Posted on 10/31/2025 10:29:22 AM PDT by sopo
In 1517, in the famous act of defiance that launched the Protestant Reformation, Luther nailed his “95 theses” on indulgences to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Among them was this devastating question: ” 82. Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest Croesus, build this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers ?”
In exposing the empty claims of the church to be God’s authority on earth, Luther challenged the entire hierarchy responsible for exploiting Catholic believers. In his Address to the Nobility of the German Nation, which was published in 1520, Luther proclaimed this revolutionary idea: “we are all consecrated as priests through baptism, as St. Peter says in Peter 2: “you are a royal priesthood, and a priestly kingdom.””
Thus did the “priesthood of all believers” become the central liberating doctrine of the Protestant Reformation. It established a spiritual equality between believers by declaring that the relationship to God would no longer be mediated by a priesthood or a pope or the Holy Roman Empire; no longer by mere mortals elevated above them with the power to determine their eternal fate. By declaring all believers equal, Luther had transferred spiritual power to the people themselves.
This was heresy, and on January 3 1521, Luther was excommunicated by the Catholic Church. Five months later, the German monk was summoned to the Diet of Worms where the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V presided. At the Diet, Luther was called to recant his beliefs or be burned at the stake. He refused. This was his answer: “my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus, I cannot and will not recant, for going against conscience is neither safe nor salutary. I can do no other, here I stand, God help me. Amen”
“My conscience is captive to the Word of God.” It was a declaration of individual freedom that would resound through the annals of very struggle for freedom in the centuries to come. Every individual’s freedom of conscience was an assertion of independence from temporal power. An unalienable right to think and speak freely, which derives from the individual’s inviolable relation to their creator-beyond the reach of the church or state, or any institution created by mortal beings. No man or woman was bound to surrender their freedom of conscience to others seeking to coerce them into service of a rival belief. Luther may not have intended the full freedom to which his proclamation led, but he had loosed the idea upon the world, and the world responded by making it the cornerstone of Protestant belief. Pp28-29
every believer a priest? The common man disparaged? No sound bites .
I believe that the Treaty of Westphalia recognized three religions in Germany—Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism. The Lutheran and Calvinist churches united in 1817—but only in Germany.
I have a lot of respect for Christopher Columbus, but if he had never sailed, the New World would have been discovered not long afterwards. Pedro Cabral, on his way to India, accidentally encountered Brazil in 1500.
There is not a single seed of an act that founded the idea for United States, but a series of acts over time that collectively led to it. One could credit Luther for an initial step in the Reformation, but many other events - with no assurance they would happen or succeed, took place between Luther and 1776, and Luther cannot take credit for them, beyond his own contribution to some ideas taken in by the United States founding generation.
John Cabot (an Italian) discovered Newfoundland in 1497 but I don't know if he would have sailed if he had not known about Columbus' discoveries.
Columbus saw the mainland of both South America and North America but not on his first voyage, and he did not see any part of the present-day US.
Sovereignty of God, worked out through our eyes by Providence, which all believed at the time.
This would be news to Queen Isabella of Spain.
I’m not sure why “created America”= “discovered America” to so many; it doesn’t even cross my mind when I hear it.
Absolutely. I can’t even imagine this world without the Reformation.
Maybe its your own lack of historical tradition that fuels the need to ‘borrow’ from others.
I am so sick of the word antisemitism. If you hate on the Muslim hordes, guess what YOU are antisemitic. They are indeed children of the same bloodlines as the so called holy jews. Who if they are truly of the tribe of Judah, where are their missing brothers? How many others were of the Tribes of Hebrews, of which one was Judah?
Well, I wouldn’t get too upset about missing the ‘50s in PHX.
The swamp coolers didn’t work there because it was so humid from all the irrigation in Chandler and Tempe; mostly cotton farms then. Worked better in Tucson because it was actually dry air...”it’s a dry heat...” you know
Now everyone uses refrigeration, it’s all better...
You know, checking that this afternoon after I posted that, I read that for the first time.
All my life the family history had said you had only two choices.
Maybe our sects were just too off the wall...Baptist Brethren were maybe considered farther out in left field then “mainline” Calvinists, if you could call it that. Whatever the case, they all bailed and headed to Rotterdam to head to America, early to mid 1700s.
Speaking of Horowitz, in 1990, he authored the book - ‘Pastor Charles Taze Russell: An Early American Christian Zionist’.
“Mr. Horowitz has performed an admirable service in restoring to public knowledge the story of this important Christian Zionist”―Benjamin Netanyahu
If one gets to the underbelly of why and who was pushing Darby/Scofield ‘dual covenant theology’ out of Britain to America, one understands the reasoning of the hijacking of Christianity. Balfour Declaration.
“every believer a priest? The common man disparaged? No sound bites.”
Catholics and Lutherans both believe that every believer in a state of grace has a role of priest (heirus), who offers a sacrifice of their own lives to God. Catholics believe this role extends to the expiation of sin of others. (Unlike OT priests, however, the offering is of their own lives, not an animal sacrifice.) Both Catholics and Lutherans also believe that there is the distinct role of one who presides (presbyter, president) over liturgical functions. So Luther saying every believe is a priest is not the disproof you think it is.
It’s worse than that. Catholics believed that when the holy sacrifice of the mass was offered in the proper manner, everyone present could have full confidence in receiving grace through the act of worship. Luther didn’t. Luther believed both that the mass was necessary, but also that it was ineffective if the priest who offered the mass was himself sinful. So when he says that every believer is a priest, he could just as easily insist that they weren’t believers by criticizing what it was that they had put their faith in. Further, he argued that the common men had typically neither the wit nor the understanding to have true faith.
So of course, Luther had enough faith in the common beleiever to put the scripture in his own language, in his own home. I’m sure you can cite the Jesuitical writings that interpret Luther as you state. But how long did it take the Roman church to get over Wycliffe’s efforts to do the same thing?
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