history talk- Martin Luther

Martin Luther, a former monk, discussed his journey to becoming one of the greatest reformers. He criticized the Catholic Church for practices like selling indulgences and buying church offices. Luther's motivation came from his faith in the Bible and his belief in God's forgiveness. He aimed to encourage people to listen to the Bible and have more freedom in worship. Luther spread his message by posting his 95 theses and engaging in discussions. Despite facing opposition and being declared an outlaw, he found protection and support from Frederick the Wiser Saxony. Luther translated the New Testament into German, benefiting from the invention of the printing press. He continued his work on the Reformation after his time at Wartburg Castle. Hello and welcome to a new episode of Historytalk. Today we will talk with Martin Luther himself about how he became one of the greatest performers. Hi Martin, how are you? I'm great, how about you? Me too. So let's start with some questions. I already know that you were a monk, but what did you do before that? I was born in Germany in Eisleben on November 10th 1483. My parents made me study law in Erfurt and I graduated in 1505. In the same year I joined the Augustiner Monastery and gave my life to God. Interesting, but could you tell us what actually led to the Reformation? So I just saw a lot of things that were wrong with the Catholic Church and their practices. Could you give us some examples? Okay, for example like the sale of letters of indulgence. These letters were made to forgive your sins for money. And I just think that's not what God wants and it has nothing to do with God anymore. Because when you get your mistake and you know what you've done wrong, God is going to forgive you. Another aspect is also that you could buy church offices and you had a lot of power with these offices and most of those people just had a lot of money but had nothing to do with the church and didn't know anything about that and just abused their power. I get these points and let's move on to the next question. What inspired you to challenge the church's practices? So my motivation was my faith and belief in the importance of the Bible and that God is great and you should not fear him like most of the Catholic Church members said. But I also wanted to say that there were some times where I questioned God and kind of started to hate him because I thought he was strict and I had a lot of fear that I will go to hell. But that changed after I read the Bible like for real and kind of understood what God was trying to say because he is great and he will forgive everything. This was probably a very hard time for you. Let's move on. What specific changes did you hope to achieve through the Reformation? My goals were probably that I just wanted people to listen to the Bible more closely and actually hear what God has to say and also that people had just more freedom to worship. These are very reasonable goals and my next question is how did you spread your message and how did you gain support for that? So I wrote down 95 theses that I just think are the most important in Christianity and I struck them at a church door and kind of invited people to discussions. So that was on the October 31 in 1517 and four years later I got invited to Worms to a council and they wanted me to take back my arguments like the thesis. After refusing to do so I was declared an outlaw by the addict of Worms. On my way back home I was kidnapped to the Wartburg Castle. But that just was seemingly because I had a supporter, Frederick the Wiser Saxony and he took me to the Wartburg Castle for my protection. During my stay at Wartburg from 1521 to 1522 I lived as Junker Jörg. On the Wartburg I translated the New Testament from Greek into German which had a significant impact on the spread of the Bible and the German language. Fortunately to me the printing press was invented in my time so I could spread the German Bible even more. And what happened after that? After that I returned to Wittenberg and continued my work on the Reformation. I really appreciate your work and I don't have any questions left so thank you for telling us your story and joining my podcast. See you soon. It was really interesting to talk with you and yeah see you soon.