5.7: Lutheranism

Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) was a German monk who endured a difficult childhood and a fraught relationship with his father. Suffering from bouts of depression and anxiety, he became a monk, receiving both a scholastic and humanistic education, and eventually becoming a professor at the small university in the city of Wittenberg in the Holy Roman Empire. Far from the centers of both spiritual and secular power, he contemplated the Bible, the Church, and his own spiritual salvation.

Luther struggled with his spiritual identity. He was obsessively afraid of being damned to hell, feeling totally unworthy of divine forgiveness and plagued with doubt as to his ability to achieve salvation. In Catholic doctrine, salvation is achieved through a combination of the sacraments, faith in God, and good works (good deeds that merit a person’s admission into heaven). Those good works could be acts of kindness and charity or gifts of money to the Church. Indeed, a common “good work” was leaving money or land to the Church in one’s will. Luther felt that the idea of good works was ambiguous, especially when works seemed so inadequate when compared to the wretched spiritual state of humankind. He could not understand how anyone merited admittance to heaven no matter how much good work they carried out while alive.

Figure 7.3.1: A 1528 portrait of Luther.

In about 1510, Luther began to explore the idea that salvation did not come from works, but from grace, the limitless love and forgiveness of God, which is achievable through faith alone. Over time, he developed the idea that it takes an act of God to merit a person’s salvation. A person’s willed attempts to do good things to get into heaven were always inadequate; what mattered was that the heartfelt faith of a believer might inspire an infinite act of mercy on the part of God. This idea - salvation through faith alone - was a major break from Catholic belief.

In one stroke, the idea did away with the entire edifice of church ritual. Over time, Luther argued that only baptism and communion were relevant since they were clearly inspired by Christ’s actions as described in the New Testament. Further, the priest was a guide rather than a gatekeeper who could grant or withhold the essential rituals. In other words, a believer should be able to read the Bible directly rather than be forced to defer to the priesthood.

In 1517, Pope Leo X issued a new indulgence to fund the building of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Luther was incensed at how this new indulgence promised to absolve the purchaser of all sins, all at once. Furthermore, the indulgence could be purchased on behalf of those who were already dead and “spring” them from purgatory in one swoop. In response, Luther posted “95 Theses”, the first official act of the Protestant Reformation.

The 95 Theses were relatively moderate in tone, attacked indulgences for leading to greed instead of piety, for leading the laity to distrust the Church, and for simply not working. According to Luther, indulgences did not absolve the sins of those who purchased them. Written in Latin, the 95 Theses were intended to spark debate and discussion within the Church. While he criticized the pope’s wealth and implied greed, Luther did not attack the office of the papacy itself. Soon, the 95 Theses were translated into German and reprinted.

By 1520, Luther was actively engaged in writing and publishing inflammatory pamphlets that attacked the pope’s authority and the corruption of the Church. In 1521, Luther was tried at the Diet of Worms, the Holy Roman Empire’s official meeting of princes, where the emperor Charles V ordered him to recant. Luther refused and was declared an “outlaw”. According to this decree, no subject of the Empire was to offer Luther food or water, and they would not suffer any legal penalty should Luther be murdered. A sympathetic German prince, Frederick the Wise of Saxony, spirited Luther away, and allowed him to continue writing anti-papal propaganda.

Figure 7.3.2: A (highly dramatized) portrayal of Luther at the Diet of Worms painted in the nineteenth century.

Both the pope and Charles V were reluctant to threaten Frederick the Wise, who was one of the electors of the empire and most powerful nobles. Charles V had enormous prestige and some ability to influence his subjects, but practically speaking each prince was sovereign in his own domain. This loose overall control was disastrous for Catholic uniformity in the empire, as Lutheranism rapidly spread. In addition, Charles V was too preoccupied with wars against France to spearhead a genuine effort to crush Lutheranism. In turn, French King Francis I extended royal protection to Lutherans to undermine Charles' authority.

Very quickly, Protestantism caught on across the empire, especially among elites, churchmen, and the educated urban classes. As Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V felt honor-bound to defend the Church. But his military was tied up fighting against both France and the Ottoman Empire. Thus, in 1526, he allowed the German princes to choose whether to enforce his ban on Lutheranism, in hopes that they would continue to offer him their military assistance. Practically speaking, the German states ended up being divided roughly evenly, with a concentration of Lutheranism in the north and Catholicism in the south.

Luther was a deeply conservative man. His attack on Catholic doctrine was fundamentally based on what he saw as a “return” to the original message of the Bible. Many Protestants interpreted his message as a way to reject the existing social hierarchy too. In 1524, an enormous peasant uprising occurred across Germany, demanding a reduction in feudal dues and duties, the end of serfdom, and greater justice from feudal lords. In 1525, Luther penned a venomous attack against the rebels entitled Against the Thieving, Murderous Hordes of Peasants, which encouraged the lords to slaughter the peasants. The revolt was brutally put down, with over 100,000 killed. However, Lutheranism was able to keep the support of the elites like Frederick the Wise who sheltered it.

The very nature of breaking with a single authoritarian institution brought about a number of competing movements, some of which were directly inspired by and connected to Luther, but many of which were not.