You might have experienced this in your life, or perhaps seen it in the movies. Faced with an extremely threatening situation, where circumstances are beyond your control, you offer up a last ditch prayer and promise great things to whatever divine presence is listening. You in effect strike a bargain. If you will get me out of this situation, I promise to dedicate my life to your service. Or something like that. Has that ever happened to you?
Well it happened to one of the most influential personalities in Western Culture. Since this week is a time when 32% of the world’s population celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, I decided to investigate some great religious teachers and browse through their stories looking for inspiration. The History Channel website has some great articles on this topic. Thanks History Channel editors, whoever you are! I am not a Lutheran myself, but perhaps one of the most intriguing figures in our history was Martin Luther. He was born in Germany in the late 1400’s and he became one of the founders of what is known as the Protestant movement which sparked the final moves from the Renaissance to Reformation and then finally to a period in our time we call the Enlightenment. Characters like Martin Luther would pave the way to freedom of thought, an increasingly educated populace, and independence when it came to art, music, and science.
Martin Luther was a pretty adept youngster. Nothing Mozart like, but he was pretty good at the basics and became well versed in Latin at a young age. He was heavily influenced by monks that taught at the school is father sent him to. That would eventually play a role in his life, but his father pushed him to go to law school. He attended the top University in Germany and pursued that ambition. He was well on his way, and in 1505 earned a Masters Degree and then he had the experience that would change his life.
He got caught in a thunder and lightning storm. This was a very violent summer storm, and he nearly got killed by a very powerful and deadly lightning bolt strike. Martin Luther suddenly felt as if he was under attack by the very forces of nature. He prayed to God and vowed that if he survived the storm, that he would become a monk and dedicate his life to religious study. Well he survived, quit law school and entered the Monastery. I believe it was the Augustinian tradition. Still around today, one of the two oldest Catholic religious orders.
Martin Luther went on to earn a Doctorate degree and became a professor of biblical studies. This would lead him down a path to put him in the position to become one of the most influential religious leaders in our world’s history. When I was young man, a senior in high school to be exact, I became enthralled by one of the great acts of Martin Luther’s career. Before I tell that story and how it influenced me, I will provide a little background.
Martin Luther never intended to start a protestant reformation. He was absolutely dedicated to the Catholic, Christian church of the day. In fact it was the great christian philosopher Augustine’s writings that convinced him in the primacy of the Bible rather than Church officials and that salvation could not be granted to a petitioner with the right depth to their pocket book. Although not necessarily a flawed doctrine, the concept of ‘good works’ had come to be something quite different as a practice emerged of selling indulgences.
Indulgence selling was banned in Germany, but the practice continues into the 1500s. Absolution would be provided to sinners upon the purchase of a granting of an indulgence. This all came to a head in Germany, when Johann Tetzel began to sell indulgences to raise funds to raise money to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. This is when Martin Luther decided to act.
He wrote an essay called, the Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences. This became later known as the “95 theses.” The essay was a list of questions, with some commentary. Designed to stir up an active discussion around this practice of selling forgiveness for money. On Halloween in 1517, Martin Luther nailed a copy of this paper to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church. Just to give you a taste of what the document was like, one of the theses referenced the St. Peter’s fund raising project:
“Why does not the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?”
You can see how this document was written, it was not intended to be light reading. It was controversial, and it was received that way. Pope Leo X soon issued a papal decree (called a bull) that concluded that Luther was committing heresy and would be given the opportunity to come to Rome and apologize and take back what he said. Later he would face a tribunal in Germany, he would refuse to recant his statements. The government burned his writings as heresy and he spent most of his life translating the Bible and a few other works. He never intended to be the father of reformation, and did not participate in that at all. I guess you could say he lit the match and the rest is history.
He has some controversy to his background, every leader from our past does. He was most likely guilty of an anti-semantic attitude prevalent in Germany, and has a few other controversial ideas from his zealous study and translation of the Bible. I learned more about some of his controversial teachings later in life, but when I was in High School, I decided that his bold act of defiance was worth emulating. The school decided during my senior year, to close campus. I guess that there was increased crime in the nearby neighborhoods and the City decided to close all the high school campuses during lunch period. Meaning we could not leave the property. I will not get into all of my exploits to try to defeat this policy, but I will mention one.
I too wrote my “95 theses” on why closing the campus was a bad idea and nailed my paper, signed with my name in bold, on the Principle’s door. The poor man had no idea who Martin Luther was, and did not get the historical reference. It led to a mini rebellion, for which I become known as the leader and needless to say it was a great waste of time for everyone involved. However, it had an influence on me. To this day, I admire those who see something wrong and are willing to stand up in defiance against it. My cause of eating lunch at Taco Bell instead of our cafeteria was a bit miss guided but the concept took root. I am forever on the side of the disrupt-er, the defender of the truth, the one with reason on their side.
I have to appreciate the fact that a person, such as Martin Luther made a commitment during a thunderstorm to serve God and kept it. He stood on the side of what he thought was right, despite condemnation, and great risk of being labeled a heretic. He fought great power of the papacy, and stood tall when the easy path would have just gone away to a quiet life at University. Although I am nowhere near ready to dedicate my life to a monastery, I can certainly appreciate the commitment, bravery, and dedication that Martin Luther exhibited as our society lifted itself from the Dark Ages.
Guy Reams
