FREE ESSAY ON MARTIN LUTHER

MARTIN LUTHER

Martin Luther
"Pope, pope, when I lived I was your pestilence.
When I die I will be your bitter death.
Martin Luther began his life in Germany in a city called Eisleben in the year 1483. He
was the son of a successful miner. His father wanted young Martin to become a lawyer, but
God had another plan. One day Martin was walking outside during a violent storm. Luther
hit the ground after being struck by lightning. He cried out to St. Ann for help and if
he was spared, he said he would devote his life to serving God and become a monk. He
lived and was a man to his word, hence becoming a monk. 
He tried to have faith in god by believing, trusting, and obeying. He found a problem
with his profession, though, and it was not that his parents disproved it. The problem
was shared by many at the time, and now they had a leader in Martin Luther. The problem
was the Catholic Church. The Church, Martin thought, was corrupt. The Church was taking
money from sinners so that the sinners would have to spend less time in Pergitory. They
also claimed you could buy dead relative's way out. There were other problems too.
Martin did something about his anger. He made a stand that would change the world
forever. Martin Luther wrote the 95 Theses, which told what he thought was wrong with the
church. He nailed it to the door on the Wittenberg's All Saints Church. (The original
door was burned down but the existing door has the 95 Thesis ingraved in it. ) He sent
this to his friends, priests, bishops, and anybody in power that he could. 
The church was outraged. They knew if he stuck to his beliefs, he could become powerful
and have many followers. The church tried to convince Luther to give up his beliefs, but
Martin would not hear of it. In 1520, Martin was excommunicated. Martin responded by
burning a copy of the papal bull, which was a paper threatening his excommunication, and
also burning books of the existing church order. An oak tree is standing in this spot
now, which was planted in 1830.
Martin was invited to Worms in 1521 by the empirer to try a last hope persuation for him
to turn back to the church. The outcome was not what the empirer was expecting. He was a
hero and everybody was overjoyed and celebrated him being there. He stayed for over two
weeks preaching to the people. Martin said that he would have backed down from every one
of his points if the Pope would affirm the gospel. 
Martin Luther needed a place to hang low and Prince Frederick knew this. He organized a
kidnapping of Martin to save his life and hid him in his castle, where he continued his
beliefs, translating the bible into German so many could read the word of God. This was
not done before because the Church thought that if people could read the bible for
themselves, then they would not need priests to interperate it. Martin's beliefs was
different.
Martin Preached that the church could not tell you how to get into heaven, only the bible
could. Having faith in God was enough to get into heaven. He believed that God alone
decided who would get into heaven and how long it would take them to get there.
He believed that the Holy Bible was the source of religious truth. He did not believe
that the pope was inspired by God to make the decisions that he made. He believed that
the church was making a lot of decisions that should not be made, because everything you
need to know is in the bible. Because of this, he believed that five of the seven
sacraments should be banded because they are not mentioned in the Holy Bible.
He also believed that The pope, bishops, and priests did not hold more power than the
common Catholic person. The church thought that Popes, Bishops, and priests had more
power that the common lay person. Martin thought that everyone is equil and everybody has
the same opportunity to talk to God. Because of this he thought that everybody should
have access to the bible in their own religion so they too can become closer to God and
better understand him. 
Martin Luther also believed that priests should be allowed to marry. He himself fell in
love with Katharina von Bora, a former nun, and decided to marry her in 1525.
I think the most brilliant man in the renaissance was not a painter, was not a ruler, but
in was Martin Luther, and that is why I am doing this report on him. No one else had
enough courage to stand alone(at first) and do something no one else had ever tried to do
before. The Renaissance was a time of change and he changed religion. Most everybody in
Europe was Catholic. He was not only fighting the church, but he was fighting all of
Europe, and maybe he did not entirely win in changing the Church, but he did do the next
best thing in creating his own Christian religion. 
Martin had many followers. May thought that Martin Luther was right. There was a problem
with the church and it was corrupt. Some German princes follower Luther because they were
sick about how much power the church had. They were tired of fighting the church for
power and land. They also figured if they were no longer catholic, than the church could
not keep their land. The church would have to give the land back. Germans from all over
supported Martin Luther because Martin was German and they did not like to see their hard
earned money go to Italy cities instead of German cities. 
Then in 1555, nine years after Martin Luther died, Charles V and the princes in Germany
signed The Peace of Augsberg, where the princes decided what they and their people were.
Catholic or Lutheran? The northern lands were Lutheran and the south were catholic.
One Man did what no other man had the nerves to do; he made a stand. He changed the way
many people of the time think. Then he went beyond that. After his death, his ideas were
still around and his hard work payed off. He became the founder of a great religion, a
religion that sees God above all, and God, only God, calls the shots. Today there are
over 70 million followers on all five continents of the world. If one man can influence
that many people 456 years after his death, than that man is truly rich.