tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/reformation-500-45049/articlesReformation 500 – The Conversation2017-11-08T11:16:53Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/864492017-11-08T11:16:53Z2017-11-08T11:16:53ZWhen Americans tried – and failed – to reunite Christianity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193655/original/file-20171107-6742-tg5m8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/holy-bible-cross-401248822?src=nKWWEhRSGtTrN7MmThvzkQ-1-12">LeventeGyori/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Five centuries ago, Martin Luther, a German monk, initiated a split in Christianity that came to be known as the Protestant Reformation. After the Reformation, deep divisions between Protestants and Catholics contributed to <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674062313">wars</a>, <a href="http://elections.harpweek.com/1876/cartoon-1876-large.asp?UniqueID=7">hostility</a> and <a href="https://exhibits.library.villanova.edu/chaos-in-the-streets-the-philadelphia-riots-of-1844/">violence</a> in Europe and America. For centuries, each side denounced the other and sought to convert its followers.</p>
<p>Then, in the early 1900s, ambitious Protestants in the U.S. attempted the unthinkable. Building on ideas circulating in Europe, they took charge of an effort to negotiate the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=1JgwAQAAIAAJ&dq=approaches%20toward%20church%20unity&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false">reunion of Christianity</a>.
They failed, of course. Strange as it might now seem, their effort is nevertheless informative. Here’s why.</p>
<h2>How it started</h2>
<p>By 1900, atheists and agnostics <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10820.html">were becoming more prominent</a> in the U.S. <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-distrust-of-unbelievers-runs-deep-in-american-history-71776">Anxious Protestant religious leaders</a> started to argue in favor of a united Christianity to stop the spread of these ideas.</p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=QB5WAAAAMAAJ&dq=passing%20protestantism&pg=PA15#v=onepage&q&f=false">Noted</a> theologian and fellow at Yale <a href="http://drs.library.yale.edu/HLTransformer/HLTransServlet?stylename=yul.ead2002.xhtml.xsl&pid=mssa:ms.0623&query=&clear-stylesheet-cache=yes&hlon=yes&big=&adv=&filter=&hitPageStart=&sortFields=&view=over#did">Newman Smyth</a> complained at the time about religion’s “lost authority” in family, community and intellectual life. He <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=QB5WAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=smyth+passing+protestantism&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwju0oSx45jXAhVM9YMKHcmaDvIQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">declared</a>, “a Christianity divided in its own house against itself” could not survive. </p>
<p>In response, in 1910, a very small but highly influential group comprising theologians including Smyth, as well as ministers of prestigious churches and noted business professionals, committed themselves to “Christian unity.” </p>
<p>For this group, unity <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100411860">meant more than</a> cooperation or mutual understanding. It meant the actual reunion of Protestantism and Catholicism. </p>
<h2>The influential WWI chaplain</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193648/original/file-20171107-6718-1jup5kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193648/original/file-20171107-6718-1jup5kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193648/original/file-20171107-6718-1jup5kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193648/original/file-20171107-6718-1jup5kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193648/original/file-20171107-6718-1jup5kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193648/original/file-20171107-6718-1jup5kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193648/original/file-20171107-6718-1jup5kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Monument to Charles Henry Brent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMonument_to_Charles_Henry_Brent.jpg">AndreoBongco (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Their most significant member was <a href="http://www.bu.edu/missiology/missionary-biography/a-c/brent-charles-henry-1862-1929">Charles Brent</a>, an Episcopalian bishop. </p>
<p>In the early 1900s, Brent had been a missionary to the Philippines. While there, he became friends with John Pershing, the <a href="http://www.anb.org/articles/06/06-00517.html">army officer</a> overseeing much of the territory acquired by the U.S. This friendship would propel the bishop to greater prominence. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193656/original/file-20171107-6718-1pmxgi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193656/original/file-20171107-6718-1pmxgi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193656/original/file-20171107-6718-1pmxgi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193656/original/file-20171107-6718-1pmxgi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193656/original/file-20171107-6718-1pmxgi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193656/original/file-20171107-6718-1pmxgi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193656/original/file-20171107-6718-1pmxgi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">General John Joseph Pershing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AGeneral_John_Joseph_Pershing_head_on_shoulders.jpg">Bain News Service, publisher, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Pershing took command of U.S. forces in Europe. He persuaded Brent to organize and lead the newly established <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674972155">corps of army chaplains</a>. As he built up the ranks of chaplains, Brent showed his own commitment to Christian unity. Though a Protestant, he made a Catholic priest his second in command and encouraged recruitment of Catholic chaplains.</p>
<p>When Brent returned to the United States in 1919, he was <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=1JgwAQAAIAAJ&dq=approaches%20toward%20church%20unity&pg=PA111#v=onepage&q&f=false">even more convinced</a> that “a divided Church” was a “fundamental disloyalty to Christ.” He lent his name to publications and events to build support for the cause. </p>
<h2>Failure to unite</h2>
<p>Proponents of unity recognized the need to proceed slowly with this difficult task. Smyth, for example, insisted that they not rush to put forward “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=1JgwAQAAIAAJ&dq=approaches%20toward%20church%20unity&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q&f=false">particular plans or measures</a>.” Rather, the group should simply arrange meetings and conferences where Catholics and Protestants could discuss their differences. Smyth hoped that the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=1JgwAQAAIAAJ&dq=approaches%20toward%20church%20unity&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q&f=false">“sentiment for unity”</a> would emerge from dialogue.</p>
<p>But years of discussion brought no progress toward actual unity. The biggest obstacle was that, despite repeated invitations, Catholics took no part in the effort beyond sending unofficial observers to occasional meetings.</p>
<p>There were other issues as well. Protestants expected concessions from both sides. They also expected Catholics to limit the power of the papacy. One Protestant theologian, Charles Briggs, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=rRk3AAAAMAAJ&dq=editions%3AVyN5zMBJnSYC&pg=PA212#v=onepage&q&f=false">had anticipated</a> that the Vatican would place a system of checks and balances on the pope. In exchange, Protestants said they might accept the papacy, abandoning a critique that dated back to the Reformation. </p>
<p>Catholics found such expectations to be absurd. They rejected any demand for changes to their church.</p>
<h2>Global peace through Christian unity?</h2>
<p>Despite these difficulties, motives beyond religion gave the movement’s leaders new inspiration in the 1920s. They thought Christian unity offered a path to global peace.</p>
<p>It was a time when America’s role in global affairs seemed uncertain. While American intervention had helped allies win the war, the U.S. had <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/Feature_Homepage_TreatyVersailles.htm">rejected</a> the Treaty of Versailles, the agreement which ended the war. The U.S. also refused to join League of Nations, brainchild of President Woodrow Wilson, formed to resolve international disputes. The possibility of another war loomed large. </p>
<p>To this group, Christian unity <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100144530">offered an alternative means</a> to achieve peace. It was a way of preventing more bloodshed. In correspondence with a friend, Charles Brent worried that only “new unity among the churches” would prevent “hideous waves of terror” from striking “people of the next generation.” </p>
<p>Another supporter, peace activist Peter Ainslie, predicted that fights between Catholics and Protestants would continue to spark global conflicts. Only the “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=g78XAAAAYAAJ&dq=peter%20ainslie&pg=PA78#v=onepage&q=unity&f=false">union of Christian forces</a>” would bring an end to militarism and lead to global peace, he noted.</p>
<h2>Not enough support</h2>
<p>Statements like these highlight how some Americans connected religion to international politics after World War I. But they also reveal why the unity effort failed to win broad support.</p>
<p>The American people had as little interest in global Christian unity as they did in the League of Nations. After the turmoil of the war years, many wanted a focus on domestic issues. They had no wish to remake familiar institutions like the church. This became clear in the 1920 presidential campaign, when Warren Harding won a landslide victory after running an isolationist campaign. His slogan, “<a href="https://millercenter.org/president/harding/campaigns-and-elections">Return to normalcy</a>,” signaled an end to the previous decade’s lofty efforts to transform the world.</p>
<p>Furthermore, most Protestants had as <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=naGlCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PP5&dq=saving%20faith%20mislin&pg=PA138#v=onepage&q&f=false">little enthusiasm</a> for these efforts as Catholics. They argued that institutional reunion of Protestantism and Catholicism was not needed. “Outlook,” a nationally read Protestant periodical, for example, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=dto6AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA636&dq=outlook+%22distinctive+denominational+peculiarities%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiv5f7h4pjXAhVF5IMKHc9HCUMQ6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q&f=false">ran an editoral</a> stating that both sides already agreed on the “essential elements of Christianity” and whatever differences remained were merely “distinctive denominational peculiarities.” </p>
<h2>Living with differences</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193645/original/file-20171107-6722-awcl7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193645/original/file-20171107-6722-awcl7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193645/original/file-20171107-6722-awcl7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193645/original/file-20171107-6722-awcl7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193645/original/file-20171107-6722-awcl7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193645/original/file-20171107-6722-awcl7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193645/original/file-20171107-6722-awcl7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-praying-bible-cross-on-table-522242725?src=bMumc43GvAMXN9QdXNBFDg-1-0">Tiko Aramyan/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The effort for unity was not a complete failure, though. It helped advance unity through dialogue. Its greatest success was a <a href="https://archive.org/details/wccfops1.064">1927 conference</a> in Lausanne, Switzerland. Organized largely by Americans and presided over by Charles Brent, the gathering prompted new dialogue among Protestants, both in the United States and in Europe.</p>
<p>In fact, the main unintended consequence of the unity campaign was that it caused people to realize that they did not want actual unity. It was possible, in other words, to accept the post-Reformation division of Christianity. The differences separating the Protestants and Catholics could be <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=naGlCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PP5&dq=saving%20faith%20mislin&pg=PA138#v=onepage&q&f=false">shrugged off</a> as “peculiariaties” rather than intolerable divisions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86449/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Mislin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>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.David Mislin, Assistant Professor of Intellectual Heritage, Temple UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/863502017-11-01T10:18:32Z2017-11-01T10:18:32ZHow Martin Luther gave us the roots of the Protestant work ethic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192698/original/file-20171031-18693-m1uhea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">William de Brailes, circa 1250AD</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The posting of 95 theses is not the only act for which Martin Luther is famed. In 1522, he began the work that would last a lifetime: translating the Bible. This was not a neutral act. If we can trace <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-martin-luthers-reformation-tells-us-about-history-and-memory-85058">society’s influence on tales of his theses’ posting</a>, we can also see similar factors at work as Luther deliberated over what a German Bible should say.</p>
<p>Luther’s was not the first German Bible translation. When he translated the New Testament, there were already <a href="http://www.ionasword.net/2017/08/16/bibles-on-the-net-1/">18 German Bibles in print</a>. What was different about Luther’s text? Partly the source – older Bibles were based on the <a href="https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-jerome-the-bible-translator/">traditional Latin text attributed to Jerome</a> (circa 400AD). Inspired by humanist scholars such as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/erasmus.shtml">Erasmus</a>, Luther translated from Greek and Hebrew – the original biblical languages. </p>
<p>He was also determined to communicate God’s word in a way that would strike people afresh. Like <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/william_tyndale/">William Tyndale</a> in English, Luther coined new words and deliberately reworded well-known texts. Christians who had been used to “Ave Maria” (Hail Mary) now heard an angel give her “Greetings”. A natural translation, Luther argued, would be simply “Liebe”, that is “Dear…” Mary. </p>
<p>But Luther well knew that in rewording this New Testament dialogue, he was undermining centuries of “Hail Mary” penance. Jesus’ command to repent – “poenitentiam agite” – interpreted in the medieval church as “do penance” through ritual actions, provided the starting point for Luther’s 95 theses, because of his distaste for indulgences, which he saw as a corrupt form of repentance. In Luther’s view this – and the notion that Jesus’ mother had power over Christians’ destiny – were flawed.</p>
<h2>A new understanding</h2>
<p>If the changes Luther introduced were sometimes visibly doctrinal, there were other concerns at work, too. Translating the Bible into everyday language involved deciding how to frame a text that would shape everyday life.</p>
<p>Though the New Testament was complete in 1522, a full Wittenberg edition of Luther’s Bible did not appear until 1534. By that point, other reformers – most notably <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Huldrych-Zwingli">Ulrich Zwingli</a> and colleagues in Zurich – had completed alternative translations from the original languages. </p>
<p>Why were they ahead? Luther’s work seems to have stalled in 1525. That year, tens of thousands died during the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Peasants-War">German Peasants’ War</a>, an uprising prompted in large part by the notion that the Bible (and God) supported the cause of the lowliest in society. In the aftermath, Luther became more reticent about <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/650697">who should read the Bible and when</a>.</p>
<p>Evidence of this rethinking can be seen in the book of Ruth, the story of a widow who emigrates with her widowed mother-in-law, marries Boaz – a relative of her late husband – and so becomes the great grandmother of King David. Luther first translated this short Hebrew text in 1524, revising it very slightly for a 1525 reprint (the speed of reprinting is itself an indication of how eagerly his work was received). </p>
<h2>Ruth: the ‘proper’ woman</h2>
<p>By 1540, Luther was once again revising the Bible. This time he worked with a team of colleagues. The records of this work include notes taken by one of the team and marginal annotations that Luther himself made in a copy of the Bible, along with the published revision. They got to Ruth on April 7 1540. There was not much to edit here, but <a href="http://www.ionasword.net/2017/04/19/watching-luther/">Ruth 2:7</a> presented a particular challenge.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192701/original/file-20171031-18686-xwra5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192701/original/file-20171031-18686-xwra5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192701/original/file-20171031-18686-xwra5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192701/original/file-20171031-18686-xwra5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192701/original/file-20171031-18686-xwra5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192701/original/file-20171031-18686-xwra5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192701/original/file-20171031-18686-xwra5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The original text of the story of Ruth in Luther’s translation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Martin Luther University</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scholars today are uncertain <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1517346">how to fit together the last Hebrew words of this verse</a>, which are: “this”, “rest” (or “stay”), “the house” and “little”. The landowner (Boaz) has asked his harvest manager about a strange young woman (Ruth). The manager’s answer seems staccato, words piled together without due grammatical attention. <a href="http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=jewishstudies_papers">Some have suggested</a> this is stylistic – that we are meant to imagine the manager stammering his response.</p>
<p>Ruth has arrived at the field, hoping to gather leftover grain after the harvesters. But has she been stood waiting for an answer, an example of patience? Was she on the verge of giving up and going home, heightening the drama of Boaz’s sudden arrival? Can Boaz see her sitting indoors? One scholar traced 18 different ways of translating the passage, gathering together <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1517346">Greek, French, English and German</a> texts through to the present day.</p>
<p>The 1540 records show Luther and his fellows agreeing first that Ruth is a “fromm” – that is a “proper” or “pious”, woman. This opinion intrudes upon the biblical text in chapter one, and recurs as a remark on <a href="https://archive.org/stream/werkediedeutsche03luthuoft#page/364/mode/2up">Ruth 2:10</a>. Right after that note, the discussion turns back to verse 7: “Her stay in the house is little”, the minute-taker writes in Latin. “A comment on her habits”. In Luther’s own handwriting we learn that Ruth is not like other women, accustomed to lounging around at home.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192702/original/file-20171031-18686-1odag73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192702/original/file-20171031-18686-1odag73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192702/original/file-20171031-18686-1odag73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192702/original/file-20171031-18686-1odag73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192702/original/file-20171031-18686-1odag73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192702/original/file-20171031-18686-1odag73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192702/original/file-20171031-18686-1odag73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sleeping Venus: how artists in Luther’s day were inclined to picture women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Midway through this remark, he switches from Latin – the language of scholarly discourse – to the language of his target audience. In the <a href="http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00096751/image_310">printed German Bible of 1541</a> and its successors, the whole sentence appears in the margin.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192685/original/file-20171031-18711-joq8uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192685/original/file-20171031-18711-joq8uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192685/original/file-20171031-18711-joq8uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192685/original/file-20171031-18711-joq8uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192685/original/file-20171031-18711-joq8uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192685/original/file-20171031-18711-joq8uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192685/original/file-20171031-18711-joq8uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Luther’s marginalia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Difficult Hebrew words are taken out of context and turned into a commentary upon her whole character. Luther is convinced that Ruth is a decent woman. The textual uncertainty is determined by her model status: modelling the best of possible female behaviour.</p>
<p>In Ruth, the ready and willing worker, we sense the beginnings of what Weber would term the <a href="https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/podzim2013/SOC571E/um/_Routledge_Classics___Max_Weber-The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism__Routledge_Classics_-Routledge__2001_.pdf">Protestant work ethic</a>. That ethic is normally associated with the later Reformer, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Protestant-ethic">John Calvin</a>, whose teaching about predestination created an anxiety that drove Protestants to ensure they spent their time well. But in the margins of the 1541 Luther Bible and its successors, we can see that concern already at hand. Good women should not be idle.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86350/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iona C Hine is director of 500 Reformations, a not-for-profit initiative at the University of Sheffield disseminating research about Luther, Reformation and its aftermath. </span></em></p>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.Iona C Hine, Researcher in English and Biblical Studies, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/851972017-10-31T09:52:23Z2017-10-31T09:52:23ZLuther’s musical legacy is the Reformation’s unsung achievement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191443/original/file-20171023-1717-134stdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=64%2C5%2C3819%2C2276&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-view-organist-playing-pipe-organ-735416491?src=8ww7MugciSpY9-Sc_uq2Dg-1-24">JohnKruger/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Five hundred years ago this month, Martin Luther triggered what would become the Protestant Reformation with a document protesting corruption in the Catholic Church. At its heart, his Reformation was a movement about the nature of sin and the means of salvation; about the power of the church versus the authority of scripture. But it also helped to shape modern religion in other, more unexpected ways: one of these was through the birth of congregational song.</p>
<p>By the 15th century, music had become one of the most prominent features of religious worship. Most parish churches had <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hrBZ9npRAHEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA83#v=onepage&q&f=false">at least one organ and a small semi-professional choir</a>; these modest resources were dwarfed by the great cathedrals and monasteries. The singing of <a href="https://youtu.be/bI2WazTO0iw">complex polyphonic music</a>, where the voices of singers weaved elaborately together, had become an important means of praising and serving God. </p>
<p>Even within the medieval church, this elaborate music had had its critics. In 1325, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=H8e78zaI8YoC&lpg=PA195&ots=r9oENLIMx4&dq=pope%20john%20xxii%20edict%20music&pg=PA193#v=onepage&q&f=false">Pope John XXII issued a decree</a> criticising musicians who “intoxicate the ear without satisfying it”. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bI2WazTO0iw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/aeh6713.0001.001/257:AEH6713.0001.001:12?page=root;size=100;view=image">Writing later</a> in the 14th century, the Oxford theologian whose writings inspired the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/lollards_01.shtml">English “Lollard” heresy</a>, John Wycliffe, wrote that the more time men spent singing, the less they observed God’s law. On the eve of the Reformation, the humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus complained that the people were <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hrBZ9npRAHEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA46#v=onepage&q&f=false">three times removed</a> from the music of the church, by dint of its use of Latin, complicated musical style, and non-participation.</p>
<h2>Waxing lyrical</h2>
<p>In large part, the Reformation sought to banish what it saw as the ritual excess of the late-medieval church. The Swiss reformer Huldreich Zwingli, a talented musician, had <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hrBZ9npRAHEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA47#v=onepage&q&f=false">the organs of Zurich dismantled</a> and its choirs disbanded. The Frenchman Jean Calvin restricted religious music in his adopted home of Geneva to the unaccompanied singing of the biblical Book of Psalms. This <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hrBZ9npRAHEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA121#v=onepage&q&f=false">“metrical psalmody”</a> was also popular in England, although in cathedrals there, organs and choirs continued to prosper with the support of Elizabeth I. </p>
<p>Even the Catholic Church sought to <a href="https://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct22.html">regulate music to some degree at the Council of Trent</a>. A (likely false) story persists that it was only the beauty of <a href="https://youtu.be/BRfF7W4El60">Palestrina’s <em>Missa Papae Marcelli</em></a> that stopped the council banning polyphony from the church altogether.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BRfF7W4El60?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In the midst of this challenging environment, Luther’s love of music rings loud, clear and true. In the <a href="https://www.ccel.org/ccel/luther/tabletalk.v.xxxix.html"><em>Tischreden</em></a>, the record of his mealtime conversations, Luther proclaimed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I always loved music; whoso has skill in this art, is of a good temperament, fitted for all things.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He argued that schoolmasters and preachers ought to be skilled in music, “or I would not regard him”. The Reformation was in part born out of Luther’s struggles with his own conscience and sense of sin. There is a ring of personal truth about his claim that music was: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The best solace for a sad and sorrowful mind; by it the heart is refreshed and settled again at peace.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Luther waxed most lyrical about the power of music in the <a href="https://sites.duke.edu/conversions/files/2014/09/Luther-Preface-to-Symphoniae-iucundae.pdf">foreword to Georg Rhau’s <em>Symphoniae iucundae</em></a> (“Delightful Symphonies”, 1538), addressed “to the devotees of music”. In it, he praised music as “the excellent gift of God”, “instilled and implanted” in all creatures “from the beginning of the world”. Any man or woman not touched by the power of music, he wrote with characteristic earthiness, deserved to hear nothing else but “the music of the pigs”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">All together now…</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/glasgowamateur/8329857232/in/photolist-dG5Gm9-iihLN1-34Ydj3-rqWKtN-niGeJF-ndYEBf-c5YU9m-e8m1E6-niGgHG-pyjFuM-fpY2dM-4uXAQV-6vTK22-8niUXH-j185VM-niGgFN-rt7Zvt-afF579-9kSLBv-62p2Qa-7njY4J-jDmLmz-pyTn6C-qUFDDk-SeVcZY-mD34rB-e8m1CT-ny986J-mD4caG-niGfx7-boLVrB-a6ncMu-niGh4y-nAbMd8-niGexw-nzTQQt-nzTQyB-acZ7Pm-fvtPwA-niG6AD-ny98Eu-nAbMA2-nAc4c1-nAc5jb-ny98r3-niGf5y-2KtnK-ceKuML-nBXPhR-dbvHUG">Charles Clegg/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Praise be to hymn</h2>
<p>Luther’s reformation therefore integrated the simple unison plainchant and complex polyphony of the Catholic Church into his new Protestant liturgy almost wholesale. However, Luther also brought significant change, through the introduction of the congregational singing of vernacular psalms and hymns. People had sung religious music before of course – many Christmas carols have medieval origins. But never before had the people played an active, musical role in church services. </p>
<p>This was a democratisation of one of the most popular and emotive dimensions of religious worship, and a powerful weapon in the Reformation’s battle for hearts and minds.</p>
<p>By allowing composers to write original lyrics, rather than just setting the words of scripture, Lutheran hymns could also communicate new religious doctrines. The most famous hymn of Luther’s own composition was <a href="https://youtu.be/uI7QMtXBLgY"><em>Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott</em></a> (A Mighty Fortress is our God). The second verse reads: </p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side,
The Man of God’s own choosing…</em></p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uI7QMtXBLgY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The message was clear: mankind could not rely on their own good works; salvation came from God alone.</p>
<p>In 1620, the German Jesuit Adam Contzen remarked that Luther had converted more souls with his hymns than with all his books and sermons. Whatever else we make of Luther’s Reformation, it is clear that he gave the world a musical gift which continues to resound in the present day.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85197/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Willis works for University of Birmingham and has received funding from the ARHB (2005-6), ARHC (2006-9) and the Leverhulme Trust (2010-13).</span></em></p>In the great reformer’s eyes, if you didn’t love a rousing tune you deserved only “the music of the pigs”.Jonathan Willis, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/850582017-10-30T09:24:58Z2017-10-30T09:24:58ZWhat Martin Luther’s Reformation tells us about history and memory<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192062/original/file-20171026-13355-8447yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luther95theses.jpg">Ferdinand Willem Pauwels/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The story we tell of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago is a window on how the past speaks to the present, and how the present imposes itself on the past.</p>
<p>It is a story everyone, more or less, is familiar with. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther, a member of an obscure house of Augustinian friars in Wittenberg, went to the door of the town’s Castle Church and nailed to it a sheet containing 95 Theses. This <a href="http://www.luther.de/en/95thesen.html">revolutionary document</a>, attacking corrupt teaching on indulgences and the papal authority lying behind it, was the foundational text of Protestantism. Luther’s bold action in publicising it was the starting pistol for a revolt that threw Germany into turmoil, and which soon <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09b4ylt">permanently divided Europe as a whole</a>.</p>
<p>To this day, Luther’s action has inspired both admiration and emulation. Perhaps the most powerful moment came on July 10 1966, when <a href="https://archive.org/stream/mylifewithmartin00kingrich#page/n313/mode/2up/search/magnificent+symbolic+gesture">Martin Luther King Jr. marched to the door</a> of Mayor Daley’s City Hall in Chicago and nailed up a set of demands for social and racial justice. His wife, Coretta King called it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A magnificent, symbolic gesture that rang down the centuries from his namesake.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192068/original/file-20171026-13367-ihd6ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192068/original/file-20171026-13367-ihd6ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192068/original/file-20171026-13367-ihd6ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192068/original/file-20171026-13367-ihd6ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192068/original/file-20171026-13367-ihd6ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192068/original/file-20171026-13367-ihd6ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192068/original/file-20171026-13367-ihd6ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192068/original/file-20171026-13367-ihd6ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Legacy. An event that echoes down the centuries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/summer1978/16125056543/in/photolist-qyV8wg-5Ta5k6-75PMmL-9DzZLH-5TepPU-qEsKmA-ahKWZ3-DNeFys-dPNmgg-eMyo21-SdEXcQ-98anXK-pLoPkv-ahKXLW-SsG9oQ-ahH9Gt-cvSBes-J7ftik-98dJAb-662jzm-r2rKns-xJhnJ-ahHak2-dzqow8-98dJA7-8XvS2g-9HWd6M-9HW66M-98anXH-d6u4RW-9HYXr1-gwY7YH-e2VnYB-xJhow-aghVTJ-dQej58-77cNUB-2fNeEr-9HYZQ9-WN6w2t-qMhQV2-aFe4sq-e2VnKv-bdzPNB-e3245d-dehuuY-daPnMK-Dttppx-exumbL-qSdRk2">RV1864/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Myth and the man</h2>
<p>The posting of the 95 Theses is a key moment in the popular historical consciousness. It is an irresistible meme celebrating liberty of conscience and righteous protest against the abuse of power. It is the symbolic heart of commemorations to mark “the start” of the Reformation, taking place in Germany and across the world this year.</p>
<p>In truth, it probably never happened. The <a href="https://www.luther2017.de/en/martin-luther/history-stories/on-the-doors-of-the-wittenberg-churches/">posting of the theses was first recorded</a> in the mid-1540s, by associates of Luther not in Wittenberg in 1517. Luther himself, in a voluminous body of often autobiographical writing, never mentioned it. </p>
<p>We know he sent (“posted” in the alternative sense) the Theses to the Archbishop of Mainz on October 31, 1517. But <a href="http://www.historyguide.org/earlymod/mainz_letter.html">in that letter</a> – and various others sent over subsequent months – Luther insisted the wide distribution of the Theses was none of his doing. In fact, he said that he had deliberately held back from initiating a public debate to give the authorities a chance to reform the practice of selling indulgences.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192065/original/file-20171026-13315-y7mptd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192065/original/file-20171026-13315-y7mptd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192065/original/file-20171026-13315-y7mptd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192065/original/file-20171026-13315-y7mptd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192065/original/file-20171026-13315-y7mptd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192065/original/file-20171026-13315-y7mptd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192065/original/file-20171026-13315-y7mptd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192065/original/file-20171026-13315-y7mptd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mainz cathedral.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/mainz-cathedral-83432284?src=em3J3Il4S5bIpu0ZSMfjxw-1-29">Scirocco340/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Quite possibly, later commentators assumed the Theses were posted because this was the normal procedure for initiating a disputation. It was a <a href="http://www.lutheranquarterly.com/uploads/7/4/0/1/7401289/lq-95theses-leppin_wengert.pdf">regular part of scholarly life</a>, laid down in the Wittenberg University statutes of 1508. Faculty deans were to ensure that theses (discussion points) were placed in advance on the doors of all city churches. The actual posting was a chore undertaken, not by senior professors like Luther, but by low-ranking officials – most likely using wax or glue rather than nails. </p>
<p>It is conceivable the 95 Theses were posted, perhaps in mid-November – but if so, it was an unremarkable administrative task unlikely to have been undertaken by Luther himself. In effect, it was the 16th-century equivalent of updating a university faculty webpage.</p>
<h2>Centenary story</h2>
<p>It took a long time for the image of Luther hammering at the door to capture the imagination of Europeans. It first came to the fore in 1617, when beleaguered Protestants in Germany fixed on the idea of a Reformation centenary to defy a resurgent Roman Church. </p>
<p>But interest remained patchy: there was no attempt at a realistic visual depiction of the scene before 1697. Only in the 19th century, after the third Reformation centenary of 1817, did the event which Germans called the <em>Thesenanschlag</em> become <a href="https://literaryreview.co.uk/nailing-the-myth">a regular theme of painting, poetry and novels</a>. It resonated perfectly with “great man” theories of history – and the prevalent notion that the Reformation was more about liberation and enlightenment than doctrinal niceties (few could remember what the 95 Theses actually said).</p>
<p>Historical memory in the 20th century took a darker turn. For patriotic Germans in 1917, the hammer-wielding Luther became a token of wartime struggle and defiance, and in the subsequent generation Nazis appropriated the <em>Thesenanschlag</em> as symbolic of the <a href="https://sojo.net/articles/nazis-exploited-martin-luther-s-legacy-berlin-exhibit-highlights-how">overthrow of a corrupt old order</a>. A more wholesome, liberal version of the myth has since reasserted itself, though one still sometimes tinged with anti-Catholic stereotypes (as in the commercially successful <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYyP5a_BD90">Luther movie of 2003</a>). </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GYyP5a_BD90?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Low on memory</h2>
<p>All this matters because the image of Luther at the door has so much shaped our view not only of when the Reformation started but of what the Reformation was. Of course, we need “events”, periods and concepts (including “the Reformation” itself) to organise our knowledge and understanding of the past. But all too easily they become timetabled stops along the fixed tramlines of historical development.</p>
<p>Luther in 1517 was no “Protestant”. He was a reformist Catholic friar. His theses on indulgences are in some ways surprisingly <em>unradical</em>, articulating the unease many thoughtful churchmen felt about the practice. Only later, through a combination of political circumstances and Luther’s own theological radicalisation, did a breach with Rome become irreparable. At no stage can it be considered “inevitable”.</p>
<p>Anniversaries are by definition commemorative and retrospective occasions. But we should use them to ask searching questions and interrogate old verities, not just to remind ourselves of what we think we already know.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Marshall receives funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>Just what are we celebrating when we imagine an Augustinian friar nailing a document to a church door?Peter Marshall, Professor of History, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/862552017-10-26T10:42:53Z2017-10-26T10:42:53ZThe university must be the site of the next Reformation – here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191812/original/file-20171025-25518-1go77ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Piotr Wawrzyniuk / Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Legend has it that Martin Luther nailed his <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/martin-luther-posts-95-theses">95 theses</a> to the church door at Wittenberg Castle on October 31 1517, sparking the Protestant Reformation. Regardless of <a href="http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2014/10/reformation_day_did_martin_lut.html">whether the event itself actually happened</a>, the target was clear: the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. As we commemorate the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/reformation-500-45049">500th anniversary</a> of Luther’s protest, there is a comparable institution whose practices might be targeted by a latter-day Luther: the university. But first we need to examine what bothered Luther and his followers back then – and then ask what might cause a similar bother today.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191815/original/file-20171025-25565-11cz396.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191815/original/file-20171025-25565-11cz396.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191815/original/file-20171025-25565-11cz396.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191815/original/file-20171025-25565-11cz396.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191815/original/file-20171025-25565-11cz396.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191815/original/file-20171025-25565-11cz396.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191815/original/file-20171025-25565-11cz396.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191815/original/file-20171025-25565-11cz396.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Martin Luther, 1529.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1529MartinLuther.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the outset, it is worth recalling that Luther was committed to the religion against which he protested. He was Professor of Moral Theology at a university under Roman Catholic authority when he came to the conclusion that the Church’s own institutions had abandoned the spirit that had led him to join it in the first place.</p>
<p>Luther’s protest focused on the practice of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/indulgence">indulgences</a>, which provided a means by which Christians could increase their chances of salvation by confessing their sins and paying some money to a priest. It would be tantamount to cancelling a debt, which was often how sin was portrayed to believers at the time. But Luther believed that this practice corrupted not only the Church to which he had dedicated his life – but also people’s relationship to God.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191817/original/file-20171025-25502-1ed08gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191817/original/file-20171025-25502-1ed08gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191817/original/file-20171025-25502-1ed08gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191817/original/file-20171025-25502-1ed08gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191817/original/file-20171025-25502-1ed08gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191817/original/file-20171025-25502-1ed08gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191817/original/file-20171025-25502-1ed08gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191817/original/file-20171025-25502-1ed08gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Pope as the Antichrist, signing and selling indulgences, 1521.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Antichrist1.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Church was obviously corrupted by indulgences because the money usually did not go to relieve the material conditions of the believers <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/indulgence">but to improve those of the Church officials</a>. The believers themselves were perhaps more insidiously corrupted because they were left with the impression that they could simply buy their way to Heaven.</p>
<p>I would like to suggest that the dispensation of academic credentials performs the same function in 2017 as the dispensation of indulgences did in 1517. </p>
<h2>Credentials as corruption</h2>
<p>Credentials are a form of payment and ritual that students are told they must undergo at university in order to be absolved of their ignorance and be permitted to enter a world of lifetime employment – the proverbial “Heaven on Earth”. I use the word “proverbial” deliberately: it is by no means clear that universities can, or should, promise any such thing.</p>
<p>Credentials come in the form of degree certifications, which students receive once they have paid tuition fees and have submitted themselves to a set of examinations. Traditionally students have also had to attend lectures and seminars, though these have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-all-university-lectures-be-automatically-recorded-39158">increasingly made optional</a> thanks to reliance on information technology. Just as attendance in church came to be seen as optional once believers acquired access to the Bible in their native languages, the same applies to students nowadays who turn to online sources to replicate what might otherwise be of value in live performances.</p>
<p>Here’s a way to assess the value of credentials. Suppose you hire someone with a good degree in physics. Are they capable of constructively contributing to an engineering project, let alone to the solution of a longstanding problem within physics itself? The answer is bound to be mixed because physics degrees are in the first instance what economists call “virtue signalling” devices. The employer is invited to trust a candidate’s competence because they have somehow managed to pay enough money (perhaps with the help of sponsors) and passed enough tests (presumably <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-stop-cheating-in-universities-85407">by their own efforts</a>) to be in a position where a potential employer can take them seriously.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191819/original/file-20171025-25497-15eqwxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191819/original/file-20171025-25497-15eqwxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191819/original/file-20171025-25497-15eqwxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191819/original/file-20171025-25497-15eqwxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191819/original/file-20171025-25497-15eqwxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191819/original/file-20171025-25497-15eqwxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191819/original/file-20171025-25497-15eqwxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Are degrees less meaningful than we believe?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is missing from this blaze of credentials – aside from the potential mismatch to the job at hand – is any sense that the candidate understands either the limits of the applicability of her field’s knowledge or how the very basis of her field’s knowledge might be constructively extended. After all, students are not formally examined on either. Rather, they are tested on “state of the art”, of the moment knowledge, which, inevitably, changes over time as the field and its examiners change.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, both students and their potential employers are led to believe that academic credentials confer on students that what they have learned at university constitutes knowledge that is more durable than it really is. And all of this is made possible simply because self-certifying “knowledgeable” people – in other words, academics – have said so.</p>
<h2>Hints of a second Reformation?</h2>
<p>The financial interest of academics in continuing to promote this idea – from the beleaguered lecturer to the over-remunerated vice chancellor – should be obvious. Perhaps only slightly less obvious is why students continue to believe it. After all, no sound theory of knowledge, or <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-know-that-what-you-know-is-true-thats-epistemology-63884">epistemology</a>, backs this modus operandi, which reeks of a mindless deference to authority. This is especially apparent in societies where people are presumed to be literate, have been given the right to vote for generations and for the past generation have been given free access to the internet. </p>
<p>To be sure, the tide has begun to turn. One of the world’s leading accountancy firms, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/01/07/ernst-and-young-removes-degree-classification-entry-criteria_n_7932590.html">Ernst & Young</a>, and the UK’s leading right-leaning intellectual magazine, the <a href="https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/09/the-spectators-48-year-old-intern-shows-why-its-time-to-dispense-with-cvs/">Spectator</a>, have begun to administer their own in-house examinations, which are open to anyone who wishes to apply. More aggressively, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel launched his “<a href="http://thielfellowship.org/">Thiel Fellowship</a>” in 2011, whereby top-flight high school graduates are lured from elite universities to spend time developing innovations to bring to market. In all these cases, the employer or funder takes full responsibility for certifying candidates, without any formal academic mediation.</p>
<p>So: a new Reformation is slowly happening. But how should universities respond? Luther’s anniversary should remind us that we are living in an increasingly competitive environment for the providers and consumers of knowledge. Universities cannot presume to hold an institutional monopoly over it. This may require academics to engage in a more direct appeal – both in terms of curricular offerings being justified more explicitly and academics presenting themselves in person and print less formally – to demonstrate that a university-based education can provide some added value that cannot be provided elsewhere. </p>
<p>In Luther’s day, this was called “evangelism”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86255/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Fuller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>University degrees perform the same function in 2017 as indulgences did in 1517.Steve Fuller, Auguste Comte Chair in Social Epistemology, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/852372017-10-25T09:51:21Z2017-10-25T09:51:21ZGermany commemorates the birth of the Reformation in art, song and Playmobil<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190903/original/file-20171018-32378-1l8yftz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C6%2C1943%2C1315&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pelegrino/33421022256/in/photolist-SVitxE-QDjEvm-LF1XxJ-MMCrF1">Nick Thompson/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Germany will shortly enjoy a national holiday to celebrate a moment that tore Europe apart. In Wittenberg, <a href="https://lutherstadt-wittenberg.de/en/">a small town in Saxony-Anhalt</a>, politicians and church leaders will gather to take part in a commemorative service at the Castle Church. There, 500 years ago, Martin Luther supposedly nailed up his 95 theses against indulgences, challenging the pope’s authority to grant remission from punishment for sin.</p>
<p>Whether or not Luther actually nailed anything to the church door remains <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/martin-luther-and-the-95-theses">a matter of debate</a>. But his list of objections to the practices of the Roman Church, alongside his subsequent writings, without doubt set in train a series of events that led to the splintering of western Christendom.</p>
<p>Luther’s Reformation has always played a prominent part in German commemorative culture. Already in 1617, the anniversary of the 95 theses was marked with great solemnity in Lutheran areas of the Holy Roman Empire, against a backdrop of religious and political tensions that led, less than a year later, to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Thirty-Years-War">the outbreak of the Thirty Years War</a>. Each subsequent centenary has been given a particular flavour by its immediate historical context. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A commemorative medal from 1617.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.museum-digital.de/bawue/singleimage.php?objektnum=2916&imagenr=13243">Landesmuseum Württemberg</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Through the centuries</h2>
<p>In 1817, Luther provided a focal point for the aspirations of a German nation in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1917, during World War I, numerous festivities and a flood of images and texts celebrated Luther as the embodiment of the German spirit. He was paired with Bismarck, and held up as an inspiration for every German during the nation’s ongoing <a href="https://www.luther2017.de/en/wiki/anniversary/from-the-reformation-until-today-politics-on-luthers-back/">struggle for honour and power</a>.</p>
<p>Commemorations of Luther’s birthday augmented these Reformation centenaries. In 1983, for example, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) celebrated Luther as a socialist champion, a progressive force who contributed, in the words of the East German leader, Erich Honecker: “To progress, to the development of world culture.”</p>
<p>In 2017, October 31 will mark the culmination of a whole decade of <a href="https://www.luther2017.de/en/2017/luther-decade/">quincentenary festivities</a>. There have been around 10,000 individual events, ranging from <a href="https://www.3xhammer.de/de/">three major national exhibitions</a> in Berlin, Wittenberg and Eisenach to numerous smaller commemorations organised by individual states, towns and local communities. </p>
<p>These have provided an opportunity to attract tourists, in particular to Luther sites such as Wittenberg and Eisleben (where the reformer was born and died) that languished in obscurity under the GDR. They have also offered an important chance to explain to a broad public not only the Reformation’s historical outlines but also its contemporary relevance. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Luther’s statue dominates the main square in Wittenberg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/wittenberg-germany-nov-4-main-square-205855486?src=BKAymTSoSQCfmX0Q2r2laQ-1-58">gary yim/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet the 2017 anniversary has attracted its fair share of criticism. Sceptics have spoken of <a href="http://www.mdr.de/tv/programm/sendung760202.html">“Luther veneration” and of “Luther hype”</a>. Federal and state subsidies – taxpayers’ euros – have flowed into a commemoration in which the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) has played a central role. That has seemed, to some, inappropriate. The co-financing of the EKD’s 2017 ecumenical Kirchentag (Church Assembly) has proved <a href="http://www.mz-web.de/wittenberg/finanzierung-so-teuer-ist-der-evangelische-kirchentag---und-so-wird-er-bezahlt-26975524">particularly controversial</a>.</p>
<p>From a historian’s perspective, much of the anniversary rhetoric has <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21713843-500th-anniversary-95-theses-finds-country-moralistic-ever-how-martin-luther-has?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/nailedithowmartinlutherhasshapedgermanyforhalfamillennium">reanimated outdated narratives</a> about how “one great man transformed the world” and about the Reformation as the birthplace of modernity. In the US, for example, the public broadcaster PBS <a href="http://www.pbs.org/program/martin-luther-idea-changed-world/">anachronistically attributed to Luther’s Reformation</a> a drive towards freedom of religion and women’s rights. </p>
<p>In 2017, the “dark side” of the Reformation, in particular Luther’s anti-Semitism, has been discussed more thoroughly than ever before, but still, a primary focus on Luther as the harbinger of individual freedom has left relatively little space for public discussion of his social conservatism.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Berlin: a cardboard sculpture of a naked Martin Luther challenged his anti-semitism in May 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/FELIPE TRUEBA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Immortalised in plastic</h2>
<p>What, then, will remain from the 2017 centenary? The best answer is probably the rejuvenation of Wittenberg, and the costly but necessary renovation and restoration of Reformation sites throughout eastern Germany. </p>
<p>The EKD’s extensive programme of outreach, its determination to facilitate reflection and discussion though workshops, exhibitions and less formal events, will certainly have touched many individuals, both Christian and non-Christian.</p>
<p>For public consumption, Luther’s relatively uncontroversial role as a translator of scripture has been highlighted: the first thing to greet the visitor to Wittenberg is a <a href="https://r2017.org/neuigkeiten/beitrag/einzeleintritt-fuer-buchturm/">27-meter tower in the form of a bible</a>. Luther <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/aug/18/the-reformation-classical-musics-punk-moment?CMP=share_btn_tw">was himself a gifted musician</a>, and the hymns that he wrote played an important part in spreading the evangelical message. The musical heritage of the Reformation, with Johann Sebastian Bach as its apogee, <a href="http://www.wittenberg.de/magazin/artikel.php?artikel=1079&menuid=1">has proved to have particular appeal</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Getting their hands on the best selling Playmobil figure of all time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lwf_eleventh_assembly/27512614673/in/photolist-HVckPp">The Lutheran World Federation/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Reformation historians, the catalogues from the three national exhibitions alone comprise 1,500 pages of excellent images and analysis. There are numerous new Luther biographies, the best of which neither idolise nor vilify the reformer, but give a rounded picture of him as a thinker and as an individual: an exceptional figure, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/gh/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/gerhis/ghx045">but also a product of his time</a>. </p>
<p>With a little distance, we will have another Reformation anniversary to analyse, another milestone of German commemorative culture to mine for what it tells us about Protestant identity. And perhaps best of all, thanks to Playmobil, many of us who study the period now have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2015/feb/18/martin-luther-playmobil-figure-sold-34000-in-72-hours">at least one little plastic Luther</a>, complete with quill pen and Bible, on our desks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85237/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bridget Heal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Martin Luther has always given the country a chance to examine itself. Half a millennium on, the picture is more complex than ever.Bridget Heal, Director of the Reformation Studies Institute, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/833402017-10-25T00:17:07Z2017-10-25T00:17:07ZMartin Luther’s spiritual practice was key to the success of the Reformation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191701/original/file-20171024-30558-51qqjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Luther's 95 Theses.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Luther95theses.jpg">Ferdinand Pauwels, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Oct. 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his <a href="http://www.luther.de/en/95thesen.html">95 Theses</a> to the door of Germany’s Wittenberg Castle Church and inadvertently ushered in what came to be known as the Reformation. </p>
<p>In his theses, Luther explicitly attacked the Catholic Church’s lucrative practice of <a href="http://martinluther.ccws.org/indulgence/index.html">selling papal indulgences</a> that promised individuals they could purchase absolution from their sins and hasten their way into heaven. </p>
<p>This was far more than a simple critique of the indulgence trade. Luther <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-34/dr-luthers-theology.html">challenged</a> the Church’s overall authority. Over the next century, Luther’s ideas <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2016.07.007">seeded upheavals</a> and transformed the Western world by diminishing the Church’s power and introducing new spiritual possibilities for everyone.</p>
<p>In researching our book, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-spiritual-virtuoso-9781474292429/">“The Spiritual Virtuoso,”</a> we found Luther’s personal life and spiritual practice played a key role in shaping his message and drawing enthusiastic support from ordinary people.</p>
<h2>How Luther’s message spread</h2>
<p>Luther had once been a friar in the strict monastic <a href="http://www.augustinian.org/order/">Order of St. Augustine</a>. The head of the order, Johann von Staupitz, however, believed that Luther could serve God better if he were no longer isolated from the larger society. </p>
<p>Staupitz arranged for Luther to pursue doctoral studies and join the University of Wittenberg as a professor of biblical theology. When Luther posted his theses, he was both an ordained priest and a professor. </p>
<p>Luther’s students were among the first to respond enthusiastically to his message that all Christians were equal in God’s eyes and could reach heaven based on their own faith. His students also believed that they had the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1262373">moral obligation</a> to share their new understanding, so that more people could benefit from it.</p>
<p>They spoke of reforming the church to members of the growing urban middle classes. They reached out to townspeople by <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122411435905">translating the Latin Bible</a> into vernacular German and encouraging education for men and women alike. </p>
<p>As the movement built up, guildsmen, merchants and aristocrats came to share Luther’s vision of an authentic, incorruptible Church grounded in spiritual equality. Prince Fredrick the Wise, the University of Wittenberg’s founder, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5906.2012.01680.x">became one of Luther’s early advocates</a> and other princes provided him with political protection and financial help.</p>
<h2>Life as a monk</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191704/original/file-20171024-30587-1wrppy7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191704/original/file-20171024-30587-1wrppy7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191704/original/file-20171024-30587-1wrppy7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191704/original/file-20171024-30587-1wrppy7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191704/original/file-20171024-30587-1wrppy7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191704/original/file-20171024-30587-1wrppy7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191704/original/file-20171024-30587-1wrppy7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Martin Luther.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/1533_Cranach_d.%C3%84._Martin_Luther_im_50._Lebensjahr_anagoria.JPG">Lucas Cranach the Elder, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, it was not just Luther’s ideals that contributed to his success. We found that it was also his personal story of spiritual renewal that added to his extraordinary appeal. </p>
<p>As the German states became more urban, more commercial and more affluent, the old social order was disrupted and the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1262373">Church increasingly removed</a> itself from its members’ daily dilemmas. </p>
<p>At the time, Luther, following the wishes of his father, was pursuing law. However, <a href="http://www.luther.de/en/leben/moench.html">dismayed by</a> an increasingly materialistic society, he abandoned his legal studies to enter the friary of the Augustinian hermits.</p>
<p>Luther remained a monk for nearly 20 years. During his early years in the monastery, Luther obsessed about his personal failings and sins and worked hard to excel as a monk. Beginning his day at 3 a.m., Luther tried to purify himself through practices like fasting, confession, reading scriptures late into the night and silently praying at almost every moment. </p>
<p>For penance, he fasted to the point of emaciation and would even strike himself with a whip. </p>
<h2>The spiritual virtuoso</h2>
<p>We call Luther a “spiritual virtuoso” because he completely devoted his life to religious study and practice. His intense commitment to spiritual perfection resembled the perseverance of outstanding virtuosi in fields like music, athletics or dance.</p>
<p>During his career, Luther wrote thousands of sermons and pamphlets, composed hymns, preached every week and <a href="https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/martin-luther-lessons-from-his-life-and-labor">engaged in tireless work</a> on behalf of the emerging Protestant churches. </p>
<p>Over a century ago, the German sociologist Max Weber thought about hermits’ and monks’ isolation, self-denial and intense dedication and defined their absolute commitment <a href="http://hirr.hartsem.edu/ency/Virtuoso.htm">as a kind of virtuosity</a>.</p>
<p>Spiritual virtuosi devote themselves to comprehending and <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814798041/">enacting a higher spiritual purpose</a>. They are willing to sacrifice their earthly comforts and pleasures in order to reach unity with God or another higher power.</p>
<p>The essence of spiritual virtuosity is personal humility. To that end, virtuosi tend to be reluctant leaders. Because of their unease with worldly power, they are wary of having themselves confused with the message. Luther was not interested in leading a social movement or reaping material rewards. What he wanted to do was to serve God and bring God’s word to others. </p>
<p>It was the students in Luther’s movement, and the clergy who supported them, who became the key activists and organized widespread support in Wittenberg, Basel and other university towns. We call them “virtuosi activists.” Luther himself preached, lectured and debated, but he was not much troubled with strategy or organizational tactics of organizing a movement.</p>
<p>In 1530, when the emerging Protestant movement presented its <a href="http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds3.iii.ii.html">profession of faith</a> to the German emperor in Augsburg, Luther played a minor role and did not even attend the conference. Luther’s central goal was to show people how to reach toward God through personal faith. </p>
<h2>Luther’s impact</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191705/original/file-20171024-30577-1b9knov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191705/original/file-20171024-30577-1b9knov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191705/original/file-20171024-30577-1b9knov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191705/original/file-20171024-30577-1b9knov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191705/original/file-20171024-30577-1b9knov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191705/original/file-20171024-30577-1b9knov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191705/original/file-20171024-30577-1b9knov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Side of collection box of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society that served as a collection box for contributions to the Abolitionist cause.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARemember_Your_Weekly_Pledge_Massachusetts_Anti-Slavey_Society_collection_box.jpg">Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University via Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Protestant Reformation was the first significant social movement in modern history that was organized by activist spiritual virtuosi. Since then, other social movements have built upon Luther’s ideals of spiritual equality.</p>
<p>In the 19th century, the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20051029170656/http://americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu/">American anti-slavery movement</a>, for example, emphasized spiritual equality of everyone before God, not just white Christians. The 20th-century human potential movement, building on the earlier work of spiritual equality, focused on the immense potential in each person and the <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814732878/">importance of communicating directly</a> with a higher power in many different ways. </p>
<p>Today, smaller contemporary virtuosi activists continue to enact and expand the ideas. We believe groups like the <a href="https://sojo.net">Sojourners’</a> community and the <a href="http://www.sanctuarynotdeportation.org/">Sanctuary movement</a> are examples of such work, for they spread faith in spiritual equality. </p>
<p>The rebellion against the Roman Church was wholly unanticipated and succeeded against all odds. In showing new spiritual possibilities, Luther also showed us one way to bring about social change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83340/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, two scholars explain how Luther’s personal and spiritual life contributed to his success.Marion Goldman, Professor Emeritus, University of OregonSteve Pfaff, Professor, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/851962017-10-24T08:43:06Z2017-10-24T08:43:06ZThe man who gave us the Reformation – and it wasn’t Martin Luther<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191588/original/file-20171024-30605-1aoyrf0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> </figcaption></figure><p>When Martin Luther <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/martin-luther-posts-95-theses">published his 95 theses</a> 500 years ago this month, so the story goes, his general target was the corruption of the church. But he also had a very particular organisation in his sights. By October 1517, the extraordinary reach and power of the Fugger banking family was threatening not only the integrity of religion, but the very foundations of European society. </p>
<p>If Luther’s words provided the spark for the Reformation, it was the Fuggers who provided much of the fuel.</p>
<p>Originally cloth merchants based in Augsburg, Germany, the Fuggers moved on from dressing aristocratic weddings to lining aristocratic pockets. It was a move that brought a corresponding rise to power and notoriety. The family’s success during the latter years of the 15th century brought them lucrative business with the Hapsburgs, the Austro-Hungarian family whose lands extended across Europe and who supplied a succession of Holy Roman Emperors for four centuries.</p>
<p>The man responsible for this diversification of the family business was Jakob Fugger and the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vuAE8CC7JOAC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=siegmund+fugger+loan+23,627&source=bl&ots=BWN5zRMep2&sig=yCnegTh6HbkK2U0jsHSMj7G845g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNgpaJvPrWAhVrLMAKHUiACrEQ6AEIPjAD#v=onepage&q=siegmund%20fugger%20loan%2023%2C627&f=false">first transaction was a loan</a> of 23,627 florins to Siegmund, Archduke of Tyrol, in 1487. The loan was significant in establishing a binding relationship with powerful people. More practically, the loan was secured with a mortgage on the archduke’s prize Schwaz silver mines. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Collateral damage?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/silver-bullion-on-red-wood-selective-714019189?src=W7P_oFnr9-85m8_zh5zz0A-1-69">VladKK/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Power games</h2>
<p>This arrangement meant that if Siegmund was unable to meet his repayments, the Fuggers would simply get paid in bullion. The highly profitable and risk-free nature of this arrangement led the Fuggers to quickly develop it elsewhere. <a href="http://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/4162">By the turn of the 16th century</a> they controlled the <a href="https://www.tyrol.com/things-to-do/attractions/all-attractions/a-schwaz-silver-mine">whole of the Schwaz production</a>, owned their own silver mines in Tyrol and Carinthia and were quickly muscling in on Hungarian copper production. </p>
<p>The Fuggers developed close personal as well as business connections with the aristocracy. They married themselves into some of the most powerful families in Europe – particularly the Thurzo of Austria – and loaned heavily to the rest. Clients included Henry VIII of England, Charles V of Spain and the German Emperor Maximillian I. The latter proved particularly lucrative, helpfully combining overweening (and therefore expensive) military and political ambitions with what the economist Richard Ehrenberg claimed was a reputation as “the worst manager of all the Hapsburgs”.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=700&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=700&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=700&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stamp of authority.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DBP_1959_307_Jakob_Fugger.jpg">NobbiP/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So much money was gained through their various businesses that by the turn of the 16th century Jakob <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21660074-not-nothing-was-jacob-fugger-known-jacob-rich-goldenballs">was known simply as “The Rich”</a>.</p>
<p>Having spent his early years in and around the silver mines of the Harz Mountains where his father was a master smelter, Luther would have been acutely aware of the Fugger’s interests in metal. But it was their mining of religion that incurred his wrath in 1517. </p>
<h2>‘Indulge me’</h2>
<p>The Roman Curia – the central administrative body of the Catholic Church – demanded high fees from those achieving high office. The intersection of ecclesiastical, family, and financial structures in the Holy Roman Empire allowed those with the means to hold multiple positions of power, all of them lucrative. So while it was important that the Princes of the Church be good and pious men, they also needed a lot of ready cash. </p>
<p>When Albrecht of Brandenburg was appointed Elector of Mainz in 1514, he had to raise 21,000 ducats to pay the Curia. Albrecht was already a powerful man: he held several other ecclesiastical offices. But even he did not have the means for such high fees. So he borrowed it from the Fuggers at interest – the latter described by convention at the time as a fee for “trouble, danger and, expense”.</p>
<p>To provide himself with an income to repay all this, Albrecht paid an additional 10,000 ducats to secure from Pope Leo X the right to administer the recently announced “Jubilee Indulgences” designed to pay for work on St Paul’s Basilica in Rome.</p>
<p>Indulgences claimed to offer the purchaser reductions in the time spent by loved ones in Purgatory. They had been a controversial church practice for centuries. Luther was not the first to condemn indulgences – many regarded them as heretical – but the audacity of Albrecht’s corruption as he sought to pay back Jakob Fugger gave his words greater force. </p>
<p>Albrecht’s appointed Pardoner – <a href="https://reformation500.csl.edu/bio/johannes-tetzel/">Johann Tetzel</a> – was accompanied at all times by an agent of the Fugger. The agent held the key to the Indulgence chest and when it was full, it was the agent that took the contents. Half went to the Fugger agent in Rome to pay off the Curia, half to Augsburg to pay off Albrecht’s loans. Luther’s comparison of such antics to the biblical story of Christ driving the moneychangers from the Temple, was too obviously legitimate to ignore. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Luca Giordano: Expulsion of the Moneychangers from the Temple.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=moneychangers+temple&title=Special:Search&go=Go&searchToken=ca7rys2wcn7o8ay49d3641sy6#/media/File:Luca_Giordano_-_Expulsion_of_the_Moneychangers_from_the_Temple_-_WGA9007.jpg">Luca Giordano/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Anti-capitalist</h2>
<p>In short, it was the abuse of money and power that gave us the reformation. And debt was at the very heart of it. It is a familiar tale. The Fugger family’s fortunes eventually waned from these extraordinary heights, but they set the tone for a distinctly “capitalist” form of banking – one that endured. </p>
<p>The rapid spread of modern accounting practices, the rock-solid security of their metal-backed loan business, and their ruthless manipulation of markets made the Fuggers a formidable mercantile power. Later banking dynasties used similar techniques – <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/updates/history-rothschild-family/">particularly the Rothschilds</a> – but none have equalled their power or notoriety. Jakob “The Rich” is still reckoned to be the single wealthiest person ever to have lived. Just how wealthy we will never know. According to <a href="http://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/4162">Fugger historian Mark Häberlein</a>, Jakob anticipated the practices of modern day plutocrats by striking a deal with the Augsburg tax authorities in 1516. In exchange for an annual lump sum, the family’s true wealth would not be disclosed. </p>
<p>Luther’s intervention was a response to the corrosive effects of greed and corruption. It may have provoked an epochal schism in society and centuries of associated religious warfare, but it barely dented the rise of capital. The Fuggers and their successors thrived in the chaos of the Reformation. It is entirely feasible to position Luther, as much as anything, as an early anti-capitalist. It is not without irony then that a few centuries later, the historian Max Weber would associate the “Protestant Ethic” with the <a href="https://archive.org/stream/protestantethics00webe/protestantethics00webe_djvu.txt">“Spirit of Capital”</a>. That would leave Luther spinning in his grave.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85196/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Angus Cameron does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Meet Jakob Fugger, the man who underwrote the ambition of power-hungry medieval Princes.Angus Cameron, Associate Professor, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/775402017-05-16T00:53:47Z2017-05-16T00:53:47ZOn the Reformation’s 500th anniversary, remembering Martin Luther’s contribution to literacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169392/original/file-20170515-7005-58odc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An exhibition for the Luther monument in Worms.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jens Meyer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s famous <a href="http://www.luther.de/en/95thesen.html">95 Theses</a>, which helped spark the founding of the Reformation and the division of Christianity into Protestantism and Catholicism. </p>
<p>The 95 Theses critiqued the church’s sale of indulgences, which Luther regarded as a <a href="http://www.lutherdansk.dk/Web-babylonian%20Captivitate/Martin%20Luther.htm">form of corruption</a>. By Luther’s time, indulgences had evolved into payments that were said to reduce punishment for sins. Luther believed that such practices only interfered with genuine repentance and discouraged people from giving to the poor. One of Luther’s most important theological contributions was the “<a href="https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/10/the-priesthood-of-all-believers">priesthood of all believers</a>,” which implied that clerics possessed no more dignity than ordinary people. </p>
<p>Less known is the crucial role Luther played in making the case for ordinary people to read often and well. Unlike the papacy and its defenders, who were producing their writings in Latin, Luther reached out to Germans in their mother tongue, substantially enhancing the accessibility of his written ideas.</p>
<p>In my teaching of philanthropy, Luther’s promotion of literacy is one of the historic events I often discuss with my students.</p>
<h2>Early years</h2>
<p>Born in Germany in 1483, Luther followed the wishes of his <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/236142/martin-luther-by-lyndal-roper/9780812996197/">father</a> to study law. Once, while caught in a terrible thunderstorm, he vowed that if he were saved, he would become a monk.</p>
<p>Indeed, Luther later joined the austere <a href="http://augustinians.net/">Augustinian</a> order, and became both a priest and a doctor of theology. Later he developed objections to many church practices. He <a href="http://martinluther.ccws.org/treatises/index.html">protested</a> the promotion of indulgences, the buying and selling of clerical privileges, and the accumulation of substantial wealth by the church while peasants barely survived. Legend has it that on Oct. 31, 1517, Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, the <a href="http://www.visit-luther.com/luthercities/lutherstadt-wittenberg/the-luther-connection/">town</a> where he was based.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169394/original/file-20170515-7005-fdxaq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169394/original/file-20170515-7005-fdxaq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169394/original/file-20170515-7005-fdxaq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169394/original/file-20170515-7005-fdxaq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169394/original/file-20170515-7005-fdxaq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169394/original/file-20170515-7005-fdxaq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169394/original/file-20170515-7005-fdxaq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Luther’s 95 Theses.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/keren/2989215726/in/photolist-5y9vGb-ij6QZ2-947VLg-97Fvbp-4xpjR8-98p6jJ-5rNEt8-auJkMV-dmkNTG-aCsCfD-dwGi3a-9ooLyE-gVREC-qb33n-6YYCrn-apkkuE-drPTNL-fz65JT-8VFNaz-98kWei-98kVGH-8nqFTX-8pgH81-8RzGw-dwKbnL-dwDFCF-4JYgaw-dmkLjP-ayjny6-AwmGsB-dwG5PM-5zZGoA-6qoSrP-8nqFZ8-947Vvk-bnbw3B-8nqFEx-6Z3SRf-8U8PF3-9dHQGR-8nqG6T-98p5MU-6Z3SR3-9a6RRV-97FvBV-6YYCs6-6YYCre-6gthVc-8ntPJs-4xtw4h">Keren Tan</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He was branded an outlaw for refusing to recant his teachings. In 1521, Pope Leo X <a href="http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo10/l10decet.htm">excommunicated</a> Luther from the Roman Church. His patron, <a href="http://reformation500.csl.edu/bio/frederick-the-wise/">Frederick of Saxony</a>, saved Luther from further reprisal and had him taken in secret to a castle, where he remained for two years. </p>
<p>It was during that time that Luther produced an immensely influential translation of the New Testament into German. </p>
<h2>Impact of Luther’s writing</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/educator/modules/gutenberg/johann/">Gutenberg’s</a> earlier introduction of the printing press in 1439 made possible the rapid dissemination of Luther’s works throughout much of Europe, and their impact was staggering. </p>
<p>Luther’s collected works run to <a href="http://fortresspress.com/product/luthers-works-volume-55-index">55 volumes</a>. It is <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21541719">estimated</a> that between 1520 and 1526, some 1,700 editions of Luther’s works were printed. Of the six to seven million pamphlets printed during this time, more than a quarter were Luther’s works, many of which played a vital role in propelling the reformation forward.</p>
<p>Thanks to Luther’s translation of the Bible, it became possible for German-speaking people to stop relying on church authorities and instead read the Bible for themselves. </p>
<p>Luther argued that ordinary people were not only capable of interpreting the scriptures for themselves, but that in doing so they stood the best chance of hearing God’s word. He <a href="https://www.cph.org/p-667-What-Luther-Says.aspx">wrote,</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Let the man who would hear God speak read Holy Scripture.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Luther’s Bible helped form a common German dialect. Prior to Luther, people from different regions of present-day Germany often experienced great difficulty understanding one another. Luther’s Bible translation promoted a single <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-04-02/martin-luther-didnt-just-reform-church-he-reformed-german-language">German vernacular</a>, helping to bring people together around a common tongue.</p>
<h2>Expanding literacy</h2>
<p>This view, combined with the wide availability of scripture, shifted responsibility for scriptural interpretation from clerics to the laity. Luther wanted ordinary people to assume more responsibility for <a href="http://www.bible.ca/history/philip-schaff/7_ch04.htm">reading</a> the Bible.</p>
<p>In promoting his point of view, Luther helped to provide one of the most effective arguments for universal literacy in the history of Western civilization. </p>
<p>At a time when most people worked in farming, reading was not necessary to maintain a livelihood. But Luther wanted to remove the language barrier so that everyone could read the Bible “<a href="https://www.cph.org/p-667-What-Luther-Says.aspx">without hindrance</a>.” His rationale for wanting people both to learn to read and to read regularly was, from his point of view, among the most powerful imaginable – that reading it for themselves would bring them closer to God.</p>
<p>For much of Luther’s life, his remarkable output in theological treatises was exceeded only by his <a href="http://fortresspress.com/product/luthers-works-volume-55-index">Bible commentaries</a>. He believed that nothing could substitute for direct and ongoing encounters with scripture, which he both advocated for and helped to shape through his detailed commentaries. </p>
<h2>Reading to interpret truth</h2>
<p>Luther had <a href="https://www.luther2017.de/en/news/universitaet-und-reformation/">many reasons</a> to favor the dissemination of learning. He was a university professor. His 95 Theses were intended as an academic disputation. His teaching and scholarship played a crucial role in the development of his theology. Finally, he recognized the crucial role students would play in carrying his movement forward. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169395/original/file-20170515-7009-18dzhqn.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169395/original/file-20170515-7009-18dzhqn.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169395/original/file-20170515-7009-18dzhqn.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169395/original/file-20170515-7009-18dzhqn.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169395/original/file-20170515-7009-18dzhqn.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169395/original/file-20170515-7009-18dzhqn.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169395/original/file-20170515-7009-18dzhqn.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Martin Luther King Jr., namesake of the German reformer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/urbanophile/358943676/in/photolist-xHFs5-89WNBx-9rFRF6-PTQmb-fXXLTi-dehuuY-5Z1m4V-98anXx-6bRV3E-ndXHEJ-RRkZqw-98anXB-8xZpaN-dS2tZF-d7KkyY-ahKWSm-ahHaBZ-e324eh-b7US9c-dxqbkx-9btSq7-bcZHc2-FQvNN4-8w8ngR-a5Y8Wm-dNFm7h-jj366Z-7gzbUw-nQMZ7S-3JANq-4mQKbd-RbxqoW-qFFNcC-4ZuKCQ-9ipZfF-fbZCVX-nR6VJZ-89Euxq-4EX6zK-asU1VW-8ateDG-qzEsvQ-dQjVGs-pQF1vn-qSdRk2-68kz5-RwqMJh-RbwjJ1-nvxtr-ahH9Gt">the.urbanophile</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So powerfully did Luther’s influence reverberate down through the ages that, during a visit to Germany in 1934, Rev. Michael King Sr. chose to change both his and his son’s <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_king_martin_luther_michael_sr_1897_1984/">name</a> to Martin Luther King. MLK Jr., namesake of the great German reformer, would make full use of the power of <a href="https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html">free speech</a> in catalyzing the American civil rights movement.</p>
<p>In posting his 95 Theses, Luther was encouraging a vigorous exchange of ideas. The best community is not the one that suppresses dissent but one that challenges ideas it finds objectionable through rigorous argumentation. It is largely for this reason that the founders of the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendments/amendment-i">United States</a> took so seriously freedom of religion, free association and the protection of a free press.</p>
<p>Luther trusted ordinary people to discern the truth. All they needed was the opportunity to interpret what they read for themselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77540/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Gunderman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Luther translated the Greek New Testament into a common German dialect that ordinary people could read, without help from clergy.Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.