I'm sorry to hear you believe that rubbish about Luther being responsible for democracy, and the founding of America. Martin Luther was a horribly abused child, beaten bloody by both of his parents. He grew up angry, confused, and so utterly afraid of Hell that he invented his own doctrine on salvation, ('sola scriptura' and 'sola fide'), that morphed into the heretical "eternal security", a horrendous proposition that is foreign to Scripture, the writings of the early Church Fathers, and the more than 1,500 years of Christian doctrine that predated Luther's heresies. This madman has led the greatest division in Christianity ever, and his heresies have developed into more than 25,000 different Protestant denominations, each teaching a different doctrine, and each claiming they alone hold the truth.
Luther arrogantly addmitted that he added words to the Bible, an egregious sin in itself. His doctrine of "faith alone" cannot be found in Scripture, and is demolished by the words "NOT by faith alone" in James 2:20. It is no coincidence that Luther attempted to strike the Book of James from the canon of the New Testament, (at least he failed in that heresy). However, Luther only resentfully accepted James as Scripture, and he labeled James (in his 1522 German translation of the New Testament) as the "Epistle of Straw".
Sadly, Luther did manage to strike seven books from the canon of the Old Testament, a codification of Scriptural books that was listed in 393 A.D. at the Council of Hippo, and again in 397 A.D. at the Council of Carthage. This early codification of Scripture, though not yet officially "canonized" at the time, had been used and read in the Christian Church since the 1st Century A.D. The Council of Laodicea in 363 A.D. listed the Old Testament books exactly as the Catholic Church codifies them today.
A little history on the Old Testament: ~ Greek was the language of the day during the time of Christ. The Hebrew language was on its way out, and there was a critical need for a translation of the Hebrew Old Testament for dispersed Greek speaking Jews. This translation, called the "Septuagint", was completed by Jewish scholars in about 148 B.C. and it had all of the books still used by the Catholic Church during Luther's life, and today. But Luther, 1650 years later, decided he had the authority to remove seven of these books. The oldest Christian churches, (Greek, Syrian, etc), used this 148 B.C. Old Testament canon from the beginning of Christianity, and still use it today. The New Testament has about 350 references to Old Testament verses. By careful examination, scholars have determined that 300 of these are from the Septuagint. They have shown that Jesus Christ Himself, quoted from the Septuagint. Early Christians used the Septuagint to support Christian teachings. The Jews were upset that these new Christians were using their translation for Christian advantage.
About 90-95 A.D., the Jews, (Pharisees), called a council to deal with the matter. In this council, called the "Council of Jamnia", Jewish Pharisees, who survived the destruction of Jerusalem and of their temple in 70 A.D., decided to remove books that were helpful to Christians. But the Christians kept them faithfully, until 1650 years later when Martin Luther, fulfilling the Pharisaic desires, decided to remove them from Protestant Scripture.
While Martin Luther condemned the Papacy as non-scriptural, he was a pope unto himself as he arrogantly granted himself the power to add words and strip away seven books from Christian Scripture. He even determined that some of the seven Sacraments were authentic, and others were not. Talk about the abuse of power, where did he get such authority from? Founding his own church, (a church that even calls itself by his name, "Lutheran"), this man was nothing but a great divider.
Luther was unquestionably a madman, as he clearly displayed in his instigation of the "Peasant Uprising". In his first writings, where he called the princes "the greatest fools on earth and the most heinous scoundrels," and in his first appeals relative to the Peasant War, Luther defended the insurgents. He wrote, for instance, "It is not the peasants who arose against you masters, but God himself, who wishes to punish you for your evil doings." Luther hoped to find in the peasant movement a support for his struggle against Rome. But when, in April and May, the peasantry revolted all over the country, burning and destroying castles, Luther switched sides and defended the princes against the peasants. He attributed the movement to the peasants' "easy life". He urged the princes to "strangle them as you would mad dogs." When the insurrection was quelled, he bragged that he "had killed the peasants because he had given the orders to kill." "All their blood is upon me," he said.
Luther also tore the Church asunder at a time when the Mohammedans were threatening to attack and destroy Western Christianity. And this guy is your hero?
Okay. This shows you don't know what you're talking about. Lutherans don't believe in "eternal security"--they believe you can commit spiritual suicide and lose your salvation (see Hebrews 6:1-4). How can something Luther-- and Lutherans to this day--deny ("once saved, always saved") be the groundwork for "morphing?"
It can't. You're wrong. 'Fess up.
Luther was unquestionably a spiritual man.
"The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgments." (1 Cor. 2:15).
"...why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat." (Romans 14:10)
"It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time..." (1 Cor. 4:4)
As for faith alone vs. faith & works, works are the outcroppings of having been planted in the fertile soil of faith. You can fault Luther for having swung the pendulum too far as being overreactionary to the (then) Catholic teaching of salvation by works (indulgences).
But the equation is not simply faith + works = salvation, either. James just says they're integral. They go together. Works are evidential of faith; but works apart from faith--as the Catholic church was infamous for in Luther's day--is indeed straw to be burnt up at the last day.
The above statement is one of the knocks against Luther? The whole Catholic church is built on "adding words to the Bible." Not only that, you don't understand that the issue is not Luther's mistakes, sins and flaws, it is the authority of the Word of God as the basis of the Christian faith. When Luther taught unscriptural theology, he was wrong, as is the "Pope," when he says:
In 1986 in Assisi, Italy, John Paul II joined in a circle to pray and meditate with snake handlers from Togo, shamans and tribal witchdoctors from West Africa, Hindu gurus from India, Buddhist monks from Thailand, and liberal protestant clergymen from Great Britain, as all joined hands in "pray[ing] to their gods for 'peace'." The Pope also announced in Assisi that there are "many paths to God."(Sources: Christian News in a reprint of a 1993 article by Michael A. Hoffman in Researcher, Vol. 4, No. 3; and the 4/93, Flashpoint.)
Again in 1986, in Fiji, "the Pope quaffed a potent island liquor, accepted three whale's teeth and watched a spear dance during an ancient welcoming ceremony dating back to when the Fijians practiced cannibalism. ... [Fijian tribal] chiefs handed the Pope a mud-colored, alcoholic drink called kava [a drink condemned by early missionaries to Fiji as devil worship] ... [which] he downed in a single gulp." At the Pope's next stop in Auckland, New Zealand, 15 elders of the Maoris tribe pressed noses with the Pope, "to exchange each other's breath, which is the life force." (Source: 11/22/86, Chicago Tribune.)
On January 9-10, 1993, the Pope again hosted the Dalai Lama of Tibetan Buddhism and representatives of many other false and ungodly religions. It was an incredible sight to see these weird persons, "holy books" in hand, all standing serenely, side-by-side with the Pope. In the 2/10/93 issue of the official Vatican newspaper, L 'Osservatore Romano, the Pope said he recognizes within the devil worship sect of Voodoo, "God's riches ... the seed of the Word ... solidarity among believers ... for ... human liberation."
Although it passed completely without notice in the U.S. press, a bombshell that was dropped in Rome in November of 1996 continues to send shockwaves that are being felt in political and religious circles worldwide. The explosive charge was released by Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo in an address to the Fatima 2000 International Congress on World Peace held in Rome 11/18/96-11/23/96. Addressing an international audience of bishops, priests, nuns, and laity, the archbishop charged that there are members of the Catholic Church hierarchy in Rome who are secretly involved in formal satanic worship. He accused fellow Roman Catholic clergymen of protecting Satan and his minions: "The devil in the Catholic Church is so protected now that he is like an animal protected by the government; put on a game preserve that outlaws anyone, especially hunters, from trying to capture or kill it. The devil within the Church today is actually protected by certain Church authorities from the official devil-hunter in the Church -- the exorcist. ... To the question, 'Are there men of the curia who are followers of Satan?' Milingo responded, 'Certainly there are priests and bishops. I stop at this level of ecclesiastical hierarchy because I am an archbishop, higher than this I cannot go.' Milingo cited papal statements to back up his charges. 'Paul VI said that the smoke of Satan had entered into the Vatican.'" (Reported in the 3/3/97, The New American.) [Archbishop Milingo, an exorcist, is the author of the book, Face to Face With the Devil.]
In a 4/3/91 letter written by Pope John Paul II, addressed to "my beloved Muslim brothers and sisters," the Pope said, "I close my greeting to you with the words of one of my predecessors Pope Gregory VII, who in 1076 wrote to Al-Nasir, the Muslim ruler of Bijaya, present day Algeria: 'We believe in and confess one God, admittedly in a different way, and daily praise and venerate him, the creator of the world and the ruler of this world.'" The name Allah, was not invented by Muhammad, but was the name of a pagan god, long known and worshiped in the Middle East. In pre-Islamic days, Allah worship was on par with Baal worship, both originating in the Babylon region and both being Astral religions: the Sun, Moon, and Stars were the objects of worship. An Allah idol was one of some 360 idols in the Kabah, the sacred building at Mecca, now containing the famous black stone, a place of Islamic prayer and pilgrimages., the place to which the faithful turn to pray, again not new to Islam, but a practice of very ancient origins. The tribe into which Muhammad was born was devoted to the god Allah, Allah being the personal name of the Moon god.
Similarly New Ageish in his celebrated book, Crossing The Threshold of Hope (Knopf:1994), Pope John Paul II explains that "salvation and divinization" are the "ultimate purpose" of man's life: "The divinization of man comes from God" (p. l95). Likewise, the new universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting St. Athanasius and St. Thomas Aquinas, declares, "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God. ... The only begotten Son of God ... assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods"
The RCC can't torture and burn people at the stake any more for reading the truth of the Bible in their own language. We're not going back to the Dark Ages, even if Luther was sometimes a cad. I'm a calvinistic Baptist, by the way.