luther_revolt



	*Martin Luther and the Protestant Revolt*

		By Joseph A. Crisp, II

The Protestant Revolt can be seen as the pivotal event in the history of Christianity. All of the schisms and heresies, from the Arians to John Wycliff, led up to it and everything that has happened since has been a result of it. Some of the consequences were good, such as forcing the Church to finally enact an actual reformation, but most were extremely negative. Christianity was divided, and this division led to further divisions which have been a major impediment to any Christian campaigns such as were seen in the Crusades. Christendom was divided in the face of Islamic expansion, wars of religion broke out that continued for more than a hundred years and traditional pillars of society were shaken in a way that ultimately led to the worst revolutions Europe has ever experienced. Christianity ceased to be something concrete and the sudden appearance of so many new churches sparked the age of skepticism known in a very misleading way as "the Enlightenment". And of course, the story of this revolt is the story of Martin Luther.

Historians have many different ways of looking at Luther and the rebellion he inspired. Some view him as a good and sincere man whose efforts to bring about reform simply spiraled out of his control. Others see him as the man who "set Christianity free" from the authoritative institution of the Roman Catholic Church, these same historians being the most likely to praise Luther for the very same things Catholics condemn him for: igniting the spark that led to the age of skepticism, the "Age of Reason" and ultimately the French Revolution. However, Luther's own life and writings reveal him for what he truly was: a deeply disturbed man who tried inventing a form of Christianity to alleviate his guilt, justify his actions and in the process almost totally destroyed the Christendom which had taken many saints a thousand years to build.

Martin Luther was a man ill-prepared from the start for his vocation in life. His parents were very brutal and violent with him and his ambitious father tried to push him into a career in the civil service to raise the prestige of the family. He entered the priesthood in fulfillment of a "vow" he made when he cried out in fear to St Ann after being frightened by a bolt of lightening. He became an Augustinian canon and was soon known mostly for his obsessive guilt and paranoid behavior. Even before his rebellion, he could never be called a good priest. For example, the same man who would later write that the people should wash their hands in the blood of massacred Catholics, particularly the Pope, he first wrote of his great loyalty to the See of Peter saying he would be "the most brutal murder" for the Pope and, "kill all who even by syllable refused submission" to him.

Being a sinful man, as all people are, Luther had a crisis of faith and an unwillingness to reform, ironic for someone who is claimed to be the founder of the "Reformation". He went to confession compulsively and effectively lost faith in the ability of God to forgive him. He became so guilt-ridden that he avoided crucifixes, the mass and the Blessed Sacrament. Finally, at some point, he snapped and gave up trying to resist sin altogether. Instead, he declared, "Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here in this world we have to sin. This life is not a dwelling place of righteousness" as well as saying, "No sin will separate us from the lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day". Since Luther did not have faith in God to forgive him, he instead invented an entire philosophy that the sacrifice of Christ meant we no longer even had to try not to sin, but simply believe and any sins we commit would not count!

He effectively made an irrational response to real Church problems. Even the most devout Catholic never denied that the Church in Luther's time had problems. Many clergymen were much less than they should have been, the sale of indulgences was a scandal and simony and nepotism had become almost commonplace problems. However, Luther not only failed to respond to this effectively, he also failed to even notice the great heights the Church had reached. We must remember that only something pristine can become tarnished and even the very liberal churchman Erasmus hailed the Rome of Pope Leo X as the greatest height Western civilization had ever reached. Luther's response to corrupt clerics was to call for the abolition of the priesthood entirely, his response to civilization was to call it lavishness and decadence and his response to any he judged to be against his way of thinking was nothing less than mass murder. The response of the Catholic Church, on the other hand, was one of moderation and tolerance. In fact, hindsight would cause many to say the Church had been entirely too kind to Luther.

When the rebel Augustinian began his protest, the response of Pope Leo X was simply to call on Luther to recant his statements, repent of his insolence and come back into the Church's embrace. Luther, of course, did not repent and if anything became even more bizarre and unbalanced as his protest moved on. He believed that he had fights with Satan, with he and the Devil hurling excrement at each other. Luther claimed to have challenged the devil to "lick" his bottom and said he should take Satan and, "throw him into my anus, where he belongs". Luther also said that his belief that salvation came "sola fide", "by faith alone" was given to him by the Holy Spirit while he was, "on the privy in the tower". He obsessed over thoughts of Hell and came to see Christ as simply a punisher rather than a savior, ultimately leading him to say that he, "hated God and was angry at Him" before dropping all responsibility for sin at all.

Luther's most dramatic moment came on October 31, 1517 (on Halloween fittingly enough for someone so obsessed with demonic forces) when he nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral. His primary target was the "sale" of indulgences which was a scandal recently brought to a head by the actions of the Dominican John Tetzel, another early victim of Protestant propaganda, who had been zealously pushing the "sale" of indulgences in certain areas of Germany to raise money for the construction of St Peter's Basilica in Rome. Luther claimed that the Church and Pope Leo X were teaching people that salvation could be purchased and granted "forgiveness by the florin". In point of fact, the Church was doing no such thing. An indulgence, as any educated Catholic knows, does not forgive sin, it simply removes the temporal punishment attached to a sin. The Church today still grants indulgences but then as now, no sin is forgiven unless one repents and confesses it. Moreover, the Pope was well within his rights in this area considering Christ's words to St Peter that what he did on earth would also be done in Heaven and that our good deeds go with us after death. Indulgences had long been granted, and still are today for saying certain prayers, performing certain good works or making certain sacrifices. Pope Leo X had simply authorized a plenary indulgence for those who donated money to the building of St Peter's, an act of charity toward the Church. The scandal which resulted was due entirely to false teaching on the part of poorly educated priests on the subject (which the Church would later correct) and the retention of certain money by the local bishops in Germany.
However, Luther did not condemn simply the false teaching about indulgences, but attacked the entire principle that the Church had the authority to remove the punishment for sins which had already been properly confessed and forgiven. In effect, he was attacking the promise of Christ that his Church could bind and loose in heaven as on earth and forgive or retain sin. Naturally, Luther was immediately countered by the writings of several Catholics. Many were outraged, but Pope Leo X, a somewhat worldly but personally devout and tolerant man, summoned Luther to Rome on August 7, 1518. The Pope's attitude was to ask Luther to repent, take back what he had said and all would be forgiven and forgotten. Luther, refused to come, citing illness. So, still trying to accommodate him, Leo X sent Saint Cajetan, a papal legate, to Germany to meet with Luther, but again Luther refused to see him. Luther had been strengthened by the growing support he was receiving in Germany. However, it was not primarily religious support. His earliest converts were German peasants who had fallen into the grip of nationalism and xenophobia and hated the Church simply because it was "foreign" and they would rather submit to the ravings of a deranged monk so long as he was German, rather than to the decrees of an Italian Pope. Another group was the growing capitalist middle class who resented the Church for criticizing their thirst for wealth and who demanded they help their fellow man. Finally, there was the nobles and princes who saw in Lutheranism the opportunity to seize the lands and possessions of the Church in their areas and finally take spiritual as well as temporal control over the lives of their subjects. The only religious support Luther received was from those worldly priests and religious who wished to be justified in abandoning their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience; of which of course Luther himself was the first.

Finally, matters came to such a point that the Pope had to take action. Originally Luther was regarded as simply the latest of a number of "protestors" who had come and gone over the centuries. Pope Leo X dismissed him as "a drunken German who wrote the Theses; when sober he will change his mind". However, the growing fervor around Luther demanded that his ravings be investigated. The Pope's theological expert, Dominican Sylvester Mazzolini, refuted Luther's writings as clearly heretical, both for their content and the challenge they made to Church teaching and papal authority. Luther responded with his own literary attack and the battle commenced. At a conference in Heidelberg Luther made a formal attack on the teaching of Pope Clement VI which resulted in a general assault on the papacy itself. The conference denounced Luther as a heretic, but Pope Leo X, still hoping to reconcile Luther, summoned him to Rome to explain himself. Luther naturally refused to go and was protected by the Elector Frederick III of Saxony.

However, Luther was still at this point professing his loyalty to the Church, having said himself (ironically in light of his entire career), "I never approved of a schism, nor will I approve of it for all eternity... It is not by separating from the Church that we can make her better." Leo X also maintained a very tolerant, Renaissance attitude, and made more efforts to negotiate rather than taking forceful measures against him. Luther though, became more and more virulent in his attacks, particularly on the papacy, ultimately declaring that the curia in Rome was ruled by none other than the Anti-Christ. The Pope made further efforts at peaceful reconciliation, but all of his efforts were repulsed as Luther condemned one Church doctrine after another. Even the sacraments came under attack as Luther denied the need for an established priesthood in favor of what he called the "priesthood of all believers" or that every man could be "his own priest". Ultimately, Luther would see this idea come back to bite him as it implied that every individual could more or less design their own religious belief to their own personal taste. He also denied the core Catholic principle of transubstantiation, that Christ is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament.

Finally, Luther had pushed the Church too far and on June 15, 1520 Pope Leo X issued a bull warning Luther that if he persisted in his heretical beliefs he would be excommunicated from the Church. Luther denied the authority of the Pope to judge him and openly defied the papal warning, even burning the papal bull. With this, the line had been crossed and on January 3, 1521 Pope Leo X formally excommunicated Martin Luther in the bull Docet Romanum Pontificem. The situation became so alarming that the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V summoned Luther to the imperial Diet at Worms on January 22, 1521 giving him a chance to explain himself and recant his heretical assertions. Luther refused to do so and Emperor Charles V made it clear that he would oppose him saying that, "it is certain that a single monk must err if he stands against the opinion of all Christendom. Otherwise Christendom itself would have erred for more than a thousand years. Therefore I am determined to set my kingdoms and dominions, my friends, my body, my blood, my life, my soul upon it."
The Emperor issued the "Edict of Worms" which declared Luther an outlaw and heretic, but since he had summoned him to the council in good faith he allowed Luther to leave unmolested. Afterwards he was immediately protected once again by Frederick of Saxony in whose care he continued to write, propagandize and conspire with other enemies of the Church who were now coming out of the woodwork. His followers abandoned their priestly vows, abolished the mass and began viciously attacking Catholic traditions. In 1524 the situation culminated in the "Peasant's War" as people took to heart Luther's assertion that they were not bound to obey any earthly superiors. Luther, for his part, responded by back-peddling and immediately calling upon the nobility to massacre all the peasants. Luther knew he was naked without the support of the secular governments, so the man who denied spiritual authority through the papacy became the great champion of the un-challenged, absolute power of the state. He also translated the Bible into German, removing in the process any books or passages which did not fit in with his own beliefs and ideas.

Even as Luther became more bloodthirsty, his list of enemies continued to lengthen, ultimately coming to include anyone who disagreed with him. One group he singled out for particular vengeance was the Jews. He advised the authorities to, "set fire to their synagogues or schools....their houses also be razed and destroyed....all their prayer books....be taken from them....their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. ...safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews....all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping" and generally recommending all of the young Jewish boys and girls be subjected to forced labor. It is certainly true that when Luther broke a vow, he shattered it. He didn't just break his vow of poverty, he became the champion of state tyranny; he didn't just break his vow of chastity, in 1525 he married a former nun and fathered six children; he didn't just break his vow of obedience, he called the Pope the Anti-Christ and said that Protestants should "wash their hands" in the blood of Catholics. However, no matter what Luther said, the unity of Christianity had been shattered and the Protestants only divided further until Europe was engulfed in what would be a century of religious warfare.
Luther died in his hometown on February 18, 1546. His legacy was a divided Europe and a shattered religion that has still not been put back together. If Luther had actually tried to reform the Church he might today be considered a great hero, as the Church was in desperate need of reform, but this would have to wait until the reign of Pope Paul III. Instead, Luther revolted and attacked Christendom and the very foundation of civilization: the Catholic Church. Division bred further division until we have the situation today where the Catholic Church is surrounded by tens of thousands of various Protestant denominations. His doctrine of "the Bible alone" has led to a plethora of crimes and heresies based on perversions of Scripture. Thus we are faced with the situation today where people actually use the Bible to attempt to justify abortion and euthanasia. His doctrine of "every man his own priest" has led to "do-it-yourself" religion that has finally turned into the rejection of all belief and the prevalent skepticism. Thus we have Protestant churches who accept a female clergy, homosexual marriage, today even a homosexual clergy; who have virtually denied the idea that there is such a thing as subjective truth. Luther may not be to blame for all of this, but there can be no doubt that such trends would not have existed without him and his initial attack on the unity and infallibility of the One, Holy, Catholic Church.

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