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Martin Luther and Lutheranism

Martin Luther (November 10, 1483 – February 18, 1546) was a German monk, prist, theologian, professor and church reformer. He is also considered to be the founder of Protestantism The 16^th century Protestant Reformation gave birth to Lutheranism, which emerged from church reforms initiated by Martin Luther (1483-1546) and his adherents. After All Saints Day Eve, 1517, Martin Luther’s teachings radiated from his native Saxony throughout many other German states, into Scandinavia and other parts of Europe. In the 18th century Lutheranism was exported to America and later into many other nations of the world. Today, Lutheranism is the largest Protestant denomination, consisting of approximately 66 million believers throughout the world. It is the largest non-Roman Catholic church body in the Western Christian church.

After a century of reformist stirrings in Italy under Girolamo Savonarola, John Huss in Bohemia, and in England under the Lollards, the spark which ignited the Reformation was the personal experience of salvation by Martin Luther. Luther had been noted for his zeal for fasting and acts of Christian asceticism in an attempt to ease his obsessive guilt regarding his own sinfulness and concern for salvation. Partly out of concern for Luther’s physical well-being, Johann von Staupitz (1460 – December 28, 1524), the Vicar-General of the Augustinian Order in Germany and himself a theologian, recommended that Luther pursue doctoral studies in biblical theology. Luther himself later remarked, "If it had not been for Dr. Staupitz, I should have sunk in hell."

It was during the course of these studies that Luther came to understand that the gospel did not require human works for the purpose of earning salvation, but that salvation was a free gift from God, won by Jesus Christ on the cross. Consequently, the Lutheran formula of salvation is that a person is saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and not by human works or even the strictest obedience to the law.

Like many people of conscience in his day, Luther was disturbed by immorality and corruption in the Church. In particular, he became aware of the widespread corruption and scandalous behavior of church leaders in his time during a journey to Rome on official business for the Augustinian Order. However, Luther concentrated his reforms on what he considered to be corrupt and false teachings. After he experienced what he believed to be the stirrings of Grace, he proclaimed a message of divine promise and denounced the notion human merits through which he feared that most church members in his day thought they were earning the favor of God.

In Luther’s time, the Bible was generally only available to scholars, bishops and priests in Latin, which was the official language of the church and its liturgy. Luther's translated the Bible and the liturgy of the mass into the German language, making them much more accessible and understandable to ordinary people. This had a tremendous impact on the church and on German culture. Luther’s translation of the Bible significantly influenced the development of a standard version of the German language, added several principles to the art of translation, and influenced the translation of the English King James Bible. His hymns inspired the development of congregational singing within Christianity. His marriage to Katharina von Bora set a model for the practice of clerical marriage within Protestantism.

Martin Luther was born on November 10, 1483 in Eisleben, Saxony, which was a German state within the Holy Roman Empire. He was baptized the morning after his birth, which happened to be the feast day of St. Martin of Tours. His parents were Hans and Margarethe (née Lindemann) Luder. After he became a theological professor, Martin changed the spelling of his surname to Luther because, in his day it was considered more scholarly. His family moved to Mansfeld in 1484, where his father was a leaseholder of copper mines and smelters, and served as one of four citizen representatives on the local council. Luther's mother was a hard-working middle class woman. Luther's enemies would later wrongly describe her as a whore and bath attendant.  He had several brothers and sisters, and was closest  to his brother Jacob.

Hans Luther was ambitious for himself and his family, and was determined to see Martin, his eldest son, become an lawyer. Hans sent Martin to Latin schools in Mansfeld, then Magdeburg in 1497, where he attended a school operated by a lay group called the Brethren of the Common Life, and Eisenach in 1498. The three schools focused on the so-called "trivium": grammar, rhetoric, and logic. Luther later compared his education there to purgatory and hell.

In 1501, at the age of seventeen, Luther entered the University of Erfurt — which he later described as a beerhouse and whorehouse. He noted that he was awakened at 4:00am every morning for a day filled with rote learning and often wearying spiritual exercises. However, he received his master's degree in 1505, and in accordance with his father's wishes, enrolled in the university’s law school that same year, but dropped out almost immediately. Luther sought assurances about life, and thought that there was too much uncertainty in law. Luther was instead drawn to theology and philosophy, expressing particular interest in Aristotle, William of Ockham, and Gabriel Biel. He was deeply influenced by two tutors, Bartholomäus Arnoldi von Usingen and Jodocus Trutfetter, who taught him to be suspicious of even the greatest thinkers, and to test everything himself by experience. Philosophy, however, proved to be unsatisfying to him, offering assurance about the use of reason, but none about the importance of loving God. Luther doubted that human reason could lead people to God, and therefore developed a love-hate relationship with Aristotle over Aristotle's emphasis on reason. For Luther, reason could be used to question men and institutions, but not God. He came to believe that people could only learn about God through divine revelation, and so the Bible became increasingly important to him because, as God’s revealed Word, it had more authority than even the most brilliant thoughts of any human philosopher.

Consequently, he decided to leave his studies and become a monk. He later explained his decision to an experience he had during a thunderstorm on July 2, 1505. A lightning bolt struck near him as he was returning to university after a trip home. Luther later told his father that he was terrified of death and divine judgment and cried out, "Help! Saint Anna, I will become a monk!" He came to view his cry for help as a vow he could never break.

He left law school, sold his books, and entered a closed Augustinian friary in Erfurt on July 17, 1505. One friend blamed the decision on Luther's sadness over the deaths of two friends. Luther himself seemed saddened by the move, telling those who attended a farewell supper then walked him to the door of the Black Cloister, "This day you see me, and then, not ever again." Luther’s father was furious over what he saw as a waste of education.