A History of Lutheranism

A Brief History of Lutheranism

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On the Eve of All Saints Day in the year 1517 A.D., a young Augustinian monk named Martin Luther, a faithful priest and professor of Bible on the theological faculty of the University of Wittenburg, Germany nailed 95 Theses (arguments for indulgences).

The practice of indulgences has a long and complex history in the Roman Catholic Church. Briefly, it is a dispensation given by the Pope to a penitent relieving him of any temporal penances subscribed by the priest in the confessional. It was widely held in the Medieval Church that any penances not performed in this life would be carried over into purgatory, prolonging one's stay in that place where souls are cleaned by fire before entering into the joys of Heaven. However, Christ and the saints had done so many good works (well above and beyond what was actually necessary for the salvation of any sinner) that there was a “treasury of merits” to which the Pope, as Saint Peter's successor, held the key. He could therefore open this treasury and benevolently dispense with these merits and apply them to anyone to whom he chose to apply them. The first indulgences were offered to crusaders who committed themselves to waging war on Muslims to regain the Holy Land. By 1517, the practices of selling indulgences became a lucrative means of raising money, and Pope Leo X, a Medici with expensive tastes, needed funds for his monumental reconstruction of Saint Peter's in Rome. He issued a special indulgence granting remission of all temporal penances to those who contributed to his elaborate building project. The terms of the indulgence were very generous indeed. They could be purchased not only for oneself, but for the souls of dead loved-ones in purgatory. This was a new variation on the old theme of indulgences, and it caused great concern for Martin Luther.

For Luther, through his intense study of Scripture, began to question this practice, as he could find no Biblical warrant for it. He believed that this could harm the faith of Christians, who would put their trust not in Christ for their salvation, but in the indulgences themselves. Luther had struggled with the problem of his own sinfulness and ultimately found great comfort in Saint Paul's teaching that humans are reconciled to God and saved not because of their works, but through faith in the atoning work of Jesus Christ alone. This faith is itself a gift from God given by the Holy Spirit working through the preaching of God's Word and the Holy Sacraments. Good works do not save us, though they necessarily follow true faith in Christ. “Justification by grace through faith” became the cornerstone of Luther's theology. He found much support for his conviction in the writings of the early Church Father's, particularly in Saint Augustine.

Angered by the shamelessly irresponsible preaching of Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar who had been appointed by Rome to sell Leo's special indulgence in the territories under the jurisdiction of Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz, Luther began to attack the practice of indulgences first among his colleagues, and then openly in his public preaching and teaching. Due to the newly invented printing press, the 95 Theses (not initially meant for those outside of academia) spread rapidly throughout Germany, and from there to the rest of Europe.

At first Luther remained loyal to the Pope, insisting that it was the enemies of the Pope who were doing harm to Leo by exaggerating the worth of indulgences in order to boost sales, but after Leo sent Thomas de Vio (Cardinal Cajetan) in April of 1518 to put pressure on Luther to recant his criticism of indulgences, Luther began to change his mind about the Pope and the papacy. He began to see the Pope not as the successor of Peter, but as a tyrant who oppressed Christian consciences with man-made rules and regulations, and who withheld from them the good news of man's salvation through faith in Christ alone. Cajetan was unsuccessful in getting Luther to recant. And Luther continued to write, preach, and teach defending the Gospel and calling upon the German princes to reform the Church, since the Pope and the bishops obstinately refused to do anything to improve the situation. Luther finally received a papal bull threatening him with excommunication if he did not recant his “errors.” At many of Europe's great universities, Luther's books were publicly denounced and burned. The students of Wittenburg responded by burning many books of Medieval scholastic theology and Canon Law. Luther himself tossed the Pope's bull into the flames. Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, summoned Luther to an Imperial Diet held in the city of Worms, Germany in 1521. By this time Luther had become a national hero to many who believed his teaching and were frustrated with the tyranny of the Pope and the Medieval Church in general. People lined the streets to cheer him on, but at the Diet, he was again told to recant. However, he held his ground and concluded his defense with the immortal words "Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen."

Luther was officially condemned as a heretic and an outlaw, and may have been killed had it not been for the protection of Frederick the Wise, the Elector of Saxony (one of seven princes and/or bishops who got to choose the Holy Roman Emperor). Frederick, sympathetic to this great teacher of Bible at the university which the Elector himself had founded, staged a “kidnapping” of Luther who was taken to the Wartburg Castle high on a mountain overlooking the city of Eisenach. Luther soon learned that it was not his enemies who kidnapped him, but his gracious prince in order to protect him. He remained at the Wartburg for almost a year disguised as “Knight George.” While there, he translated the New Testament from the original Greek into popular German, so that ordinary people could read and study the Word of God. Upon hearing the news that some self-appointed reformers in Wittenburg, more radical than Luther, were taking things too far too fast (smashing images of saints and making changes in the Mass), Luther returned to Wittenburg even though the Elector Frederick forbade him for fear of his safety. Luther quickly calmed things down and again took up his professorship and his duties as a pastor in the city church; He never again left his post, but stayed for the remainder of his life. He married a former nun, Katherina Von Bora who bore him six children. Luther was a prolific writer, preacher, teacher, theologian, musician, translator, and administrator. His work on behalf of the reformation was tireless, and he was astounding in his productivity. A faithful pastor concerned with the care of souls, he preached the Gospel, taught the Christian faith to the young, cared for the poor, and visited the sick. Even in his own day, he was a legend. Respected by many princes and noblemen, he was also called upon to settle political disputes throughout electoral Saxony and in other territories where the reformation had taken root. It was during arbitration between two nobles in Eisleben that Luther died, apparently of heart failure, on February 18, 1546. Luther had been born in that very city of Eisleben sixty-three years earlier. He was far from perfect—he could be intolerant, stubborn, and crude (his literary attacks on the Jews, with whom he was frustrated for not receiving the truth of the Gospel, are among his most vitriolic and embarrassing writings). He has often been criticized for urging the German nobility to put down the Peasant's Revolt with ruthless violence. But his personality must be understood against the backdrop of his own times—times much different than ours. Luther feared revolution and chaos; he never understood himself to be a revolutionary, but a faithful son of the Catholic Church, a priest, and a theological doctor charged with teaching the truth of the Bible. He did not set out to start a new church (such a thing he would have regarded as a work of the devil!), but rather, to reform the old one—the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church which he knew and always loved.

By 1530, Luther's reform movement had spread throughout Germany and was having an impact in other lands as well. Charles V summoned the Lutheran (as followers of Luther were now called) princes to a Diet in Augsburg in the hopes of reconciling the two parties: papalists and Lutherans. Philip Melanchthon, Luther's fellow reformer and teacher of Greek at the University in Wittenburg, wrote the Augsburg Confession, a document which sets forth the core theological convictions of those who embraced Luther's evangelical reforms. Luther himself was still an outlaw and could not attend the Diet, though he went as far south in Saxony as he was able, staying at the Coburg Castle, in order to correspond with Melanchthon. The Augsburg Confession received his full approval.

At the time (though there was much common ground), some of the differences between the papalists and the Lutherans proved irreconcilable, and from 1530, the Church of the Augsburg Confession and the Church of Rome have been separated. Nevertheless, Lutherans believe they are members of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church in communion with all true Christians from every time and place. Today, there are roughly 70 million Lutherans worldwide, the majority of whom live in Germany and the Scandinavian countries. However, Lutheranism has spread throughout the world, and in the United States there are about 6 million.

The Lutheran contribution to Christianity has been enormous. The whole universal Church has benefited from the work of Lutheran Biblical scholars, theologians, pastors, hymn writers, liturgists, composers, artists, and social activists. Lutherans, acknowledging their part in the disunity of the visible Church have been actively engaged in the ecumenical movement, and have made great strides in promoting reconciliation among the churches of Christ. In the last fifty years Lutherans have worked with Catholics to reconcile differences between the Church of the Augsburg Confession and Church of Rome, which is happily no longer viewed as an enemy, but a separated sister in Christ with whom true unity and full communion should be achieved.

In 1997, the Roman Catholic Church and member churches of the Lutheran World Federation signed The Joint Declaration on Justification which states that there is essential agreement between the two Christian bodies on the doctrine of justification, and that the condemnations of the 16th Century regarding this doctrine (which both parties hurled at one another) no longer apply today in light of much fruitful scholarship and dialogue. This was a significant milestone on the road to full communion.

We continue on this road most recently on Reformation Day, October 31, 2016, when Pope Francis and the leaders of the Lutheran World Federation held a service to jointly celebrate an Ecumenical Commemoration of the Reformation.