A colorful Martin Luther figure, part of an exhibition in Germany, in 2017.
AP Photo/Jens Meyer
On Oct. 31, 1517, a German monk, Martin Luther, started the Protestant Reformation. Its impact went far beyond the split in the Church that most people are familiar with.
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In the early 1900s, a group of Protestants in the US attempted a reunion of Christianity. They failed, of course, but they prompted a new dialogue.
William de Brailes, circa 1250AD
As well as his 95 Theses, Luther took on the awesome challenge of a new German translation of the Bible in which he set out to challenge both doctrinal and social beliefs.
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In the great reformer’s eyes, if you didn’t love a rousing tune you deserved only “the music of the pigs”.
Ferdinand Willem Pauwels/Wikimedia Commons
Just what are we celebrating when we imagine an Augustinian friar nailing a document to a church door?
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University degrees perform the same function in 2017 as indulgences did in 1517.
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Martin Luther has always given the country a chance to examine itself. Half a millennium on, the picture is more complex than ever.
Luther’s 95 Theses.
Ferdinand Pauwels, via Wikimedia Commons
On the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, two scholars explain how Luther’s personal and spiritual life contributed to his success.
Meet Jakob Fugger, the man who underwrote the ambition of power-hungry medieval Princes.
An exhibition for the Luther monument in Worms.
AP Photo/Jens Meyer
Luther translated the Greek New Testament into a common German dialect that ordinary people could read, without help from clergy.