I subscribe to the thesis of this article, in fact, I have got into a rather serious row on these threads by declaring that without Martin Luther you would have no Thomas Jefferson and no Declaration of Independence. Please note the quoted sentence above contains the keyword "eventually" which makes the assertion historically accurate.
Luther was born into a world which was medieval that is, there was a strict hierarchy running from God to Pope and King, both of whom were divinely ordained and therefore bestowed with absolute authority, through the clergy and ultimately to the, surf. This hierarchical arrangement not only endorsed political authority but formed an epistemology which is very similar to Islam today. In addition to fixing in place an authoritarian political world, it shaped how man knew what he knew. Questions of morality and theology and even science were determined by deductive not inductive reasoning.
In other words, the world was flat because the authorities said so and they were to be believed because they were ordained by God. Compare that to the epistemology of jihad today which tells the zealot outlandish myths of 72 virgins or the idea that the present-day world is controlled by the will of Allah.
When Martin Luther tacked his 95 theses to the church door, he was not just attacking the excesses of the church he was attacking the source of its authority. He would substitute the Bible (Sola Scriptura ) for papal bull and faith (Sola fide) for indulgences. Once the source of authority of church over man and of King over man is so questioned, the Reformation and the Enlightenment could flourish.
That is why Thomas Jefferson would vest the right to overthrow a King as a right which comes directly to every man from "nature's God" bypassing both church and state hierarchy just as matters of conscience come from the same source, revolutionary concepts nailed to a church door and found sublime is not divine expression in the Declaration of Independence.
