Martin Luther

As a ministry grows and flourishes, it may become burdened with rituals, rules, traditions, and all kinds of bells and whistles that aren't necessary. Every once in a while, someone needs to steer things back to the basics. In the Christian church, that means focusing on Jesus Christ. The adult Sunday School class at FCC has been studying the life and philosophy of Martin Luther, who was one of those reformers. We began with a movie provided by Pastor Tibbs, and continue with sessions led by John Gill this month. Here are some references in case you want to get up to speed.

In the history of the Christian church, the first great split was the Great Schism of 1054, when differences in theological beliefs and practices led to a rift between the eastern or Greek church and the western, or Latin church. These two became known as the Catholic church and the Orthodox church. The Catholic church reigned in Europe, where it melded with and often superseded royal governments, leading to the development of the Holy Roman Empire in the early Middle Ages. The HRE at its peak included Germany, Italy, and Burgundy, but by the 15th century, it was limited mostly to Germany.

In grade school history, we often conflate the invention of the printing press with the Protestant Reformation. Gutenberg developed the moveable type printing press in 1440, 77 years before Martin Luther's 95 Theses. It's true that literacy rates in 16th century Germany were still low, but almost everyone knew someone who could read. Around 30% of urban men could read (5% in rural areas), but the problem was that the Bible was only available in Latin, which was beyond anyone without an advanced seminary education.

However, Martin Luther was not only a monk and a priest, but also a scholar. He read the Bible himself, and determined that how the Catholic church was ruling its people had little to do with the actual life of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, he was quite public about it, and that's how the Protestant Reformation of 1517 came about. Not only did Luther rebel against the rules and practices of the church, he translated the New Testament into German in 1522. His was not the first translation, but it was based on the original Greek and Hebrew as well as the Latin Vulgate. Because of Luther's popularity and the availability of printed copies, his translation was the most influential.

You can get oriented with a timeline of Martin Luther's life. Below that, you'll find an article of his major achievements.

And here is the 2003 movie Luther that was shown over the holidays. In case you missed it, or couldn't hear all the dialogue, you can watch it now in its entirety.

One thing to keep in mind is that this movie covers around 40 years of Luther's life, despite actor Joseph Fiennes not aging a day. In case you want to explore further, you can read overviews of Martin Luther, Johann Tetzel, Pope Leo X, the 95 Theses, the Diet of Worms, and the Luther Bible.

After the Reformation, the Christian church started to either blossom or fracture (depending on your point of view) into many denominations depending on interpretations of scripture, but what the Protestant churches have in common is a dependence on the Bible as a basis for beliefs, although some traditions vary on what is considered canon. The Anglican/Episcopalian split from the Catholic church was somewhat different.

From the founding of the Protestants, we trace our church's history to the Second Great Awakening and the Cane Ridge Revival, down to the work of John Wesley Masters, who didn't believe in denominations, especially churches that used a name other than what is mentioned in the Bible. But those are subjects for another day.

We hope you will join us as we learn more on the life and work of Martin Luther on Sunday mornings at 9:30 at First Christian Church.