Martin Luther Essay, Research Paper

Martin Luther

In this paper I will write about Martin Luther and how I agree with what he did for our religious beliefs. I feel that any person who will stand up for what he or she believes in is best thing you could do. If no one ever stood up for what they believed in then we wouldn’t be free like we are today. I will include some quotes from my readings to give a brief description as to why I agree.

I would first like to say that when Martin Luther was hit by a bolt of lightning and decided that he would have to enter a monastery, because he hoped that a penitential life would help him overcome his sense of guilt. This makes it obvious that he believes in god and doing right will give him salvation. Therefore when he started to go against the Catholic beliefs, it wasn’t because no one else could believe in it. It was because he didn’t believe in it and he thought that there were people that believed the same way he did.

When in Wittenberg Luther published ninety-five theses, or statements on indulgences that he offered to debate with experts in Christian doctrine. He wrote this because this was what he believed to be correct teachings on indulgences. He felt that it was unforgivable that people should be deprived of their hard-earned money for spurious, worthless promises. I too agree with that, when I go to church and money is being collected, I don’t feel like I am giving money to save my soul, I feel like I am giving money to keep the church open. If I had to give money to feel saved, then I don’t think I would go to church anymore, because I feel that as long as you believe in god and are a good person that my soul will be saved.

After being excommunicate by Pope Leo X, Luther continued to believe what he believed in. He declared “I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is unsafe and wrong to go against my conscience. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.” Luther then went and developed his ideas and shaped them into a formal set of beliefs that influenced most of the subsequent variations of Protestant Christianity. These doctrines have remained the basis of Lutheranism ever since.

The influence that this first Protestant Church was to exert on all of European life was immense. The idea that all believers were equal in the eyes of God inspired revolutionary changes in though and society. It justified anitmonarchical constitutional theories, it allowed people to feel that all occupations were equally worthy and that there was nothing wrong with the life of the merchant or even the money-lender and it undermined the hierarchic view of the universe. Lutheranism made people more self-reliant, because independent and pioneering behavior was far from new.