Western Civilization Martin Luther Martin

Western Civilization

Martin Luther

Martin Luther founded a new religion, Protestantism, as result of a break with the Catholic Church. He did not support all of the Church's doctrines and laws, and proposed reforms that the Church would not agree to, and so, he broke away from the Church and created the Reformation, which created a new religion and a new way of thinking. Politics were important in Luther's break from the Church, because the Church was so very influential and powerful politically. People were afraid to disagree with them because the Church could literally ruin them.

Luther's religious ideas toward relationships between church and state were radical, and that is one reason the Catholic Church feared him and excommunicated him. His ideas definitely separated Church and state, and gave much of the responsibility of goodness and holiness to the people themselves, allowing them to choose to live pious lives. The Church ruled politically and socially, and so, to break with this was to break with the Church. Germany was a powerful state at the time, and becoming more powerful in world politics, and so, the break with the Church seemed somehow to fit in with the general changes that were happening at the time, when the towns were growing, the feudal lifestyle was disappearing, and the Renaissance was occurring. Change was happing all over Europe, and Luther's change just seemed to fit in at the right time.