Martin Luther King Jr.: Protestant Reformation
Martin Luther In 1517, German monk Martin Luther cited his grievances as he nailed the 95 Theses to the wall of the church in Wittenberg. Luther’s complaints centered around his disapproval of the selling of indulgences, as the clergy asked for gifts and money in exchange for the remission of one’s sins and to lessen one’s suffering in purgatory or even the chance of eternal life. The citing of these grievances is believed to have begun the Protestant Reformation, with the intention of recreating the Catholic Church. However, Luther was a very controversial figure of the Reformation as he would often contradict himself in various speeches and written works and allow himself to appear as a hypocrite regarding his own beliefs. I argue that In Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants, Martin Luther unjustifiably takes on the responsibility of God himself, as he advocates against the peasants and proposes their murder as a solution; although Luther attempts to justify himself in both of the analyzed works, he is plagued by multiple self-induced paradoxes and contradictions within his works as he commits multiple deadly sins, including going against his own explained words of God, which is best evidenced by the aforementioned In Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants as well as his pamphlet called Freedom of a Christian. Additionally, Luther’s hypocrisy allows for his himself to emerge as selfish and deceitful and willing to go to seemingly any extent to spread the Protestant Reformation in circumstances that will be most beneficial to himself by appealing to the people he desires, and even disregarding mass deaths as a possible consequence in the process. As both Dr. Reynolds and Forbes mention in their lecture, Martin Luther was initially a supporter of both the peasants and their grievances, which largely included their inability to hunt and fish for food and resources (Forbes; Reynolds). Luther’s support was not lasting however,