Reformation Day
In the Christian world, October 31st
has a meaning much more significant than Halloween. It was on October
31st, 1517, that Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the church door at
Wittenberg, Germany, sparking the Reformation. Historically, many factors
were in motion. The printing press was
just then coming into its own as a way to reach the masses. The corruption of the Catholic church,
including the sale of indulgences, ecclesiastical abuse, and the thought among
high members of the clergy that a person could literally buy their way into
Heaven was widespread and obvious. Germany was coming into its own as a
nation. Political circumstances existed
which kept Catholic officials from prosecuting Luther before the spark could be
fanned into a flame. In short, the time
was right for Reformation.
Martin Luther had been struggling with
some of the taught doctrines of the church, especially the sale of
indulgences. An ‘indulgence’ was the teaching that an offering of money
given by a penitent person could save an individual from some or all of his
time in Purgatory. An envoy from the Papacy named Johann Tetzel had a
display of religious relics scheduled for November 1st, 1517, in Wittenberg, in
an effort to raise more money - ultimately destined for the building of St
Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Tetzel was a salesman, penning catchy jingles
like: “the cross of the seller of indulgences has as much power as the cross of
Christ,” and “when the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.” These practices roused the righteous wrath of
the upstart Friar who penned the famed ‘95 Theses’ as an effort to drive debate
on whether this practice, and others he found objectionable, should truly be
practiced in the Church. “If the Pope can grant dispensation from sins,” Luther
argued, “why, then, does he not grant that dispensation as an act of charity -
even without a forced monetary contribution?”
Martin Luther intended to reform the
Church from within - nailing his questions to the door of the church was a
common way for a scholar to initiate debate on a topic. It was only when
his theses were translated from Latin into German and published for the masses
to see that the drive for separation from Roman Catholicism took place. Luther’s teaching of salvation by grace,
through faith in Christ, was readily accepted by the masses. They seem to
have been looking for a central figure to rally around who could give an
educated voice to the objections many observed within their local churches.
Martin Luther was a driven man, who
could be very coarse and impolitely blunt in expressing his opinion. He
was known to be vulgar at times, but was the blunt object needed to make a
break from the excesses and error into which the Catholic church of the day had
fallen.
Gonzalez, Justo L, The Story of
Christianity, Vol 2, Harper Collins Publishing, 1985.
