75: Why So Many Churches?: Rise of the Lutheran Church – Part 8

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76: Cussing Christians

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I'm Eddie Lawrence, and this is the Ready for Eternity podcast, a podcast and blog exploring biblical truths for inquisitive

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Bible students. As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.

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This sales pitch for salvation was echoing across Germany when a monk named

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Martin Luther decided he had had enough. Martin Luther never intended to start a new denomination.

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The Augustinian monk simply wanted Rome to stop selling salvation in the form of indulgences.

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Yet his challenge to Rome's authority set in motion reforms and divisions that reshaped

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Christianity. October 31, 1517 marked the beginning of something

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Luther never envisioned. He posted 95 theses on Wittenberg's castle church door, challenging the

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Catholic church's practice of selling indulgences. Indulgences supposedly reduced punishment for sins in purgatory, but it also enriched the papal coffers while exploiting desperate believers.

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Tetzel's infamous sales pitch echoed across Germany. As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.

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Luther's conscience rebelled against this commercialization of divine grace. He drafted his thesis for academic debate, not popular revolution.

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The printing press transformed Luther's scholarly challenges into revolutionary pamphlets.

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Within weeks, his thesis spread across Europe, translated into German, and distributed among literate merchants and nobility.

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Luther discovered he had accidentally lit a theological wildfire. Luther's breakthrough came while studying

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Romans 1 .17, The Righteous Shall Live by Faith. This verse shattered his understanding of salvation through works and papal authority.

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He proclaimed that salvation comes through faith alone by grace alone.

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This doctrine of justification by faith alone undermined centuries of Catholic teaching.

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If people could approach God directly through faith, what purpose did priests and saints or papal mediation serve?

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Luther's theology democratized salvation, removing ecclesiastical gatekeepers from the equation.

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The Catholic Church responded with a papal bull, which is a formal decree or letter issued by the

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Pope. They responded with a papal bull giving Luther 60 days to submit to Roman authority or face excommunication.

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Luther burned the bull publicly, declaring his final break with Rome. The die was cast.

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Reformation had become a revolution, inseparable from political forces.

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Frederick the Wise of Saxony protected Luther from papal and imperial wrath.

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Frederick's motives were a combination of genuine religious conviction and political strategy.

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He was sympathetic to some of Luther's criticisms of the Church, but he also saw an opportunity to increase his own power and autonomy.

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The Reformation allowed German princes to seize church lands and reduce the influence of both the

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Pope and the Emperor, thereby strengthening their own authority. Luther's theological reforms thus provided a legitimate -sounding justification for these political and economic actions.

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The year 1521 proved to be a pivotal moment for Martin Luther. Following his excommunication by Pope Leo X, he was summoned to the

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Diet of Worms, a formal assembly of the Holy Roman Empire, and declared an outlaw by Emperor Charles V.

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At the Diet, when pressured to recant his controversial writings,

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Luther famously stood his ground, declaring, Here I stand, I can do no other.

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Fearing for his safety, Frederick the Wise staged a mock kidnapping and hid

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Luther at Wartburg Castle, a remote sanctuary where he could translate the

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New Testament into German. Without this political cover, the

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Catholic Church might have silenced Luther's theology like earlier reformers such as John Huss.

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By the mid -1520s, Luther had accepted that separation from Rome was permanent.

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His followers began organizing separate congregations with Lutheran pastors, Lutheran liturgies, and Lutheran confessions of faith.

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The Augsburg Confession of 1530 formally established Lutheran doctrine, marking the denomination's official birth.

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Other reformers like John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli built upon Luther's foundation while disagreeing with his specific interpretations.

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Anabaptists pushed Reformation further, rejecting infant baptism and embracing radical separation from worldly authority.

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Each group claimed authentic Christianity while condemning the others. Luther's legacy includes troubling shadows alongside his theological breakthroughs.

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When German peasants revolted in 1525, citing Lutheran principles of Christian freedom,

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Luther brutally condemned their uprising. He urged German princes to stab, smite, and slay these rebellious peasants, contributing to the slaughter of thousands.

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His anti -Semitism deepened with age, producing venomous writings against Jewish communities.

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Luther advocated burning synagogues, confiscating Jewish property, and forcing

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Jews into manual labor. Luther's writings about the Jews later provided ammunition for Nazi ideology.

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Though late -medieval religious prejudice rather than modern racial ideology rooted his anti -Semitism, it proved equally destructive in practice.

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Luther's willingness to endorse state violence against religious dissidents also contradicted his earlier appeals for freedom of conscience.

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He supported harsh persecution of Anabaptists and other radical reformers, demonstrating that reformed theology didn't automatically produce religious tolerance.

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Despite Luther's personal flaws, his theological insights reshaped

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Christianity permanently. Lutheran churches developed distinctive practices.

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Congregational singing, married clergy, vernacular liturgy, and emphasis on preaching scripture.

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Lutheran confessions like the Augsburg Confession and the Book of Concord codified beliefs that distinguished

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Lutherans from both Catholics and other Protestant groups. These documents emphasize salvation by grace through faith, while maintaining traditional liturgical structures.

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Lutheran missions eventually spread across Scandinavia, parts of Germany, and later to immigrant communities in America.

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The denomination that Luther never intended to create became one of Christianity's largest

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Protestant branches. Luther transformed Christianity by challenging papal authority and proclaiming salvation by faith alone.

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His courage at Worms and theological insights at Wittenberg unleashed forces that fragmented medieval

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Christendom into competing denominations. Luther's complex legacy includes both theological innovations and troubling prejudices.

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His defense of scripture's authority and justification by faith enriched

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Christian understanding, while his endorsement of violence and antisemitism stained his reputation.

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The Lutheran church emerged not from Luther's grand design, but from practical necessity as his followers organized separate communities.

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This pattern would repeat throughout Protestant history as reform movements, despite founders' intentions for universal renewal, often solidified into separate denominations.