The LuLac Edition #3628, October 30th, 2017

MARTIN LUTHER AND HIS 95 THESIS @ 500

 (Photo: World Book)

Five hundred years ago, an unknown monk named Martin Luther marched up to the church in Wittenberg, a small town in what is now Germany, and nailed a list of criticisms of the Catholic church to its door.
Five hundred years ago tomorrow Oct. 31, 1517,is the anniversary of what would become the Protestant Reformation. His list of criticisms, known as the 95 theses, would reverberate across world history. The Church would split, wars would be fought and people would be burned at the stake. It was the birth of Protestant Christianity. This knowingly or unknowingly lit the fuse.
The big thing about the treatises was that it coincided with the invention of the printing press. The intersection of Luther's revolt along with the invention of the printing press gave birth to twin worldwide revolutions in religion as well as communication.
Luther came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. He strongly disputed the Catholic view on indulgences as he understood it to be, that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. Luther proposed an academic discussion of the practice and efficacy of indulgences in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517. His refusal to renounce all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the Pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.
Luther taught that salvation and, consequently, eternal life are not earned by good deeds but are received only as the free gift of God's grace through the believer's faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin. His theology challenged the authority and office of the Pope by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge from God and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood. Those who identify with these, and all of Luther's wider teachings, are called Lutherans, though Luther insisted on Christian or Evangelical as the only acceptable names for individuals who professed Christ.
His translation of the Bible into the German vernacular (instead of Latin) made it more accessible to the laity, an event that had a tremendous impact on both the church and German culture. It fostered the development of a standard version of the German language, added several principles to the art of translation, and influenced the writing of an English translation, the Tyndale Bible. His hymns influenced the development of singing in Protestant churches. His marriage to Katharina von Bora, a former nun, set a model for the practice of clerical marriage, allowing Protestant clergy to marry.
500 years later, Luther's actions are commemorated by religious and secular historians  as examples of how the written word and questioning of authority changed the world. Like many, Lither missed a few things along the way. His anti Semitic writings put his legacy from being a theological great.  
But five centuries ago............he set the path for better or worse,  the civilization we have today.
(Sources: wkipedia, Philly.com, LuLac)