Free Republic

Revisiting one of the unintended consequences of the Protestant Reformation. Five-hundred years ago yesterday, on October 31, 1517, a Catholic monk named Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a German church, thereby launching what would come to be known as the Protestant Reformation.  Whatever else can be said of him, Luther unwittingly initiated something else that is often overlooked.  “The Reformation produced one logical if unexpected result,” explains European historian Franco Cardini: “a definite boost to the positive evaluation of Islam, and therefore to the birth and development of an often conventional and mannered pro-Islamic stance”...

On Oct. 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his now world-famous 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Luther’s complaints about the Roman Catholic practice of selling indulgences (the forgiving of sins) launched the Protestant Reformation, forever altering the cultural, political, religious and artistic landscape of Europe and the world. As we approach the five-hundredth anniversary of this earth-shaking event, there’s no better place to explore Luther and the Reformation than his native Germany.

<p>Western Civilization in the 21st century is marked by religious pluralism, where people from all over the world have been able to come to various nations in Europe and North America to freely exercise their religious beliefs. That religious pluralism has also manifested within Christianity itself over the past five centuries.</p>