Religion

Martin Luther

orn in 1483 in Germany, Martin Luther was a unique and strong-willed individual who did much to shape the face of Christianity to what it is today. His personal theological ideas and beliefs helped him lead a revolution of free thought and initiative regarding the state of Christianity at the time of the Renaissance. The Renaissance was a period of enlightenment, and the European Enlightenment revolves around freedom and the act of "liberating" - from closed-mindedness, which was exactly what Luther set out to do. Fundamentally it was he who was directly involved in catapulting the Reformation to a start, as well as being a major catalyst thereof.

Today, many people interpret Luther as having been temperamental, argumentative, single-minded, self-confident to the point of arrogance and often uncooperative and disapproving. However, this character might have been what saved him in the face of execution by fire (a punishment for heretics).

At the age of 22 in 1505, Luther became an Augustinian monk, disappointing his father, who had wanted him to pursue a career in law. He attained a doctorate in Theology at the University of Wittenberg, after which he started developing his own personal theological beliefs. These beliefs, expressed in his 95 Theses, were viewed as being blasphemous, as they rejected the use of Indulences.

The 95 Theses outlined Luther's theological argument against the use of Indulgences. His beliefs were based on the concept that Christianity is corely a phenomenon of the inner or spiritual world of people, and has nothing to do with the outer or physical world, therefore making temporal punishments and indulgences null and void with regard to their effect on the spiritual self and well-being of humans. This fundamental argument was greatly disapproved of by church people, which led to Luther being taken to court in 1518 to defend his argument against cardinal Cajetan. Cajetan became angered and ordered Luther to recant when the argument focused on the spiritual value of "good works" to pay off the debts of sins. Luther fled, initiating his separation from the church, to Northern Europe, where the northern Humanists freely accepted his teachings.

Luther's first writing, The Sermon on the Good Works, in which he argued that good works did nothing for the soul, and that salvation can be attained only through faith. Some time later, Pope Leo declared 41 articles of Luther's teachings heretical, and books by Luther were publicly burnt in Rome. Luther was spurred on though, bent on his goal of reforming the church.

In Luther's "Address to the Christian Nobility of Germany", he addressed the German nation, asking it to use military force to persuade the church to discuss reform. In his "A Prelude concerning the Babylonish Captivity of the Church", he openly called for the clergy to revolt against Rome.

Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, ordered Luther in 1521, to appear before the diet of the Holy Roman Empire at Worms. Here, Charles demanded he recant after hearing Luther's views. Refusing, Luther was placed under an imperial ban as an outlaw, however managing to escape and be hidden away in a castle in Wartburg where he further developed his new church.

In a somewhat conciliatory move, Luther wrote a letter to Pope Leo, entitled "Von der Freiheit des Christenmenschen" (On the Freedom of the Christian). This treatise, aiming at explaining the reasoning behind Luther's ideas yet being quite arrogant in nature, led him to being excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 1521.

Having initially set out to reform the present dominant church (The Roman Catholic Church), Luther was now however involved in building a completely new and independent church. This small work, "On the Freedom of the Christian" is the theological fundament to Luther's thinking. "Freiheit" (freedom/liberty) is the core concept to all of Luther's thoughts, and led to what can be known today as "individual freedom".

Martin Luther died in 1546.

Martin Luther, through his freethinking initiative, began a liberation for people from false religion, false beliefs and corrupt authority, and ultimately triggered the Reformation.

The concept of "liberating" people, commonplace in international politics of our modern period, comes of Luther's idea of Freiheit.