by GCBourque

Created on: January 06, 2011   Last Updated: February 01, 2011

He has worn many labels: Peasant. Monk. Teacher. Theologian. Dissident. Outlaw. Liberator. Heretic. At first glance he seems an unlikely reformer. Yet in the light of history it is hard to imagine another personality in his place, this bull in the china closet of Catholic domination, or as Pope Leo X called him, this “wild boar in the vineyard.” He arguably changed history more than anyone since Jesus Christ.

Martin Luther was an all-or-nothing person. Burly, opinionated, intolerant of fools and reckless with his own safety. He sacrificed his future and his health to devote his life to the brutal disciplines of the monastery, and nearly killed himself doing so. But when a sympathetic senior monk appointed him to teach Scripture at the new university at Wittenberg, Luther began to study the Bible more thoroughly. He found that what he had been taught did not match what Scripture said.

His 95 Theses, born out of disgust with Leo’s campaign of indulgences and nailed to the Wittenberg church door, sparked the dry tinder of public resentment toward the Church and lit the fires of Reformation. Soon Luther faced the fearsome power of church and state. Leo declared Luther a heretic and excommunicated him. Charles V, the Holy Roman emperor, called him a “devil in the habit of a monk.”  Luther had to make do with popular support, the help of his local lord, Frederick the Wise, and an unwavering belief that he was right. 

Luther had been taught salvation was only gained through works and the favor transmitted by the officers and sacraments of the Church. But Luther discovered that the New Testament instead emphasized that salvation was a gift bestowed directly by God through the faith of the believer. This implied that human conscience is beholden only to God, and resulted in the creation, or rediscovery, of the individual and the need for human governments which respect it.

Luther established not only that the sanctity of the individual is right, but that it is God’s will-thus solidifying its validity with the highest authority. But Luther was no social reformer. Quite the opposite. He encouraged the brutal suppression of peasant rebellions which his teaching had helped to instigate. He didn’t realize that his spiritual reforms would-indeed must-result in political reforms; reforms that eventually produced popular sovereignty-democracy.

Looking back, it is impossible to imagine democracy ever emerging without him (or someone like him) freeing the conscience from the lording of human religious institutions. In doing so he paved the way for a citizenry which could-to paraphrase Paul in Romans 14-be fully persuaded in their own minds, and vote accordingly.

That is such a basic belief to us that we take it for granted. But we wouldn't be enjoying it if not for the peasant monk who, by himself, defied both church and state saying; “to go against conscience is neither honest nor safe,” thus giving the rest of us the opportunity to say it as well.

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