On October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther issued his ninety-five theses. The story is that he defiantly nailed them to the door of Wittenberg Castle church. He was objecting to many of the practices of the Roman Catholic Church of his day, and especially the selling of indulgences. The Church made a great deal of money from selling forgiveness to sinners, and objected strongly to Luther’s assault on a major source of its income.
He was not the first to criticize the Church’s practices, including the selling of benefices. Erasmus had earlier voiced criticism, and while he personally remained loyal to the Church, it was said that “Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched,” leading to the Reformation.
Luther refused to recant when ordered to by Pope Leo X in 1520 and by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521. He was excommunicated by the pope and condemned as an outlaw by the Holy Roman Emperor. This was hardly surprising, given that he taught that the Bible, not the Church, is the only source of knowledge of God. This undermined the authority of the priesthood because it allowed every person to communicate directly with God, rather than through the intercession of the priesthood. Luther went further by translating the Bible into German to make it accessible to lay people. He made use of Gutenberg’s printing press to have it circulated widely.
To read the Bible, people had to be literate, so in the countries and counties that embraced Protestantism literacy spread. German counties tended to follow the religion of their prince, and there is evidence that the protestant ones enjoyed wider literacy.
Intriguingly, it has been suggested that literacy aids industrialization by enabling workers to follow written instructions. It was in the protestant countries and German counties that the early industrial Revolution took hold. If one overlays two maps, one of which shows where Protestantism took hold, and the other where industrialization developed, there is considerable overlap. Indeed, Max Weber and R H Tawney published books that tried to trace the connection that linked Protestantism to industrial development. The literacy needed by protestants to access the Bible directly might have played a significant role, in addition to the sociological and psychological factors they explored.
Following on the heels of the Reformation came the Enlightenment, liberating the minds of men and women from magic and superstition. On All Hallows’ Eve 502 years ago, Luther lit a fire whose flames still flicker today. He changed the world.