The long Reformation - Lutheran - Martin Luther - the message and its dissemination
6 important questions on The long Reformation - Lutheran - Martin Luther - the message and its dissemination
What is the background of Martin Luther by 1517? What helped him to gain appeal?
- By 1517 Martin Luther (1483-1546) was a monk of twelve years' standing and a renowned theologian and university professor at Wittenberg in Saxony.
- His mixed social background helped him to gain wide appeal. Son of a farmer who became a miner and a mother from the upper ranks of small-town society, in 1525 he married Katherine von Bora, a renegade nun of the lower nobility.
What masterpiece did Luther write in 1517?
- While studying the Bible, the Church Fathers, the medieval scholastics and late medieval mysticism, he wrestled for years with the fundamental teachings of the Church until matters came to head in 1517.
- In the Ninety-five Theses his first public dispute with the Church was over indulgences, the sale by the Papacy of remission of penalties imposed by God on souls in purgatory.
Who did Luther attack?
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What did Luther mean with 'justification'?
- As indulgences were part of the 'works' which, alongside faith, the Church considered essential for salvation, the conflict grew into a fundamental one over the nature of salvation, which Luther insisted was achieved through 'justification by faith alone'.
- For him justification was God's gift alone, an act of grace making righteous an unrighteous sinner who has faith in Christ.
What is Luther's view on transubstantiation?
- Luther decried the doctrine of transubstantiation, although he did believe in a real presence of Christ.
- The seven sacraments were reduced to just baptism and the Lord's Supper. Both monasticism, as another form of works, and clerical celibacy were rejected.
What was Luther's advice on religious life?
- Luther's advice for his barber is one example of his guidance on everyday problems of religious and social life: the Ten Commandments, the liturgy and music of services or the proper use of Church property, but also marriage, usury, the education of children and the organization of poor relief.
- He encouraged neighbourly good deeds, but as the natural outcome of Christian faith and love, no longer as a means to salvation.
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