Today's weather is cloudless, clear, blue, winter sky. Although it got down to 22 F last night, it should warm up nicely today. It snowed all day yesterday. We were just about 100 feet too low to be able to have any of it stick, but where I taught my class last night, all of about 150 feet higher, it was in the trees and on the ground up to about 3 inches. It is a sight I never tire from.
The question for the day yesterday was "who was this Martin Luther?" - a man who affected the King family so much that they changed their names. Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, a town located in the region called Saxony-Anhalt in November of 1483. He was a simple man, the oldest son to a hard-working woman and a father of middle means who was involved with copper mining. He desperately wanted his son to be a lawyer, so he arranged for his education accordingly. He attended a rigorous program at three different schools, one of which was in Eisenach. Luther detested his time in these schools, however, but he was able to finish and enter the University of Erfurt by age 17. He was also unhappy at this college, but he plugged on and got his master's degree. He then went on to law school as his father had wanted him to do. It was not his cup of tea, so then he decided to study philosophy and theology in an attempt that, like so many other young men, he might find himself. And find himself he did. He learned to question everything - and this also bled over into his spiritual life. He began to question who God was, why the church made people do what they did and believe what they said, and how to know God. He sought comfort in the Bible. During a heavy thunderstorm, lightning was striking all around him. He cried out for help and swore he would become a monk if he could survive the storm. Well, he survived, and shortly afterwards, dropped out of college and entered the monastery. His father, who had invested so much into his becoming a lawyer was beyond angry.
It was during his time of monastic life, that he truly suffered, though, of his own accord. He believed that if he was perfect, he would please God. And as we all know, you can't be perfect. But he struggled with needing to please God and constantly failing, to the point that it made him a bit crazy. Those around him saw how he suffered and made him get out and do something to take his mind off his sufferings. He was ordered to get his education as a priest, which led to his becoming a teacher at the University of Wittenberg. In 1517, on Halloween (remember -Halloween was not celebrated then like it is now in the US), he had had all he could take of the church selling indulgences (forgivenesses, if you will, of sins for the donations you make to the church for building projects and such) in the local area and decided to write about it in an attempt to understand how the church could see this as the right thing to do. He posted his writings on the door of the church for the Archbishop to read. This set of writings has been named Luther's "95 Theses".
Although he did not intend on starting a revolution of ideas about the church, many people were given courage by his act to also express their opinions on what they thought the church was doing wrongly. Luther had addressed the very questions that so many asked in private. For example, Thesis 86 asks: "Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?" (done through the selling of indulgences to fund the building projects) So, once people started to talk, the ideas spread. His writings were originally written in Latin, so they had to be translated into German, and then copies were printed and distributed throughout the area.
Luther felt strongly about the fact that the church could not forgive people for sinning, but only God could do this. He wanted to "help" the church see the abuses that had evolved over time and wanted the church to return to a more scriptural way of thinking - of being more Godly. It was a lot for him to presume that the "rantings," as they saw it, of this lowly teacher would change the entire structure of the church all the way up to the Pope.
The church, not quite sure how to best respond, took a very long time to have their say. They had hoped that the talk would die down instead. They set out to belittle him, labelling him as a drunk who tended to flip-flop on his ideas. The church also set about putting together a team of theologians to contest each point. In the meantime, the ideas he had sparked had taken hold amongst the people. And not just the German people. By 1519, word had reached from Italy and France to England and points in between.
The church, wanting to put a stop to it all, told Luther he had to come to the Pope to explain himself. The leaders of the area where Luther lived were afraid for him, thinking the church would condemn him as soon as he arrived. So, instead, he was sent to Augsburg, Germany, to argue his points to a representative of the Pope. The Pope was not swayed and gave him 60 days to withdraw his ideas, or he would no longer be allowed to be a part of the church. Luther publicly refused to denounce his own ideas, so he was excommunicated on January 3rd, 1521. Luther was then put on trial in Worms where he was announced to be an outlaw and subject to arrest. All of his writings were also outlawed as was any attempt to help or sustain Luther. It also permitted anyone to kill him upon sight.
His followers kept him secretly in Wartburg Castle. He stayed hidden for nearly a year. While he was hidden, people took the opportunity to form radical groups that carried out violent acts against the church and those who went to church. Luther could not stand by and let his actions evolve into this behavior, so he came out of hiding and began preaching about what he thought of as core Christian values: love, patience, charity, and freedom and to follow God's word and let God work, not perform violent acts of their own. He felt that Satan had taken hold of the events he started and turned them into something terrible. His efforts worked to stop the violence and bring the people back to civility. But now he was an enemy of the old Church as well as this new violent wave also trying to overthrow the church.
By 1525, he had fallen in love with a former nun, and they married. This began the ideas that the clergy could also marry. Up till that time, priests had to stay unmarried and never involved with a woman. Luther had not found a Biblical reason for this, so he dismissed the rule. He loved his wife until her death. They had six children together, five of whom lived to adulthood. Ironically, his oldest son became a lawyer.
Luther was the beginning, the burning match, to a haystack of people who saw the abuses of the church for what they were. Luther furthered his need to help the common people understand by translating the Bible into German and having church services in German. Till this time, the language of the church was Latin, and unless one had the opportunity to study at higher levels, the Latin was often not understood. Luther empowered the people to learn for themselves about their own religion, thus starting the entire Protestant movement (where protestant comes from the word "to protest".) Today, we don't think too much about it when we say we are Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Catholic, etc. But in his time, it would have been confrontational, even dangerous, to admit you were not Catholic. It is good to know that with time, all change can be tempered. Just look at how peacefully we inaugurated a new African-American president. In Martin Luther King, Jr.'s day, this simply would not have been possible.
The word for the day is reformation: die Verbesserung (fair behss ehr ung)
My question for today is "What else is Eisenach famous for besides being a temporary home of Martin Luther?"
Auf Wiedersehen,
Frau Spitzer
