Luther and the Reformation
Martin Luther's challenge to the Church from Wittenberg splits Western Christianity into Catholic and Protestant camps and divides German lands between them.
- Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet — Lyndal Roper, Bodley Head (2016)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
- A Concise History of Germany — Mary Fulbrook, Cambridge University Press (2019)
- Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490–1700 — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2003)
- Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes — Eamon Duffy, Yale University Press (2014)
- A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2009)
- Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd edition) — Holy See, Libreria Editrice Vaticana (1997)
- What Happened at Vatican II — John W. O'Malley, Harvard University Press (2008)
By 1500 the Western church was the backbone of European life and a target of mounting criticism. Renaissance popes like Alexander VI Borgia behaved as Italian princes, many clergy were poorly educated, and church offices were bought and sold. To rebuild St Peter’s in Rome the Church sold indulgences: certificates said to reduce the punishment of sins in purgatory, for oneself or the dead. Preachers such as the Dominican Johann Tetzel sold them with flair in German lands. To Martin Luther, an Augustinian friar and theology professor in the Saxon university town of Wittenberg, this betrayed the Gospel: salvation came through God’s grace and faith alone, not through payments or good works.
- Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet — Lyndal Roper, Bodley Head (2016)
- Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490–1700 — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2003)
- Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes — Eamon Duffy, Yale University Press (2014)
The 95 Theses
On 31 October 1517 Luther sent his 95 Theses against indulgences to the Archbishop of Mainz. Tradition says he also nailed them to the door of Wittenberg’s Castle Church, though historians debate whether that happened. What is certain is that printers copied them, and within weeks they were read across the Empire. The printing press, developed in Mainz by Johannes Gutenberg around 1450, made Luther the first mass-media author in history.
- Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet — Lyndal Roper, Bodley Head (2016)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
The pope excommunicated him. Summoned before the young Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521, Luther refused to recant unless proved wrong by scripture and plain reason. The famous words “Here I stand, I can do no other” may be a later addition, but they capture what Germans remember. Declared an outlaw, he was “kidnapped” for his own safety by his protector, Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony, and hidden in the Wartburg castle.
- Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet — Lyndal Roper, Bodley Head (2016)
A Bible in German
In the Wartburg, in about eleven weeks, Luther translated the New Testament from Greek into German; it was published in September 1522, and the full Bible followed in 1534. He wanted to write as people actually spoke, listening to “the mother in the house, the children in the street, the common man in the market”. His translation did more than any other book to spread a shared written German across dialects.
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
- Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet — Lyndal Roper, Bodley Head (2016)
Division and war
The Reformation was never only about theology. Princes and cities that adopted it gained control of Church lands and appointments. In 1524–25 peasants, inspired partly by talk of Christian freedom, rose up in the largest popular revolt in Europe before 1789. Luther furiously sided with the princes, and the rebels were crushed with tens of thousands of deaths.
- Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet — Lyndal Roper, Bodley Head (2016)
- A Concise History of Germany — Mary Fulbrook, Cambridge University Press (2019)
- Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490–1700 — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2003)
The Peace of Augsburg in 1555 let each prince choose the religion of his territory, a principle later summed up as cuius regio, eius religio, “whose realm, his religion”. It froze a divided map onto the Empire that exploded again in the Thirty Years’ War of 1618–48. The Catholic Church answered with its own renewal, centred on the Council of Trent, and by 1648 Europe was divided much as it remains: a Catholic south and centre, a Protestant north.
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
- A Concise History of Germany — Mary Fulbrook, Cambridge University Press (2019)
- Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490–1700 — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2003)
The legacy
Germany remains the land of the Reformation: Lutheran churches, Bach’s cantatas, and the pastor’s household as a cradle of writers and politicians (Angela Merkel is a pastor’s daughter). Luther’s legacy is also uncomfortable. His teaching that Christians owe obedience to secular rulers was later used to encourage submission to the state, and his late writings against Jews were among the most venomous of his age.
- Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet — Lyndal Roper, Bodley Head (2016)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
Relations between the churches have changed beyond recognition. Vatican II recognised Protestants as fellow Christians, and on 31 October 1999 the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation signed a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, agreeing on the basic truth at the heart of Luther’s protest. In 2016 Pope Francis joined Lutherans in Sweden to open the 500th-anniversary commemoration; differences remain over the papacy, the Eucharist and ordination.
- A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2009)
- What Happened at Vatican II — John W. O'Malley, Harvard University Press (2008)
- Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet — Lyndal Roper, Bodley Head (2016)
Luther recovered the Gospel from a corrupt Church: salvation by grace through faith alone, the authority of Scripture alone and the priesthood of all believers. He gave ordinary people the Bible in their own language, and the 2017 jubilee celebrated him as a founder of modern freedom of conscience.
- Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet — Lyndal Roper, Bodley Head (2016)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
- Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490–1700 — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2003)
The late-medieval church badly needed reform, and Catholics now acknowledge real abuses such as the sale of indulgences and share the blame for the split. But they hold that Luther and the other reformers wrongly broke with the church's tradition, sacraments and the authority of the pope, tearing apart Christ's one church. Since the 1999 Joint Declaration, Catholics and Lutherans have stressed what they share, and the 2017 anniversary was marked jointly.
- Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490–1700 — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2003)
- Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes — Eamon Duffy, Yale University Press (2014)
- Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet — Lyndal Roper, Bodley Head (2016)
Luther's 1543 tract "On the Jews and Their Lies" urged burning synagogues and driving Jews out. The Nazis quoted it, and the Protestant Church in Germany formally distanced itself from his anti-Jewish writings ahead of the 2017 jubilee.
- Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet — Lyndal Roper, Bodley Head (2016)
Most of the world's Protestants now live in Africa, Asia and Latin America and know Luther more as a spiritual ancestor than a German hero. Many celebrate his rediscovery that God's grace is a free gift received by faith, while openly regretting the violence, the anti-Jewish writings and the endless splintering that followed.
- Protestants: The Faith That Made the Modern World — Alec Ryrie, Viking (2017)
- Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490–1700 — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2003)
Why it matters today
The Reformation gave Germany much of its written language, a culture of Bible-reading and schooling, and a religious map that still shows: a more Protestant north and east, a more Catholic south and west. Many Germans see in Luther the root of a habit of conscience and of arguing from principle, and also, more uneasily, of obedience to the state and of Christian hostility to Jews.
The Reformation made Catholicism one church among several, and defined it against Protestantism: the pope, the seven sacraments, the Mass, saints and Mary became markers of Catholic identity. In places like Northern Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands, the old divide still shapes communities, though Catholics and Lutherans signed a landmark agreement on the core dispute in 1999.
Every Protestant church, from Lutherans and Presbyterians to Baptists and Pentecostals, traces its family tree to 1517. The Reformation's watchwords, scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, and the priesthood of all believers still define what it means to be Protestant, and Reformation Day on 31 October is a holiday in parts of Germany and a celebration in many churches.