the vast majority of the population, Christianity was part of village life. They did not understand complicated doctrines concerning the Trinity or the nature of Christ. Rather, they participated in the ritual life of the church, a life that was shared communally. They called on the saints for healing or protection; they watched the priest elevate the sacred host, believing he was doing something miraculous; they went on pilgrimages to view relics; they feasted and fasted according to the church calendar; and they relied on the sacraments of the church to carry them from cradle to grave and into the next life.

Most people did not worry about their salvation – after all, they were being watched over by the saints, and they had priests, monks, and nuns were praying for their souls. They understood that after death, people went to purgatory for a final cleansing or “purging” of their sins, on the path upward to heaven. Scholastic theology – called scholastic because it came out of the medieval universities – suggested that if individuals did their best, God would recognize their efforts and help them on their way.  

The Sacrament of Penance and the Sale of Indulgences

To understand the issue with indulgences, it is also important to know something about the sacrament of penance, which was the way in which the church promised people absolution of their sins. It involved three actions: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. Priests used books called penitentials which listed the appropriate action that would give satisfaction for any given sin. Typical acts of penance included fasting on bread and water, repeating the Ave Maria or Lord’s Prayer, giving alms, or visiting a shrine. Because acts of penance were often inconvenient, it became increasingly common to buy an indulgence rather than perform an act of penance.

Penitential practices evolved slowly over several centuries. Indulgences were first used during the crusades and promised remission of sins to those who fought in the Holy Land. Popes then began to issue them to those who made pilgrimages to Rome. By the fourteenth century, funds raised from indulgences were being used to repair and build churches. In 1343, Pope Clement VI began to speak of the treasury of merits, the concept that the church possessed surplus merits that could be purchased. In 1476, Sixtus IV said that indulgences could be used to help souls in purgatory; in other words, indulgences became transferable from one person to another.

With these developments, penitental practices also began to sound quite financial. In fact, scholastic theologians borrowed metaphors from the expanding money economy and the new science of bookkeeping. It was as though individuals had their own bank accounts with debits (sins) and credits (merits). Each sin committed depleted the account; fortunately, the Church possessed an inexhaustible reserve of surplus measured. As God’s representative on earth, the pope was the chief financial officer of the whole operation. By the late fifteenth century, increasing numbers of “pardoners” roamed around Europe, selling indulgences; we find one such individual in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1476) .

The penitential system was based on the assumption that sin was quantifiable, and that the Church possessed the surplus merits to allow individuals to indulge in those merits in order to receive pardon for their own or others’ sins. Whatever we may think of this system, it did possess a sort of logical coherence. And it was accepted as valid for many centuries.

In summary, by the late Middle Ages, a picture emerges of tight-knit village communities, held together by festivals, by rituals, and processions, and more or less assured that the sacraments of the Church, including the sacrament of penance, would enable them to go to heaven. However, long before the Reformation began, it was clear that there were cracks appearing in the edifice of the institutional church.  

The Church as Institution

Throughout the Middle Ages, the Christian Church was not only the most important religious institution at the centre of European culture, society, and political life. Over many centuries, the Church had also become thoroughly wedded to the hierarchical class structure of Western Europe. In other words, the Church hierarchy mirrored the social hierarchy, with some bishoprics remaining in the hands of the same noble family over generations.

The office of the pope was a hugely important political position, and medieval popes repeatedly claimed authority over kings and emperors. Papal power reached its peak during the twelfth century, but then slowly began to erode. By 1309, political instability in Rome and political manoeuvering by Philip IV of France resulted in the pope leaving Rome for southern France, where his successors would remain for the next seventy years. The Avignonese popes tended to serve the interests of the French kings. Efforts to return to Rome resulted in the Great Schism in 1378 when two rival popes claimed precedence; efforts to resolve the Schism in turn led to a period where three men claimed to be pope. This institutional chaos ended only in 1417.  

Early Reformers

Beginning in the fourteenth century, there was general recognition that the Church needed reform at many levels. In fact, nearly two hundred years before Luther was born, Oxford Professor John Wycliffe (1320–1384) was outspoken in his criticism of the wealth of the church, the immorality of the clergy, and practices such as the veneration of saints. In the 1380s, he began translating the Bible into English and saw the need to make it available in the vernacular languages. The Czech scholar Jan Hus (1369–1415) translated Wycliffe’s work and ideas and introduced his program of reform in Bohemia.

At the Council of Constance of 1414–1418, one agenda item was the ending the Schism. Another item was the investigation of the ideas of Wycliffe and Hus. Both men were declared heretics by the Council: Hus was burned at the stake as a heretic, and the Council ordered that Wycliffe’s remains were to be exhumed and burned. Nevertheless, the Church would be increasingly criticized and ridiculed – and the new generation of popes just added to the problems.

By the fifteenth century, the Italian city states were embroiled in endless warfare amongst themselves, yet produced some of the most stunning art and architecture in Western history. The Renaissance popes were men of their time and waged war, plotted against their neighbours, hired Michelangelo and Raphael to decorate their homes, and began rebuilding St. Peter’s. They did not heed the growing calls for reform.  

Meanwhile, in Northern Europe …

By the fifteenth century, there was a clear cultural and religious disconnect between northern Europe and Italy. Northern Europeans in the Low Countries and the German states had slowly invented their own religious practices, known as the devotia moderna or Modern Devotion. Groups such as the Beguines emerged, women who wanted to live communally without taking the restrictive vows of the nuns. Schools were founded by the Brothers of the Common Life who taught a new form of introspective Christianity that had more to do with meditating on one's sins, and less with processing around the church with a consecrated host. One of the classic works of Christian devotion, The Imitation of Christ, was written during this time.

Moreover, humanist scholars were beginning to question scholastic theology, considering it too narrow. Italian humanists had rediscovered their own Roman heritage in the works of Cicero, but Northern humanists turned their attention to studying the Bible in the original languages. As he studied the original Greek text of the New Testament, the Dutch scholar Erasmus realized that in some places the Vulgate (the Latin translation of the Bible) was inaccurate. Among other things, he noticed that in Matthew 3:2 and 4:17 the Greek term metanoeite was used. The Vulgate translated this as “do penance.” In his annotations, Erasmus (1466–1536) pointed out that a more accurate translation would be “repent.” The combination of the new humanistic learning and the desire for a more interior spirituality meant that for many people in towns and cities, the traditional rituals and practices of the Church began to feel rather hollow. During this period, there was a significant increase in anticlerical sentiment, expressed in pamphlets and satires that ridiculed the clergy for their greed, lack of morals and lack of education.  

The Impact of the Printing Press

The most important development that undergirded this shifting cultural climate in Northern Europe was the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg around 1450. It ushered in a technological revolution matched only by the computer revolution of our day. For the first time in Western history, mass communication was possible. Within fifty years of the invention of movable type, print shops appeared all over Europe in towns and cities, producing books, broadsheets, pamphlets, and images.

Also for the first time in Western history, a literate middle class began to emerge; it would become the engine of the Reformation. Because reading is a solitary pursuit, that literate middle class was necessarily more individualistic, and it is obvious that by the early sixteenth century, people were beginning to worry about their salvation. For both scholars and the new literate middle class, the traditional answers that the Church provided began to sound empty and unsatisfying. The fact that many of the priests, especially those in rural areas, could not read also led to dissatisfaction.

In summary, criticism of the Church increased in the early sixteenth century – not so much because it was more corrupt than it had been, but because the expectations of the laity were higher than they had been, and by all accounts, the Church was not responding to those shifting expectations.

In May 1512, at the Fifth Lateran Church Council, just five years before Luther wrote the Ninety-Five Theses, Cardinal Egidio da Viterbo declared:

I see that unless by this council or some other means we place a limit on our morals, unless we force our greedy desire for human things … to yield to the love of divine things, it is all over with Christendom.

These words would be prophetic.  

Martin Luther Enters the Scene

Martin Luther, son of a Saxon miner, was born in Eisleben in 1483. He was one of that generation of devout Germans who began worrying about his salvation. He had attended a school run by the Brothers of the Common Life. He became a monk and was scrupulous about confessing his sins and performing all the acts of penance required – so much so that his fellow monks ridiculed him. To ease his conscience, Luther’s confessor Johann Staupitz (1460–1524) encouraged him to become a scholar of the New Testament. It may very well be that Luther would not have become the man he did without Staupitz’s friendship and encouragement.

In 1512, Luther received his doctorate and became a professor of New Testament at the University of Wittenberg. It had been founded just a few years earlier, in 1502, by the prince of the region, Frederick III the Wise, Duke of Saxony. He encouraged scholars and artists, especially those interested in the new humanistic learning, to come to his territory, and Luther thrived in this atmosphere. [2] At the time he wrote the Ninety-Five Theses , he was a thiry-four year old monk, priest, and professor.  

In Wittenberg, in the person of Luther, the issue of the sale of indulgences as an example of a corrupt and outdated Church practice came to a head. To understand what happened, it is important to know the political context. The German-speaking lands were not a unified country, but a conglomeration of small principalities united under the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor. The title of emperor was an elected position, and there were seven princes in Germany who had the right to vote, including Luther’s prince, Frederick of Saxony. Needless to say, holding one of the elector positions was politically desirable, especially when elections became imminent. In 1516, the current emperor, Maximilian I, was rather old.

One of the elector positions – that of the Archbishop of Mainz (the highest ecclesiastical office in the Empire) – was vacant in 1516. The Hohenstaufen family was eager to place one of their own in the position. However, their candidate, Albrecht, was underage, and not an ordained priest. There were ways around this, however, if one could get a dispensation from the pope, and popes were in the habit of granting such dispensations, at a cost.

The Pope in question was Leo X, a member of the wealthy and powerful Medici family. Among other activities, he was continuing the building of St. Peter's in Rome. Leo X agreed to sell the office of archbishop to Albrecht for a large sum of money. The family negotiated a loan to pay for it. In order to pay back the loan, they struck a deal with the Pope. They agreed to allow access to the papal indulgence sellers to their territory, with the understanding that the profits of the sale would be shared. Albrecht of Mainz would use his share to pay off the family debt, and the Pope could carry on his building programme.  

The Ninety-Five Theses

Indulgence sellers such as Johann Tetzel (1465–1519) were hired, and the sale was conducted among the German peasantry. Luther was certainly aware of indulgences before this time, but it was sales techniques used by Tetzel that brought the matter to his attention. Luther began to question the practice of selling indulgences and in response wrote the Ninety-Five Theses.

The first two of the Ninety-Five Theses state:

• When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, 'Repent' (Matthew 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.
• This word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, that is, confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.

Clearly, Luther was using Erasmus' Greek New Testament and had read his commentary.

In subsequent theses, Luther questioned the ethics of encouraging peasants to buy indulgences rather than give alms or buy food for their family. He also questioned the authority of the Church to forgive sins, a right that surely belonged to God alone. It is also important to recognize that Luther, a priest and a monk, was raising these issues as an insider. He noted in Thesis 81 that the “unbridled preaching of indulgences makes it difficult for even learned men to rescue the reverence which is due the pope from slander or from the shrewd questions of the laity.”

Did Luther post The Ninety-Five Theses on the church door in Wittenberg? Scholars have been debating this issue for the last four decades. [3] Those who question it point out that the earliest reference to him doing so was written approximately thirty years later, by his colleague Philip Melanchthon (1495–1560), who was not present in 1517. Other scholars argue that posting notices to debate at a University was such a normal thing to do that it would not have been considered noteworthy at the time. What we do know is that the Theses were printed and circulated around Europe within a period of two months. We also know that Luther sent a copy to Albrecht of Mainz, who now held the most important ecclesiastical position in the empire. He was not aware of the deal that Albrecht had made with the Pope, or that Albrecht was himself profiting from the indulgence sale.  

The Church's Reaction

Albrecht sent his copies to the theologians in his city and a copy to Rome. There were church officials sent to debate and correct Luther’s mistaken views: Cardinal Cajetan met with him and then a few months later, Johannes Eck (1486–1543). At each interview, Luther refused to back down – his response to his critics was always along the lines of “show me in the Bible where I'm wrong”.

Leo X issued a bull of excommunication in June of 1520, stating that

we condemn, reprobate, and reject completely each of these theses or errors as either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth…We likewise condemn … and reject completely the books and all the writings and sermons of the said Martin.

In other words, it was decreed that Luther’s books should be burned. He responded by calling the pope the Antichrist and burning the bull in Wittenberg, two months after he received it.

At the imperial Diet of Worms in spring 1521, presided over by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, Luther’s views were declared heretical, and he was made an outlaw. The Edict stated that

we forbid anyone from this time forward to dare, either by words or by deeds, to receive, defend, sustain, or favour the said Martin Luther. On the contrary, we want him to be apprehended and punished as a notorious heretic, as he deserves, to be brought personally before us, or to be securely guarded until those who have captured him inform us, whereupon we will order the appropriate manner of proceeding against the said Luther. Those who will help in his capture will be rewarded generously for their good work.  

Luther in Hiding

As a heretic and an outlaw, Luther could certainly have suffered the same fate as Hus. What saved him was his prince, Frederick, and the fact that Emperor Charles needed the support of his German princes, because he was fighting a costly war in Italy against France. Frederick spirited him away and placed him in hiding for a year. He spent that year in Eisenach making the first German translation of the Bible, using the new scholarly tools of the humanists.

Meanwhile, Luther's ideas had touched a nerve all over Europe. While Luther was in hiding, others in Wittenberg picked up the gauntlet. On Christmas Day 1521, Luther’s colleague Andreas Karlstadt (1486–1541) celebrated mass in the German tongue, without clerical vestments, and gave communion in both kinds to parishioners who had not confessed. Propagandists like Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553) produced anti-Catholic broadsheets, including The Passion of Christ and Antichrist , which took scenes from the life of Christ and contrasted them with activities of the current pope.  

Salvation by Grace

The years between 1519 and 1521 were seminal for the Reformation. Historians do not know exactly when Martin Luther had his “tower experience” in which he turned traditional salvation theology on its head. It was likely sometime in 1519, as he was studying Romans 1:17, that Luther began to believe that salvation came through God's grace, not through human effort. In other words, humans did not need to earn God’s favour; God would forgive them in spite of their sinfulness. In a series of three treatises published in 1520, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, The Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation , and The Freedom of the Christian, Luther laid out some of the most important features of what would become the Protestant position on many issues.  

Celibacy, Marriage, and Katharina von Bora

One of the most radical social changes for the institutional church was the abandonment of the idea of clerical celibacy. As Luther worked on a new theology of salvation, he also examined the theology around the priesthood, celibacy and marriage. In two treatises On the Estate of Marriage in 1519 and 1522, he made the bold claim that marriage is holy. For a thousand years, the Christian Church had taught that marriage was for the weak, that it was a second-best option, going back to Paul. Luther's views were pragmatic, but also realistic. His views on marriage were directly related to his views on the monastic life. He argued that only a select few were called to a celibate life.

As in other things, Luther's views resonated with the laity. German villagers knew that their priests had housekeepers, maids, cooks, girlfriends, and concubines. As long as the priest paid a fine for his misdeeds, the Church looked the other way. For Luther, the solution was simple – let the priests marry. In his Address to the Christian Nobility , he argued quite pragmatically that priests needed housekeepers to look after them. To put them together and expect them to be celibate was like putting fire to straw and thinking it would not burn.

For several years, his friends urged Luther to marry, as an example to others. But Luther stated on more than one occasion that he would not himself marry. However, theology became reality when, in 1523, nine nuns at a convent in Nimbschen became persuaded of the Lutheran message and asked for Luther’s assistance so they could escape. Luther had promised all nine Cistercian nuns that he would help them escape and find them suitable marriage partners. After two years, all of the nuns had married except for Katharina von Bora (1499–1552), a young woman from a minor noble family. Marriage to Luther was Katharina's idea. While it is obvious that Luther married Katharina out of a sense of responsibility for her and not out of any personal desire, he would later come to value her as a companion, praising her abilities and speaking kindly and fondly of her and of the goodness of the estate of marriage.  

Reformation as Political and Social Rebellion

Within a decade of the posting of the Ninety-Five Theses , the Reformation became both a political revolt and social rebellion. It is possible that the Reformation might have remained a debate among theologians and clergy. The fact that it did not, is a reflection of the power of the institution of the Church in early modern society. As noted previously, the church hierarchy was identical to the social hierarchy. Thus, all over Europe the bishop, landlord, and nobleman were the one and the same person. As a result, a lot of anger was directed against the Church because its officials were also the landowners, and city councils expelled (by violence or otherwise) the traditional elites, who were in many cases both bishop and lord, and began replacing them with representatives from the artisan class.

As with a lot of social change, the Reformation quickly became violent. Churches were ransacked, priests attacked, statues broken, and chalices stolen wherever the Reformation took hold on the continent. This was in part an attempt to purge the churches of statues, relics, and images that were thought to be irrelevant, but also an attack on the wealth of the church.

The most widespread violence occurred during the German Peasants’ War. Thomas Müntzer (1489–1525), sometimes considered the first communist, took Luther’s message and made it political – he spread his message of the “freedom of the Christian” and “priesthood of all believers” throughout Germany. The Twelve Articles of the Peasants asked for freedom to name their own pastors, and they also objected to excessive taxes, penalties against hunting, and the status of serfdom that landlords were trying to reinstate.

It ended, as most peasants’ revolts did, in failure, with tens of thousands of peasants and artisans dead at the hands of imperial soldiers.

The Reformation also became political. The German princes used Luther’s ideas to fight for their independence from the Holy Roman Emperor. Luther, for his part, appealed to the princes as political allies. Philip of Hesse organized a league of Lutheran princes. This led to three decades of warfare, concluding with the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 which allowed each prince to determine the religion in his territory.

Rulers around northern Europe, most notably Henry VIII of England, used the Reformation to declare their independence from Rome and establish the first national churches. In many Protestant countries, this was accompanied by the confiscation of Church lands and estates.  

Fragmenting the Reformation

The Reformation did not result in simply the separation of Protestants from the Catholic Church, but in the development of many types of Protestantism. This was inevitable. The Catholic Church was right to argue that authority needed to be vested in the pope or chaos would erupt – because it did erupt. By placing all authority in the Bible rather than in the traditions of the Church and its decrees, the door was opened for a plethora of interpretations. In 1529 at the Marbourg Colloquy (which was an attempt by one of the German princes to create a unified Protestant front for military purposes), Luther and Ulrich Zwingli (1483–1531) nearly came to blows over interpretations of the Lord’s Supper.

While all Protestants agreed on many issues, disputes arose very quickly regarding the interpretation of scriptures, the sacraments, the structure of the church (Episcopal or Presbyterian), and the role of the church in society. There were also divisions over whether to read certain statements literally or metaphorically, over the extent to which the New Testament ought to be a role model for the Church, and how to make decisions on issues on which the Bible is silent. These divisions eventually led to the spectrum of churches that we have with us today: Lutheran, Reformed, Presbyterian, and Anabaptist.

Within about ten years after Luther's writing his Ninety-Five Theses , Egidio da Viterbo words from 1512 had become prophetic – it was all over for Christendom. The Christian Church, the landscape of Europe, and the self-understanding of Europeans, would never be the same.

Further Reading

Dixon, Scott. Contesting the Reformation. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.Greengrass, Mark. Christendom Destroyed: Europe 1517-1648. New York: Viking, 2014.

Gregory, Brad S. The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012.Heal, Bridget and Ole Peter Grell, eds. The Impact of the Reformation. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008.Hendrix, Scott. Martin Luther: Visionary Reformer. New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2015.

Karant-Nunn, Susan. The Reformation of Ritual: An Interpretation of Early Modern Germany . London: Routledge, 1997.Kolb, Robert et al, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther’s Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Leppin, Volker and Wengert, Timothy. “Sources for and against the Posting of the Ninety-Five Theses .” Lutheran Quarterly 29 (2015): 373-98.

MacCulloch, Diarmid. Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490-1700. London: Penguin, 2003.

Marty, Martin. October 31, 1517: Martin Luther and the Day that Changed the World. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2016.

McKim, Donald K., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Mjaaland, Marius Timmann. The Hidden God: Luther, Philosophy and Political Theology. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2016.Oberman, Heiko. Luther: Man between God and the Devil. New York: Doubleday, 1989.

Ozment, Steven. Protestants: The Birth of a Revolution. New York: Doubleday, 1992.Payton, James R. Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2010.

Pettegree, Andrew. Brand Luther: 1517, Printing and the Making of the Reformation. New York: Penguin, 2015.

Pettegree, Andrew. The Reformation World. London: Routledge, 2000.

Plummer, Marjorie Elizabeth. From Priest's Whore to Pastor's Wife: Clerical Marriage and the Process of Reform in the Early German Reformation . Burlington: Ashgate, 2012.

Rittgers, Ronald. The Reformation of Suffering: Pastoral Theology and Lay Piety in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Tracy, James. Europe’s Reformations, 1450-1650: Doctrine, Politics and Community. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.

Wallace, Peter. The Long European Reformation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Wandel, Lee Palmer. The Reformation: Towards a New History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Wiesner-Hanks, Merry, ed. Convents Confront the Reformation: Catholic and Protestant Nuns in Germany . Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1996.

Wengert, Timothy. Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses: With Introduction, Commentary and Study Guide. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015.

*This Table Talk was given at Luther College at the University of Regina on February 7, 2017.

[1] Preface to the complete edition of Luther's Latin Works (1545), trans. Andrew Thornton, from “Vorrede zu Band I der Opera Latina der Wittenberger Ausgabe. 1545” in vol. 4 of Luthers Werke in Auswahl , ed. Otto Clemen, 6th ed. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967), pp. 421-428,  accessible online .

[2] As a faculty member at a young university, I find that there are interesting parallels to be drawn. In 1963, University of Regina faculty wrote the Regina Beach Manifesto, which stated that the goal of a liberal arts education is not merely the transition of past wisdom, but that scholars are critics of society, and "examiners of institutions and ideas." This same spirit of social criticism characterized the University of Wittenberg in the first decades of the sixteenth century.

[3] A useful summary of the debate is provided by Volker Leppin and Timothy Wengert in their recent article, “Sources for and against the Posting of the Ninety-Five Theses, ” Lutheran Quarterly 29 (2015): 373-98. They conclude (p. 390) that “there are equally good arguments for and against the posting of the Theses .”

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6 Facts You Might Not Know about Martin Luther’s 95 Theses

An obscure monk hammers a list of grievances onto the doors of a church: what could be more revolutionary—or more symbolic of the Protestant Reformation—than that?

But when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Wittenburg Church door on October 31, 1517, he wasn’t launching a fully formed movement in a single act; he was giving voice to ideas that had been brewing in Christendom for years. Though many Christians see that act as the launch of the Protestant Reformation, the truth is a little more complicated.

Here are six facts you probably didn’t know about Martin Luther and his 95 theses, all drawn from Dr. Jennifer McNutt’s Mobile Ed course  Milestones of the Protestant Reformation .

Nailing stuff to church doors wasn’t revolutionary in and of itself

It’s tempting to imagine Martin Luther striding to the doors of Wittenburg Church, hammer and nails in hand, emboldened to break his silence and at last declare his outrage at the abuses of Church leadership.

And there was some of that.

However, many modern Christians don’t realize just how run-of-the-mill Luther’s act was. This is likely because we don’t have a similar practice in modern culture. (After all, when was the last time you nailed criticisms of your church’s budget to the door of your pastor’s study?)

Dr. McNutt describes how Luther’s famous act was surprisingly ordinary.

On October 31, 1517, a completely ordinary event occurred: An obscure monk named Martin Luther, teaching at the New University in Wittenberg, watched a debate in the customary manner of a university professor. With academic freedom, he nailed his 95 Theses to the local church door, in accordance with the current scholarly practice and in the accepted scholarly language of Latin.

Luther’s intention was to spark an academic debate over the current practice of indulgences in the church as was his right as professor of theology. Yet what transpired from 1517 on could in no way be predicted or anticipated.

This wasn’t the first time indulgences were criticized

Acknowledging that Luther was following a common academic convention doesn’t mitigate the importance of his act. Indeed, Luther’s Theses would become the most prominent document criticizing the church’s practice of selling indulgences.

In Luther’s day, some Church leaders taught that Christians could reduce time spent in purgatory, either for themselves or a deceased loved one, by purchasing a church document called an indulgence. “Once the coin in the coffer rings,” as one ditty of the time had it, “the soul from purgatory springs.”

That practice had been abused by clergy for a long time—and plenty of Christians prior to Luther had voiced their criticism. As Dr. McNutt explains:

. . . from the medieval papacy at the Fourth Lateran Council to the medieval outliers of church leadership and scholarship, indulgences were known to be susceptible to corruption.

This was not even the first time Luther himself voiced concerns over the corruption of indulgences. Moreover, Luther did not even call for the abolition of indulgences at this point, but merely its reform.

One idea in connection to indulgences would push Luther over the edge: that confession and, therefore, contrition—being sorry for your sin—was unnecessary to receive absolution. Indulgences were increasingly taking the place of both contrition and confession in the penance process. Possession of an indulgence was becoming proof of a person’s willingness to be penitent, and absolution was being granted based on that evidence.

For Luther, this presented real problems. Was one placing his or her faith in Christ, or in the indulgence?

What was really happening in the heart of the person? Were they really sorry for their sin? For Luther, the concern was pastoral: Were people putting their trust for forgiveness in a purchased document? Or in the promises of God? In the pope, or in Christ? . . . Luther believed his congregants were being led astray. . .

Luther’s theses were published without his permission

As was pointed out above, Luther wrote in the scholarly language of Latin. His views likely wouldn’t have gained popular appeal if the 95 Theses hadn’t been translated into German. But they were—without his permission. Dr. McNutt explains:

Quickly, Luther’s 95 Theses were translated into German without his permission, and from that point on, concerns originally intended for the attention of the scholars and clergy of the church became fodder for the masses. Luther’s posting of the theses would prove to be the hammer heard around the world. This one ordinary act initiated an extraordinary transformation of the church and European society.

Luther’s actions . . . would leave an undeniable mark not only upon Christianity but the Western world especially. . . . It was this milestone moment that proved to be the catalyst for daring the church to reform.

The theses weren’t as hard on the pope as you might think

Many Christians are familiar with the story of the 95 Theses, but less familiar with the content of the theses themselves. You might expect the document that launched the Protestant Reformation to be pretty rough on the pope . . . and it is. But not as much as you might think.

Luther’s theses limited the role of the papacy, critiquing developments introduced in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

• Thesis six, for example, made clear that the pope does not have the power to remit sin but can only proclaim what God has done.
• Thesis eight, moreover, asserted that penance is only for the living and cannot be placed upon the dead.
• As thesis 20 explained, the papacy does not have jurisdiction over the treasury of merits for penalties against God.

Meanwhile, Luther tempered his treatment of the papacy in other ways.

• Thesis 38 made clear that the pope’s distribution of indulgences should continue.
• In thesis 50, he expressed the assumption that the pope did not know how indulgences were being sold.

Ultimately, the point for Luther was that our assurances for saving grace come from Christ and not the pope. Thus, thesis 94 declared that one must put confidence in the promise of Christ and not in the papacy.

. . . but that’s not to say Luther took a weak stance

Of course, Martin Luther had plenty of criticisms to level against church practices. Here are a few highlights:

In thesis 21, Luther accused the preachers of indulgences of misleading the people. The liberal promise of freedom from penalty was leading them astray. . . . Luther denied—in theses 27 and 28—that money releases souls from purgatory.

In thesis 35, Luther declared that the idea that contrition is not necessary for redemption is unchristian. Contrition is what leads to forgiveness, not purchasing a letter of pardon. . . . God’s grace is not subject to purchase.

For Luther, it was better to give to the poor than to buy an indulgence, as thesis 45 declared, “He who sees a needy man and passes him by, yet gives his money for indulgences, does not buy papal indulgences but God’s wrath.”

Similarly, Luther made it clear that it was better to care for one’s family than to waste money on indulgences. Indulgences were, perhaps, more trouble than they were worth.

It might not have been the theses that sparked the Reformation after all

When Luther’s 95 Theses were published in German, they immediately made a stir. Still, it might not have been the Theses that truly sparked the Reformation. That honor may be due another of Luther’s works.

Luther was summoned to Heidelberg for a disputation [regarding the 95 Theses ], but instead of being castigated, he was celebrated, and even given the opportunity to persuade those there of his views,201 including the future prominent Reformer, Martin Bucer. . .

By the following year, on August 7, 1518, Luther received a summons by the pope to Rome, to [account] for his ideas and actions. Though Luther believed he was merely fighting the corruption within the church at this point, the church was beginning to have a different view of Luther’s actions. How did it get to this point? Certainly, the rapid translation of Luther’s 95 Theses into German was a key factor. Moreover, the translation and publication of Luther’s sermons on indulgences into German, in 1518, was significant as well.

For some scholars, it was this action that truly ignited the Protestant Reformation. Why? Well, theological dispute was no longer relegated to the elites; instead, the door was opened for a wider discussion within Christendom over national and church authority.

Logos Staff

Logos is the largest developer of tools that empower Christians to go deeper in the Bible.

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