Preview

Martin Luther Newspaper article

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
471 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Martin Luther Newspaper article
A man named Martin Luther became a monk to try and find peace with God, but now he claims that the church is incorrect that human beings deserve punishment for their sins and wrong doings, and that this is the only way to receiver justification. The man claims that the words of St Paul, ‘the just shall live by faith’, are correct.
Martin Luther’s doctrine is known as ‘justification by faith’ and is contrasted with the traditional Roman Catholic Church teaching of ‘justification by works’. So far Luther’s views have had huge consequences, although according to a source he had no intention of cutting himself off from the church, even after hugely criticising the Roman Catholic churches way of teaching.
As well as contrasting the traditional teaching of the Church, Martin Luther also wrote ninety five theses against the sales of indulgences. In these he showed that the selling of the indulgences was totally against the teaching of the Bible. He claimed that the fact the church could mislead people into believing salvation could be bought for money was a massive problem. Luther believed salvation was a matter of divine, grace and not of his good works.
Due to his actions Luther was summoned to Rome but it is believed that he was protected by his popularity. According to a local monk there was a remarkable response to Luther’s teachings from ordinary people for many reasons:
• They had new economic, social and political aspirations
• They were disillusioned with the church hierarchy
• The road to salvation seemed to be complex, expensive and church centred
• Most of all many people were spiritually hungry.
This has caused people to pick out faults from our beloved Roman Catholic Church and overall it has a merge that there is a great dissatisfaction with many aspects of the church:
• Many clergy’s are only interested gaining wealth and power
• People are abusing their roles in the church for their own greed
• The spiritual needs of ordinary people is

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    “We must resist the lust of the flesh,” wrote John Calvin (Document 6). Calvin was leading an entire religion and sought to correct the corruption of the Catholic Church. In writing this statement, he set an example to all of the Calvinists in Europe; he made sure that everyone knew it was immoral for religious people to act worldly and promiscuously, such as the Catholic priests had been doing. His position as the founder of Calvinism made his opinion on this issue widely known and widely accepted, which further spread the awareness of the corruption of the Catholic clergy. “You blind bishops and mad priests and monks… lead a life of splendor and pride, until the poor common folk can bear it no longer,” (Document 5). In this statement, Martin Luther is accusing the clergy of using their powers as church leaders to benefit themselves financially rather than using profits to give back to the people. Because Martin Luther was the figurehead of the Protestant Reformation, a statement like this would weigh heavily on the public’s hearts and draw massive amounts of attention. In making this statement, Luther would help Christians realize that the problems of the Catholic Church are not solely caused by the main leaders, such as the Pope, but are also caused by the unjust actions of the friars and priests in the small towns and villages. This statement brought to light the reality of the injustices…

    • 1978 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Martin Luther's main disagreements with the Roman catholic church were that Luther was concerned on the assurance of salvation. He didn't agree with the practices and beliefs from the catholic church. The catholic church would say that in order for god to forgive your sins you have to confess. But Luther doubted that confessing would make your sins go away. He thought himself Do I remember all the sins I committed? Because us being humans don't really remember every single thing we do daily. Also, Luther didn’t agree the catholic church practicing to sell indulgences. In luther’s ninety-five theses he talks about the sins based on selling indulgences.…

    • 108 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The end of the fifteenth century had left Christendom with a Church in great need of reform. The Church had been greatly weakened by the events of the past few centuries. The fourteenth century’s Great Famine and Black Death had battered the public’s trust in the Church, as had the Papal Schism spanning from 1378-1417. When the ideas of Martin Luther began to spread in the early 1500s, the Church became afraid for its power, its reputation, and its finances. Luther was promising people that they would be saved through their faith alone—what place did that leave for the Church and its teachings? In any other time in human history, Luther’s ideas likely would have been quietly beaten down and buried, but a very unique set of circumstances allowed the ideas of a small-town monk and professor to take on the immense power of the Catholic Church. While others’ ideas could be ignored, the Church was intensely threatened by Luther because his ideas questioned the role and necessity of their already-weakened institution, called for an end to indulgences, endangered social stability, and exposed the failings of the Church by returning to the Bible as the only source of God’s truth.…

    • 1741 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Martin Luther made radical statements challenging Papal authority, the deliverance of relief of purgatory via a monetary gain by the church, and exposing the corrupt dogma that exemplified the Roman Catholic Church. Luther, after stating the errors of the church, established what he believed was justification by faith. Luther reduced the amount of sacraments to those that were plainly supported by scripture verses the church’s use of sacraments by conjecture, he denounced the sale of paradise, and propounded that the Bible was the true religious authority, whereas, the church gave authority to a fallible man. Furthermore, Luther’s original intent was not to initiate a reformation, but was to allow for academic debate. Luther found questions regarding the church and theological misconduct that would force him to separate from the church in Rome and establish…

    • 1160 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Martin Luther believed that the church was not following the plan originally set out for them many years ago. Luther believed that indulgences were just the church using people for their…

    • 478 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Before Luther, there was no one person brave enough to step up and speak out against the church. Although, many people agreed something needed to be done and something needed to be changed, nothing happened until Martin Luther came along. Then all of a sudden there was a revolution. News of what he had done travelled quickly. People started to listen to Martin Luther preach and some started preaching what Luther was teaching. Not only that, but also Christians realized that they are able to make their own decisions and be their own priest not having to submit to a central authority here on this…

    • 466 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He challenged the authority of the pope to offer the sale of indulgences directly. This was seen as an attack on the Church. Luther was summoned to Rome. He would have to answer to the charges of heresy he was accused of. Luther did not respond to the summons. That only led to an escalating controversy between Luther and those who defended the faithful document. Luther continued writing about salvation. He wrote about reforms that he saw needed to occur in the church. As a result of that, the rift between Luther and those who believed in him, fueled a growing controversy. (The 95 Theses of Martin Luther)…

    • 448 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Martin Luther was one of the greatest monks, priests, and theological teachers of Germany, along with being the symbol of the Protestant Reformation. He did not start off so religious however. One day he was caught in a frightening and dangerous storm. He prayed to God begging not to be killed, and vowed to become a monk if he survived. He did live, upholding his word to the lord, and joined a monastery. He joined an Augustinian friary in 1505, where he suffered from anfechtung, or spiritual anxiety. He never knew if he was doing enough good works to achieve salvation and gain entrance to the kingdom of heaven, as it was believed by the Catholic religion that it took good works along with faith in order to enter. To take his mind off of his religious worries, he was recommended to a teaching post at the University of Wittenberg. There, he taught theology and was quite popular among his students. Luther suffered from constant constipation, so he often read the bible while on the toilet. One day while doing this a certain passage from the epistle of St. Paul to the Romans: “the just shall live by faith,” which led to Luther’s core belief of sola fide, or faith alone. Through this belief, Luther believed that the only thing needed to achieve salvation was to live by faith alone, which challenged the Roman Catholic Church’s theology that both faith and good works were necessary. Luther shared his beliefs with the people of the Holy Roman Empire, demanding change to the way theology was widely taught. He agreed with parts of the current teachings and was conservative, wanting to keep parts of the religion the same. He kept the sacraments, however reduced the amount of them from 7 to 2. He was also like many Roman Catholic religious figures,…

    • 1706 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The beliefs of Martin Luther stated that every individual possessed their own relationship with God. This statement is prevalent in Luther’s work, “The Sermon on Good Works”. In this piece of writing, Luther stated that only faith in God would get an individual salvation. Good works, acts made throughout life to better something or someone, would not help a person receive salvation. This went against the Catholic Church’s doctrine, which stated that an individual would receive God’s grace and salvation by accomplishing these Good Works. Essentially, Luther’s statements were revolutionary. To rally against a prevalent theme in the popular religion was a brave, if not inspired way to introduce a different method of thought.…

    • 114 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Martin Luther Influence

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Through the 95 Theses, Luther was not just reacting against the full Pelagian as the purpose of justifying his works rather than faith. Instead, he was entirely reacting to what seemed to be the reasonable Catholic teaching on what entailed faith. The Catholic Church by Luther’s time was not using God’s sacraments and good works as part of faith. To Luther, it was all a matter of God’s grace into offering people paths of salvation, but no man had a secure opportunity because living such a life required maintaining high principles of faith before God…

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Reformation Dbq

    • 763 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Roman church fell into a great deal of corruption, under Pope Leo X who began spending more money than the church had in its treasury. The German people had grievances, brought before the diet, they felt that the church was heartless using people’s sins against them. (D4) The economy of the time was a mix of prospering upper and middle class, and poverty struck peasants. At this time people were looking to the church for salvation from the evils of life, this is where indulgences came into play. A short tempered German monk named Martin Luther, talked of feeling week and insufficient, under the control of the church. (D1) He studied the Latin and the Bible, knowing one helped him understand the other. After studying the original text Luther came to find that many things were not sufficient, such as the Seven Sacraments he ended up only keeping only two-baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The church declared that for salvation people must obey the Pope, this was defined under the rain of Pope Boniface VIII, a tyrant of his time in 1302. (D10)…

    • 763 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ap Euro Dbq

    • 1700 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In his opinion, religion should be inner piety; your own love and dedication to God, not that of the church. Luther believed that indulgences were a disgrace to religion. The beliefs stemming from the church, that in order to earn salvation, one had to pay money, or have specific requests, was ludicrous. Justification should be achieved by doing good deeds and having faith in God. Martin Luther completed his 95 theses, which communicated his ideas of what religion should look like. Gutenberg's printing press helped spread these ideas, even though Luther's works were banned and burned in the Holy Roman…

    • 1700 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the pamphlet, Luther believes that faith nurtures the body and soul. He believed that the Church did not believe in that. Luther eventually broke away from the Church for several reasons. Some reasons were how the Church made people pay for their indulgences, how that they had too many restrictions, and how the Church had so much power and how they abused it. Luther stated in his pamphlet, "From this anyone can clearly see how a Christian is free from all things and over all things so that he needs no works to make him righteous and save him, since faith alone abundantly confers all these things." Luther in this sentence is saying how things such as indulgences are not needed to make him a better Christian, but if a man has enough faith, it alone will do the job. Luther also states that for preachers not to preach only about repentance, but also about the faith of the religion. The criticism that Luther has towards the preachers was that they abused authority that they don't preach commandments and promises, and they don't work solely out of serving one's neighbor; they do it seeking their own profit. Luther was also angry with priests who use the word of Christ to make people dislike Jews. He believes that they should pray for the people and teach the people by example.…

    • 722 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the time of Martin Luther the Catholic Church was teaching that one’s sins could be forgiven and punishment from God avoided by purchasing forgiveness. This was very unpopular with the Catholic leaders and they demanded he change his beliefs on this subject. When he refused to recant his beliefs he was excommunicated by Pope Leo X and declared an outlaw by the emperor. He wrote the Ninety Five Thesis to the leaders of the Catholic Church protesting the sale of indulgences. It was his belief that salvation was a free gift given by God to anyone who believed and asked…

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many factors lead up to Martin Luther’s break away from The Roman Catholic Church. Factors such as The Church selling indulgences, popes fighting for power, launching extravagant purchases, and the misteaching of the bible are some of the main reasons for Martin’s break off with the church. This essay will explain these points of how and why Martin Luther broke away from the church.…

    • 565 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Good Essays