Martin Luther: Theologian or Politician?
Our religious beliefs directly influence our perceptions of morality, legality, and social structure. Religious and political ideologies are as entangled today as they have been throughout history. In looking at contemporary topics like abortion and gay marriage, it is plain to see that religious beliefs go hand in hand with public policy. When we select political candidates in today's society, we often judge the candidates based on how they fit with our own sense of morality. If they are of a different religion, or their policies don't add up with our religious beliefs, then we are less likely to vote for them. Although the people of Martin Luther's time couldn't vote for their leaders or their laws, leaders still had to appease the masses. Instigating a massive shift in religious belief would cause political changes in any scenario, particularly in sixteenth century Europe, where the Roman Catholic Church had immense political power dependent solely on faith and compliance.
During the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church was as much an institution of government as it was a faith-based religious community. Catholicism was the most widely practiced religion in all of Europe, and for many people there was no other option. In the Holy Roman Empire, all citizens were held to the Catholic code of conduct by both societal norms and the law. To disobey the Church in actions or ideology would result in being declared a heretic, which would lead to either excommunication or execution. People that were excommunicated by the Church were looked down upon by society and ostracized by the large majority of their peers. The Church's perception of morality held sway over the laws of the region, and rulers of various parts of the empire were forced to obey the pope's declarations or face excommunication, which translated to political suicide. Martin Luther's doctrines, although based on religious conviction, were equally political in nature because he sought to depoliticize Christianity. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, he was an anarchist because he professed that salvation was based entirely on an individual's faithful, repentant relationship with God and was not subject to influence or interpretation from any institution, religious or governmental. He was excommunicated by the Church, treated as a rebel, and spent many years battling with the Roman Catholic Church for influence over the people's beliefs.
The common people were generally content with the Catholic Church for hundreds of years despite seemingly obvious hypocrisies, mostly because the promise of salvation was too great to be squandered on questioning authority. Many people overlooked the shortcomings of their present situation because of the promise of paradise in the next life. There was no point in jeopardizing your relationship with God just because of minor grievances with the Church. Few people spoke up against the sale of indulgences, which made donations to the Catholic Church a sort of instant-karma. To fuel its power, the Church took wealth straight from the pockets of its congregation, essentially blackmailing them with the threat of damnation. In addition, the Church also had a relative monopoly on literacy. Clergy were schooled in Latin writing, while the majority of the common people were illiterate and uneducated. This gave the Roman Catholic Church an even more immense influence over public opinion, because the laity could neither interpret scripture for themselves nor formulate a written argument should they ever acquire a unique perspective. The Roman Catholic Church could directly or indirectly influence almost every aspect of a citizen's life, even their soul. The power of damnation lay within the threat of excommunication. The pope was God's voice on Earth, and he could pass divine judgement on anyone. In the pursuit of power, the Catholic Church extended its reach too far into both religion and politics. Religiously, the Church was afforded powers that would traditionally be reserved for a God. In terms of politics, the Catholic Church had practically become a specialized branch of federal government for the Holy Roman Empire, vastly over- reaching its role as a religious community.
Martin Luther opposed many aspects of the Catholic Church's doctrines and role in society. He published his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, in which he listed ninety-five issues he had with the present state of the Roman Catholic Church, including the sale of indulgences, the monopoly on scriptural interpretation, and the judgement of people's salvation. Martin Luther was a secularist. He believed in the separation of church and state, but he also believed in the separation of church and faith. Martin Luther's principle doctrine was that salvation could not be achieved merely through good works or by approval from the Church. Salvation could only be achieved freely through God's grace, which would be afforded to anyone that placed their faith in Jesus Christ as the savior. In the eyes of Martin Luther, salvation was a personal journey that was entirely dependent on an individual's relationship with God and was in no way influenced by a person's actions or anyone's opinion of those actions. Because of this, he believed that the clergy and the pope had absolutely no power beyond influence over public opinion. God was solely responsible for divine judgement, and clergy were no closer to God than anyone else. Martin Luther believed that all baptized Christians were a part of the same pursuit, and it was up to the individual to interpret scripture for themselves. Many parts of the bible are either metaphorical or allegorical, and Luther believed that it was up to the individual to form their own interpretation, thus undermining the religious, political, and ideological authority of the church.
This emphasis on personal freedom and individuality would have certainly contributed to the appeal of Lutheranism during its rise in the sixteenth century. Luther believed that the Word of God contained both law and gospel, and that it was the individual's responsibility to discriminate between the two and know when to apply them. His distinction between law and gospel mirrors his opinion on the role of government, which he believed should be kept separate from religion. Although he opposed a dictatorial religious institution and promoted personal freedoms, Luther's stance should not be confused with democracy. Unlike a democratic agenda, Luther did not seek a consensus of the opinions of the laity. Instead, he preached that Christianity held a particular meaning to each individual, and that it was their individual responsibility to follow God's path wherever it took them, without influence from their government, church, or peers.
Martin Luther treated government the same way he treated all the things that he considered worldly matters. It was a matter of necessity, and shouldn't influence or be influenced by religion. While he was not opposed to laws based on Christian morality, Luther simply believed that material matters could never be mixed with faith in any meaningful way. In his own words: “God made the secular government subject to reason because it is to have no jurisdiction over the welfare of souls or things of eternal value, but only over bodily and temporal goods, which God places under man's dominion. For this reason, nothing is taught in the gospel about how it is to be maintained and regulated, except that the Gospel bids people honor it and not oppose it. Therefore the heathen can speak and teach about this very well, as they have done. And, to tell the truth, they are far more skillful in such matters than the Christians... Whoever wants to learn and become wise in secular government, let him read the heathen books and writings.” For Luther, economic stability, social status, living conditions, and politics had very real significance in the material world, but none in eternity.
Certain protestant groups like Calvinism made frugality a principle, claiming that spending money on luxuries was sinful. Martin Luther did not condemn wasteful spending or luxuries as sinful, but he instead made it clear that, like government, they have no significance beyond their material significance and cannot get you any closer to God. While he advocated strongly for his own style of Christian education, he acknowledged that people could not be made to follow his ideology, lest he undermine his own belief that people should form their own opinions and relationship with God. Although he hated the sale of indulgences, Luther would never seek to ban them. He merely wanted to dissuade people from paying for them. People could do as they pleased, but to Luther, those who paid for indulgences were “imperfect and lazy Christians.”
Martin Luther had a very unique opinion on the proper role of education in his country. He believed that education was an integral facet of government, and that a strict Christian education was absolutely essential for the social and economical well-being of a society. Luther does not suggest that a government should force-feed any sort of religious agenda. He believed that governments could remain secular, while a proper Christian education could be left in the hands of individual families. In a 1519 sermon on marriage, Martin Luther stated his belief that properly raising Christian children was the best conceivable work for an individual and for society. “There is nothing in pilgrimages to Rome, to Jerusalem, or to Saint James, nothing in building churches, endowing masses, or whatever works might be named compared to this one work, that those who are married bring up their children [well]. That is their straightest road to heaven.”
Luther's religious perspective on child rearing goes hand in hand with his political ideology. In an excerpt from 1525 titled “Family Government: The Foundation of All Government,” Luther states that a government is nothing more than a collection of households, and thus, the most important form of government occurs within these households, in the
Christian education of one's children. He writes: “Obedience toward father and mother should become universal. Where this is not the case, you will find neither good manners nor a good government... The whole wide organization of an empire is woven out of single households. Wherever, then, fathers and mothers slacken the reigns of family government, and leave children to follow their own headstrong courses, there it is impossible... to enjoy the fruits of a wise and peaceful government. For the son, when grown up, becomes a father, a judge, a mayor, a prince, a king, an emperor, a preacher, a schoolmaster, etc. And if he has been brought up without restraint, then will the subjects become like their ruler, the members like their head.” Not only did Luther advocate for parents to educate their children well, he also strongly opposed universities and other institutions of higher learning. In his words, “The universities were only worthy of being reduced to dust; nothing more hellish or devilish had ever appeared on earth from the beginning of things or ever would appear.”
As previously discussed, public opinion directly and significantly affects politics. Both Martin Luther and the Roman Catholic Church were well aware of this, and they struggled with each other to secure favor in public opinion. Much like a race for office, Martin Luther and the Church competed in a fierce propaganda war, printing out flyers and pamphlets to reach large audiences. Martin Luther gained the most from this campaign thanks to a fervent release of printed sermons and criticisms of the Church. He produced them in a quantity that was unheard of for the time, and he was able to reach a very large portion of the population in spite of low literacy rates. Mass media, which would eventually become a staple of politics, was largely born out of Martin Luther's effective method of disseminating ideas. Although Martin Luther and the Catholic Church both used their propaganda to make a religious argument, there was far more at stake than the nature of the people's faith. The Roman Catholic Church stood to lose its political influence at the hands of Lutheran ideology, and they had no intention of relinquishing their power or their traditions. In the eyes of the Church, Martin Luther's religious and political agenda was essentially anarchy. He wanted to strip the Christian faith of its essential governing body. Unfortunately for the Catholic Church, convincing the public of this would be an uphill battle for several reasons. Martin Luther had a distinct advantage in that the dissemination of ideas through mass-printed pamphlets helped embody his message in addition to conveying it. The early publications told the laity to rely on neither their own good works nor the mediating power of the clergy in order to obtain salvation, but instead to place all their faith in God and His promise. At the same time, it also undermined the central authority by providing translated bible verses and encouraging readers to think for themselves.
In the early ages of printing, producing mass amounts of pamphlets would have been a fairly expensive endeavor. We can plainly see that Luther's campaign was successful, merely because it lasted so long. Printing presses could only afford to print pamphlets that they knew could sell, and Martin Luther's sold for decades. Martin Luther printed his first pamphlet in 1516, and new additions continued to be published several times a year for the next thirty years. Some might assume that low literacy rates, particularly in Latin, would have hampered the spread of Luther's message. Luther combated this by publishing the majority of his work in the German vernacular instead of Latin. He also heavily relied on the word-of-mouth spread of his teachings. Meanwhile, his rebellious nature made him a sort of celebrity, so people would be talking about him whether or not they could read his pamphlets. The Catholic Church faced a dilemma in how to react to Luther's campaign. By releasing pamphlets that challenged Luther's ideas, they would be inadvertently forcing Luther's ideas into the mind's of people that might not have been exposed to them yet, but at the same time, they needed to respond harshly and condemn his actions and ideas.
The Catholic Church did release their own pamphlets, but not nearly at the rate of Martin Luther. Between 1518 and 1544, Martin Luther published roughly five times as many pamphlets as the Catholic Church. The Church also made the mistake of publishing mostly in Latin, seemingly disregarding the German common folk. Martin Luther's pamphlets sold better because they merely laid down Luther's understanding of Christianity rather than defending it from attack. The tone of the Catholic Church's publications was pompous and more polarizing.
Martin Luther's doctrines would cause enough disparity in religious beliefs that violence and political upheaval ensued. Peasants, galvanized by Luther's ideas, formed mobs and started rebellions. Charles V fiercely opposed the Reformation and fought against rebel peasants and German princes that supported Lutheranism. Luther did not support rebellion at all; in fact, he condemned it at the expense of his popularity with peasants, but his ideas still stirred the controversy. Hostility remained between protestants and the Holy Roman Empire for almost a century, becoming a partial cause of the Thirty Years War. At the end of the Thirty Years War, the Peace of Westphalia left the pope and the Roman Catholic Church with almost no political power besides ideological influence over the remaining Catholics. Laws restricting religion were loosened, and protestants were now free to worship as they pleased. Although Luther died one hundred and two years before the end of the Thirty Years War, his religious doctrines were integral in the reformation of the European political landscape. Just as he wished, the Church no longer held immense political power, and people were free to worship God on their own terms. Protestant ideas spread all over Europe, instigating ideological and political change wherever they took hold. Governments did not become secular overnight, and the pope and the Church still held fairly significant influence, but Luther's doctrines still had a massive impact on the social and political climate of Europe, just as he intended. His religious doctrine called for the Church to be depoliticized, but it also provided him a platform for greater political influence. Without his reputation as a theologian, Luther would not have had the chance to express his opinions on education, secular government, or religious freedom.
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