Rosales Reflection

Name: Flora Mae L.
Rosales
BSED-III Social Studies
When looking back over the course of human history so few individuals have had that power,
and even few have had that influence in the church. Perhaps, less Christ himself, no one has had a
greater impact on the history of the church than Martin Luther.
This time period is known as the Christian Reformation. Martin Luther, a devout Catholic questioned the
practices of the church. In a PBS documentary entitled Martin Luther: An Idea That Changed The World,
it discusses the journey he went through to bring forth the Reformation in Germany.
Martin Luther got caught in a terrible thunderstorm and was close to death. Records show during the
storm Luther prayed to God and told him if you let me live, I will become a monk and devote my life to
you. Luther survived and became a monk. Martin Luther said about himself “If ever a monk got to
heaven by his monkery, it was I." "Christ was given, not for picayune and imaginary transgressions, but
for mountainous sins; not for one or two, but for all; not for sins that can be discarded, but for sins that
are stubbornly ingrained.” He tortured himself to emulate the pains the Savior felt in the garden and on
the cross in order to become as close to God as possible. He would confess for hours at a time, and still
feel no relief from the most minuscule sins. He then became a teacher at the new University of
Wittenberg, where began to teach The Bible. During his time there, he realized the many things wrong
with the Catholic church. Thus, he wrote the 95 theses, which rapidly became posted all over Germany.
Luther recognized the church’s practices were all focused on money and about the ceremonies
performed and less about the relationship individuals had with God. Because of this, Martin Luther’s
teachings became popular among the people of Germany. At this time because politics and religion were
so intertwined, a political uprising was caused. Creating a chain reaction causing the many different
branches of Protestant church.
In the article written by Scott Hendrix, “Rerooting the Faith: The Reformation as Re-Christianization.”,
Hendrix discusses the ideas behind Martin Luther’s agenda. How the Christian reformation was not only
a reformation of the church but also of the state. This was not Martin Luther’s intention. However, the
common people misinterpreted some of his statements leading them to believe he was talking about
citizens’ rights. The authors of the Reformation like Martin Luther and John Calvin did not want to. it
would have been better to understand that Luther 's continual reflection had turned him away from
Christ to be fixated on his own sin and therefore it facilitated the need for him to better understand the
Bible and the character of Christ.
In early 1546, he had to go to the town of his birth, Eisleben, to settle a dispute. It was January, and the
roads were bad. Tellingly, he took all three of his sons with him. He said the trip might be the death of
him, and he was right. He died in mid-February. Appropriately, in view of his devotion to the
scatological, his corpse was given an enema, in the hope that this would revive him. It didn’t. After
sermons in Eisleben, the coffin was driven back to Wittenberg, with an honor guard of forty-five men on
horseback. Bells tolled in every village along the way. Luther was buried in the Castle Church, on whose
door he was said to have nailed his theses.
Although his resting place evokes his most momentous act, it also highlights the intensely local nature of
the life he led. The transformations he set in motion were incidental to his struggles, which remained
irreducibly personal. His goal was not to usher in modernity but simply to make religion religious again.
Heinz Schilling writes, “Just when the lustre of religion threatened to be outdone by the atheistic and
political brilliance of the secularized Renaissance papacy, the Wittenberg monk defined humankind’s
relationship to God anew and gave back to religion its existential plausibility.” Lyndal Roper thinks much
the same. She quotes Luther saying that the Church’s sacraments “are not fulfilled when they are taking
place but when they are being believed.” All he asked for was sincerity, but this made a great difference.

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Name: Flora Mae L.

BSED-III Social Studies

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