The Reformation Affected Our World in No Less Than Six Ways

When Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses (October 31, 1517) on Wittenberg’s Castle Church door, his hope was to spark a theological conversation about repentance.  Instead, the German monk unleashed a revolution — ideas that transformed Western Europe and eventually the world. Christians (not only Protestants) are still living with the changes wrought by the Reformation he started.

Luther was not the first person to call for reform in the Roman Catholic Church.  But you might say he was the first to go viral via the printing press.  It spread his ideas far beyond the university town of Wittenberg.  At one point, an estimated 20% of the texts published in Europe had Luther as author.

According to Heather Hahn, here are 6-developments we have today thanks to that fateful All Hallows’ Eve 500-years ago:

1. An Expanded Priesthood

Among Luther’s influential works are 3-treatises from 1520 that argued both lay and clergy shared in the priesthood of Jesus.  This marked the beginning of the doctrine known as the “priesthood of all believers” … meaning all baptized have direct access to God without a human mediator.  This equalizing idea shaped much of what followed.

2. The Bible in Everyday Language

If all baptized are priests, they all should have ready access to God’s Word.  That premise led Luther to what was perhaps his most momentous work — a translation of the Bible into vernacular German.  He wasn’t the first to translate the Old and New Testaments into a language other than Latin.  However, Luther was the first to look to the original Hebrew and Greek in his work (rather than Jerome’s Latin Vulgate.  Among the people influenced by Luther’s translation was the English reformer William Tyndale, who likewise wanted to produce a Bible in his people’s language.  Tyndale’s efforts ultimately led to his martyrdom, but not before he completed the translation that would help shape the Geneva Bible used by William Shakespeare, the Pilgrims and the translators of the King James Version.  Luther’s impact is felt whenever people encounter the Bible in words they can understand.

3. New Ways of Worship

Luther did not stop with Scripture; he also translated the Latin Mass into everyday language.  That in turn influenced the creation of England’s Book of Common Prayer, which John Wesley would later adapt for his Methodist movement.  We can also thank Luther for making congregational singing a regular part of worship.  Luther also encouraged Christians to pray together in daily services.  “He believed gathering frequently for prayer was important in encouraging people’s understanding of themselves as part of the priesthood of God,” says professor of preaching Lucy Lind Hogan at United Methodist Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington.  Luther’s love of singing lingers in the choral works of Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel and Felix Mendelssohn.

4. Mass Education

The Reformation benefited from rising literacy that began in the 1450s with Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press.  But reformers broadened literacy and educational opportunities still further.  “Protestants built new schools and wrote new catechisms, ushering in an era of lay education,” said Anna M. Johnson, a professor of Reformation Church History at United Methodist Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary near Chicago.

5. Reminder of Repentance

The Reformation wasn’t all about empowered laity and joyful chorales.  There was a definite dark side to the revolution and to Luther himself.  For one thing, the Reformation marked a splintering of denominations that Christians still live with today.  Luther did not set out to form a break-away movement, but once Catholic hierarchy declared him a heretic, he opposed his former church home with fervor.  He also was frequently at odds with other reformers.  Debates over doctrine soon exploded into bloody wars that would cause death and destruction off-and-on for the better part of a century.  As venomous as Luther was about Catholics, he was even more vicious in his late-in-life writings about his Jewish neighbors.  His anti-Semitic rhetoric would echo in the brutality of Nazi Germany.  Jonathan Strom, a Candler professor, said observing the Reformation’s anniversary should also be a time of repentance.  “It’s not just, ‘Yay, we’re Protestants,’” said Strom, who is Lutheran.  He suggested today’s Christians heed the first proposition in Luther’s 95 Theses: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Matthew 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

6. Lady Liberty

Luther took on the power structures of his day when he refused to recant even in the face of excommunication and possible execution.  His challenge to church authority also ignited other uprisings he did not anticipate.  He denounced the peasants who, inspired by reforming zeal, rose up against the oppression of nobles and landlords.  Nevertheless, Luther could not stop the calls for freedom that stretch from the Peasants’ War to human-rights movements today.  If people believe they should have a say in church, it’s not a huge leap to believe they should have a say in their governance.  “Lady Liberty owes a great debt to Martin Luther,” said David Teems, author of Godspeed: Voices of the Reformation.  “Does the pope set up laws?” Luther wrote in a 1520 treatise.  “Let him set them up for himself, and keep hands off my liberty, or I will take it by stealth!”  Teems called Luther “a true champion of the conscience.”  Inspired by that spirit of defiance, a Baptist pastor named Michael King reportedly decided to change his name and that of his young son to that of the reformer’s.  The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. went on to champion freedom and justice in his own way.

Needless to say, we owe much to the Reformation of 500-years ago.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel