Martin Luther Reading
Martin Luther Reading
Martin Luther Reading
hegemony?
Annotate:
Excerpt from Martin Luthers 95 Theses
6. The pope has no power to remit (forgive) any guilt, except
by declaring and confirming that it has been remitted by God
21. Therefore those preachers of indulgences are in error,
who say that by the popes indulgences a man is freed from
every penalty, and saved
32. They will be condemned eternally, together with their
teachers, who believe themselves sure of their salvation
because they have letters of pardon.
37. Every true Christian, living or dead, partakes of all the
benefits of Christ and the Church, which are the gift of God,
even without letters of pardon
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
This is a polemic [an attack] on the Catholic churchs
use of indulgences. Based on your annotations,
describe what an indulgence is and why the author
has a problem with them?
Aim: How did the Protestant Reformation disrupt Catholic
hegemony?
Driven to Defiance | The Reluctant Revolutionary
Driven to Defiance
From pbs.org
"I would never have thought that
such a storm would rise from Rome
over one simple scrap of paper..."
--Martin Luther
Few if any men have changed the
course of history like Martin
Luther. In less than ten years, this
fevered German monk plunged a knife into the heart of an institution
that had ruled for a thousand years, and set in motion a train of
revolution, war and conflict that would reshape Western civilization,
and lift it out of the Dark Ages.
Luther's is a drama that still resonates half a millennium on. It's an epic
tale that stretches from the gilded corridors of the Vatican to the
weathered church door of a small South German town; from the
barbarous pyres of heretics to the technological triumph of printing. It
is the story of the birth of the modern age, of the collapse of medieval
feudalism, and the first shaping of ideals of freedom and liberty that lie
at the heart of the 21st century.
But this is also an intensely human tale, a story that comes from the
depths of despair to the heights of triumph and back again. This is the
story of a man who ultimately found himself a lightning conductor of
history, crackling with forces he could not quite comprehend or
control.
For Luther, in a life full of irony, would find himself overwhelmed by
his own achievements. As his followers sought to build a new and just
Europe around him, he could only turn on them in frustration,
declaring that his - and their - only goal should be Heaven.
Martin Luther stands as a hero, the man who built the bridge between
the two halves of the last millennium, the Medieval and the Modern.
His tragedy was that he would never find the courage to cross it
himself.
Martin Luther was born into a world dominated by the Catholic
Church, which holds spiritual dominion over all the nations of Europe.
Young Martin
Luther
ANNOTATIONS
Aim: How did the Protestant Reformation disrupt Catholic
hegemony?
For the keenly spiritual Luther, the Church's promise of salvation is
irresistible - caught in a thunderstorm, terrified by the possibility of
imminent death, he vows to become a monk.
But after entering the
monastery, Luther becomes
increasingly doubtful that the
Church can actually offer him
salvation at all. His views
crystallize even further with a
trip to Rome, where he finds
that the capital of Catholicism
is swamped in corruption.
Wracked by despair, Luther
finally finds release in the pages of the Bible, when he discovers that it
is not the Church, but his own individual faith that will guarantee his
salvation.
With this revelation, he turns on the Church, attacking its practice of
selling Indulgences in the famous 95 Theses. The key points of
Luther's theses were simple, but devastating: a criticism of the Pope's
purpose in raising the money, "he is richer than Croesus, he would do
better to sell St. Peters and give the money to the poor people...", and
a straightforward concern for his flock, "indulgences are most
pernicious [harmful] because they induce complacency [self-
satisfaction] and thereby imperil salvation".
Luther was not only a revolutionary thinker, he would also benefit
from a revolutionary technology: the newly invented machinery of
printing. A single pamphlet would be carried from one town to
another, where it would be duplicated in a further print run of
thousands. Within three months, all Europe was awash with copies of
Luther's 95 Theses.
Martin Luther had inadvertently chosen unavoidable conflict with
what was the most powerful institution of the day, the Catholic
Church.
Selling indulgences
ANNOTATIONS
Aim: How did the Protestant Reformation disrupt Catholic
hegemony?
What are the possible effects of Luthers protest combined with the technology of the day?
How do you think this could be a turning point in history?