(somber music)
(thunder booming)
- I cannot and I will not retract anything!
(dramatic music)
(murmuring)
- [Narrator] A brash young monk named Martin Luther
had just infuriated the most powerful leader in Europe,
Emperor Charles the Fifth
and Charles now wanted Luther dead.
(dramatic music)
Luther had no army to shield him.
Instead he had a different kind of protection,
popular support.
Thanks to the recent invention of the printing press
Luther's protest against the church
had transformed him into Europe's first celebrity.
- The very fact that we're still talking about it
500 years after the fact
says that Luther was on to something.
- [Narrator] Burning Luther's writings
would not stop the inevitable showdown
of the old against the new,
the medieval versus the modern.
- His notoriety made him a figure you couldn't just dismiss
or get rid of.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] Getting rid of Martin Luther
would now preoccupy the most powerful people on earth
for decades.
The stage was set
for one of the biggest battles of the millennium
featuring a boisterous media-savvy monk
against the emperor, the pope, even Henry the Eighth.
(ominous music)
The origin of the conflict
flowed from a deceptively simple question,
a riddle of sorts that Luther had wrestled with for years.
The question goes like this,
am I a good person?
(ominous music)
(melancholic music)
(cheering)
Even children understand the difference
between good and evil.
Regardless of age most every person
recognizes they have sometimes strayed away
from the good and toward the bad.
A natural response is to work a bit harder
in the hope that one's good deeds outweigh the bad.
(groaning)
(cheering)
It follows that if there is a heaven
most people assume they'll get in
because they believe they've been good enough
to earn whatever reward is out there.
Martin Luther did not.
(sinister music)
To him, being good enough for God made no sense at all.
(applauding)
Instead, his conscience would convict him
as an unworthy sinner.
- His conscience was still constantly troubling him
because he viewed Jesus as a judge,
not as a savior.
- What was his struggle?
His struggle was, in a way,
the same thing we all are going through,
how do I get God's love?
How do I get salvation?
How can I, a big, ugly, wretched sinner, be saved?
- [Narrator] For decades
Martin Luther felt his guilt so deeply
he couldn't imagine a way out.
In his mind, good deeds could never save him.
He fell into despair.
Then Luther found an opening,
an idea so unexpected, so revolutionary
it would upend the church and reframe history going forward.
(footsteps echoing)
(gentle music)
Daily life in 15th century Europe wasn't easy.
Half of all children would not live to see adulthood.
Disease was rampant, food often in short supply.
For the poorest and most desperate
there was no safety net
other than the occasional gift
from those with something to spare.
(gentle music)
(perky music)
(metal clanging)
Life was slightly better in the city of Mansfeld
thanks to a thriving copper industry
where a manager named Hans Luther was moving up the ranks.
Hans came to realize he'd need a solution
to the constant stream of legal arguments
that slowed his operation.
In the early 1490s he saw the answer in his son Martin,
grooming him for a university education
with an eye toward a career as a lawyer.
(shouting in foreign language)
- There were conflicts, frequent conflicts,
between the miners and the smelters
and I think Luther's father thought it would be helpful
to have a lawyer in the family
to help resolve some of those kinds of problems.
(birds chirping)
(melancholic music)
- [Narrator] By his early 20s
Martin Luther had fulfilled his father's expectations
to the letter earning bachelor's and master's degrees
in record time.
But as he began law school, something wasn't right.
- Father.
- [Narrator] Luther left school suddenly mid-term
and traveled home to meet with his father.
- That's just it, son.
- [Narrator] Hans' hope for a lawyer in the family
was about to be dashed.
- Who do you want to be?
- [Narrator] Martin wanted to please his father,
but his law courses seemed trivial.
- Please.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Answer my question.
- [Narrator] Especially in light
of Martin's deeper concerns,
fears that were about to reach a breaking point.
- Get out.
- Father.
(melancholic music)
(thunder booming)
- [Narrator] Like most people of the era,
Luther saw acts of nature as acts of God.
(rain falling)
For Luther the intensity of this storm
brought his conscience to the surface.
(melancholic music)
(thunder booming)
- And when the thunderstorm came and the lighting struck,
he was shocked into thinking
what am I going to do before God?
If that lighting bolt had hit him
I think he wondered what was going to happen to him.
(thunder booming)
- [Narrator] That night Luther made a promise.
If his life was spared, he would become a monk.
- [Luther] Man must first cry out that he sees no hope.
In this disturbance salvation begins.
When man believes himself to be utterly lost,
the light breaks.
(bouncy music)
- [Narrator] Within days
Luther arrived at an Augustinian monastery,
casting off law school
and all the expectations of his father.
(bouncy music)
Hans believed Martin was throwing his life way
plus a vow of celibacy meant no grandchildren.
(thudding)
The decision to become a monk
wasn't likely a spur of the moment choice.
(melancholic music)
Martin Luther's heart was already heavy,
fearful of an all powerful God
with impossibly high standards.
- That crushed him, that just crushed him.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
with all thy soul, with all thy mind,
and that just crushed him
because he could never satisfy a God like that.
If he could never keep the law perfectly,
which, of course, he couldn't,
and perfection is the minimum standard,
that's the minimum demand is perfection,
then God would always be angry with him.
(thudding) (deep breathing)
- [Narrator] Luther hoped
that punishing himself for his sins
would be pleasing to God.
He beat himself, fasted for days,
(melancholic music)
slept outside in the cold,
but the extreme austerity just didn't seem to be working.
Luther still felt the guilt of his sin.
- I was myself more than once
driven to the very abyss of despair
so that I wished I had never been created.
Love God?
I hated him!
- A monk that was driven, that was unable to sleep
because he's saying, "Am I doing everything
"that the church requires?
"Am I obeying all the rules of my religious orders,
the Augustinian?
"Have I said the right prayers?
"Uh-oh, I better do this or I'm going to hell."
- He tried and he tried.
And the more he tried,
the more frustrated he became.
So what he was looking at God as this angry God.
- He was still troubled by his conscience.
He was still troubled by the sin that was inside of him
and he never felt that he was good enough for God.
- His problem was that he didn't believe
any of what he was doing as a monk
was really helping him to escape God's judgment.
(chanting)
- [Narrator] Luther's supervisor and friend,
Johann von Staupitz,
understood that the church's rite of confession
was designed to bring relief to those burdened with guilt,
forgiveness for every kind of sin.
(chanting)
Luther confessed, but he found little reassurance.
While some monks
might make their confession in a few minutes,
Luther could go on and on for hours.
- It is not I.
It is not I!
- [Narrator] Fearful that even one un-confessed sin
might be his undoing.
- When Luther would be in the pangs of despair,
Staupitz is the one who would say,
"Luther, you need to learn to know God."
- We have accounts of him leaving the confessional
after several hours of pedantically cataloging
everything he'd done wrong
and then him going straight back in again
because he'd forgotten something.
One has to feel sorry, I think,
for the person he was confessing to.
It was a full time job.
(chanting)
- [Narrator] Despite his internal struggles,
Luther was a good student
and earned the respect of his peers.
- He was an incredibly hard worker.
Because of this, and because of his native intellect
and because of his passion,
he advanced in the monastic community very quickly.
(somber music) (chanting)
- [Narrator] After two years of preparation,
Luther was ordained,
celebrating his first mass in 1507.
(chanting)
For Martin, this was a moment of raw fear
as he felt the full weight of his unworthiness before God.
Once again, Luther's conscience was condemning him.
(melancholic music)
- Who am I that I should lift up mine eyes
or raise my hands to the divine majesty
and shall I, a miserable little pygmy,
say, "I want this, I ask for that,"
for I am dust and ashes and full of sin
and I am speaking to the living eternal
and the true God.
- [Narrator] As a priest,
Luther believed he had now reached his highest calling.
Luther's father wasn't so sure,
wondering if Martin's call to the monastery
came not from God, but from the devil.
(melancholic music)
Luther's friends in the monastery had no such worries.
Soon afterward they chose Luther to go as their emissary
on a journey,
the longest Luther would take in his entire life.
He walked 800 miles across The Alps to Rome.
(gentle music)
Rome was the seat of the Catholic church
and Luther expected a deeply reverent city
reflecting wise and pious leaders.
What he got instead was disillusionment.
No one in Rome seemed to take God very seriously.
The depravity here in the church's holy city
led Luther to wonder
if anything the church had told him was true.
- [Luther] Where God builds a church,
the devil puts a chapel.
- Of course, the brothels and the alcohol abuse
and the beggars.
- He's outraged by what he sees,
but so is everyone else.
- There was a lot of sort of open jesting,
almost mockery, about the church in Italy
that would not have been common in Germany.
- The problem was that once he was in Rome
and he started saying masses,
he realized that he was the one who was pious and devout
and the Italian priests were not.
They continued to urge him, "Go faster, go faster!"
And he wanted to take time
and to spend time in getting things right.
The Italian priests, ah, this was a business to them.
(footsteps echoing)
- [Narrator] After returning from Rome,
Luther's distress grew.
(melancholic music)
Staupitz long believed
the best way to relieve Luther's angst
was to keep the young monk busy.
He'd previously persuaded Luther
to earn a doctorate in theology.
- Staupitz also knew that Luther was the person
who had a mind for learning and theology.
He basically forced Luther into getting this doctorate.
Luther protested, did not want to do that.
- [Narrator] Now a new challenge.
Staupitz arranged a position for Luther
in the faculty of the new university in Wittenberg.
Luther's quest continued.
- He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
You at the back.
What does this mean?
No?
(melancholic music)
Anyone?
No?
- [Luther] If it had not been for Doctor Staupitz,
I should have sunk in hell.
Johann told me I should become a professor of theology
and a preacher.
I told him that would be the death of me.
He replied, "Oh, that's quite alright.
"God has plenty of work for clever men in heaven."
(melancholic music)
(gentle music)
(speaking in foreign language)
- [Narrator] The city of Wittenberg
was something of a backwater
and the university wasn't well known.
But that began to change in 1517
when a traveling friar named Johann Tetzel
set up his controversial fundraising scheme nearby.
Tetzel told the townsfolk
that the documents he was selling called indulgences
could erase the consequences of their sins.
The appeal was irresistible.
Many from Luther's church in Wittenberg
were taken in by Tetzel's claims.
- A practice that surely looks an awful lot of the time
like something like salvation for sale.
- Luther recognized right away
that the problem with indulgences
is that they were leading people to a false understanding
of what repentance was.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] Traditionally the medieval church
saw confession, not indulgences,
as the way to address humanity's moral problem.
Sins are unacceptable to God,
but confessing to a priest
could bring forgiveness and restoration.
Yet even those who confessed regularly
still expected many years in purgatory
before they could reach heaven
until Johann Tetzel's indulgences
offered to shortcut the process for money.
- What's this?
(speaking in foreign language)
This is extortion!
A scheme completely opposed to religion.
It's only intent is profit for unprincipled men.
- I think he saw a great dishonesty with it,
that you were fleecing people,
people who were already struggling.
(ominous music)
- [Narrator] The corruption was not just a local problem.
The tentacles stretched all the way back to Rome.
- One of the external reasons and contributing factors
to the success of the Protestant Reformation
everybody knows was namely the corruption at the time
of the Catholic church, which we can't deny.
- [Narrator] Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.
In 1517 it had not yet been built.
There were plans, but the work was stalled
because Pope Leo the Tenth didn't have the funds.
- He's engaged in trying to kind of update buildings
in the city of Rome itself
to transform it into a nicer place to live,
so he needs money.
- [Narrator] Funds were raised
through the sale of indulgences.
And no one sold them more aggressively than Johann Tetzel.
As an unabashed salesman, Tetzel was unmatched.
He'd tell peasants
their dead relative's were screaming in pain in purgatory
begging for relief which a simple coin could provide.
- Tetzel was a self promoter from start to finish.
I mean this guy was just a (laughing)
I mean, a fake, right, to the bottom.
- They would persuade poor peasants to give their last coins
to get mother out of purgatory, this sort of thing.
Luther had a perfect fit over this.
- He thought it was a sham,
that they were given the impression, at least,
that their sins were forgiven,
the slate was wiped clean, when, in fact,
nothing could have been farther from the truth.
They were spending their money for something that was false.
- [Narrator] From Luther's perspective
the sale of indulgences was leading people away from God.
- Before long all the churches, palaces,
walls, and bridges of Rome will be built out of our money!
Why doesn't the pope
build Saint Peter's out of his own money?
He is richer than Croesus.
He would do better to sell the basilica
and give the money to the poor people
who are being fleeced by these hawkers of indulgences.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] To address the problem
he invited an academic debate on the issue.
He began by writing 95 debate topics, or theses.
(somber music) (booming)
Then, in the most iconic moment of the era,
Luther nailed his 95 theses
to the church door in Wittenberg.
- Those who believe that through these letters of indulgence
they are made sure of their own salvation
will be eternally damned, along with their teachers.
- I think when Luther went to the door of the castle church
and nailed the theses on the door
nobody paid any attention.
- [Narrator] No one wanted to debate Luther.
(bouncy music)
The entire Reformation might have stalled right there
except for a new invention
that had recently arrived in Wittenberg,
a game changing technology called the printing press.
(bouncy music)
Before the printing press,
making books was an excruciating process.
Each word was painstakingly written out by hand.
It could take years to create just one copy of a book.
In the mid 1400s Johannes Gutenberg
perfected the movable type printing press,
a process that could turn out in seconds
what formally took months.
But the printers still had one problem, content.
They needed material that would go viral,
create controversy, and boost sales.
Nothing really caught on
until they found Martin Luther's 95 theses.
It was perfect.
Without Luther's knowledge
printers began churning out copies by the thousands.
- [Luther] It is a mystery to me
how my statements were spread to so many places.
They were meant for academic circles.
They were written in such a language
that the common people could hardly understand them.
- The printers are always looking for stuff
that's gonna sell.
Challenging indulgences and their validity,
that was a topic
that I think the printers thought would sell.
- They spread like wildfire.
10 days they're in Spain.
That's incredible.
- How shocked he was that everything he said
was suddenly out there.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] Although the 95 theses
were written for academics, not peasants,
one thing was clear to all,
the document denounced the sale of indulgences.
Luther had struck a nerve,
rousing dormant perceptions
that the pope had too much power
and wanted too much money from the German people.
- This is mine.
- Oh, really?
- Where did you get these?
- It's everywhere.
- [Narrator] At first Luther was unaware
his ideas were propagating.
- These have been printed.
- Yes.
- [Narrator] It soon became clear
he was something of a celebrity,
the author of an accidental bestseller,
a work that boldly proclaimed
the corruption on everyone's mind.
- It was this suspicion that the whole thing
was a kind of spiritual con.
It was a matter of Luther, as it were,
simply lighting the tinder that was already there
and the thing blew.
- He draws this picture and he says,
"I see them in Rome now drinking their fine Italian wines
"and laughing about the stupid beer drinking Germans
"whose tax money had paid for it all."
(melancholic music)
- [Narrator] When a copy of the 95 theses
reached Pope Leo the Tenth, he dismissed it
thinking Luther was a minor player
who posed little threat to the Catholic church.
It would rank among the biggest miscalculations
in church history.
- When Leo first heard of the 95 theses,
some say that he said, "Oh, this is just a drunken monk
"in Germany and he'll feel differently about it
"the next day."
(melancholic music)
- [Narrator] Despite the newfound attention,
Martin Luther had no desire to start a revolution in 1517.
He thought the 95 theses would help the Catholic church,
not divide it.
- It was never Luther's intent
to separate from the Roman Catholic church,
yet it's when his beliefs
and the truths that he was teaching
were rejected by the Catholic church,
that's when the split happened.
It wasn't by Luther's choice.
- Avoid those who search for your soul in a money bag.
- [Narrator] In his sermons and writings,
Luther continued to critique what he saw as fixable errors
in church practice.
- Suppose you say that I will never again buy an indulgence.
I reply, "Good!"
My will, desire, plea, and counsel
are that no one buy an indulgence.
Let the lazy and sleepy Christians buy indulgences.
You run from them.
Some now want to call me a heretic.
I consider such blathering no big deal,
especially since the only ones doing this
have darkened minds
and have never even smelled a Bible.
- [Narrator] Before long the heretic label began to stick.
(somber music)
Luther assumed
that when Tetzel's corrupt sale of indulgences
was brought to the pope's attention,
the church would take corrective action.
But unlike modern popes,
Leo wasn't overly concerned with the details of theology.
In this era, popes focused more on political matters.
- They're chosen
because they will be effective administrators
of a giant, wealthy, complicated institution.
They're chosen because people think, hm,
this person would be a really good CEO.
They are a CEO of the largest institution in Western Europe.
- [Narrator] A member of the powerful Medici family
of Florence, Leo enjoyed the luxury
the papal coffers could provide,
and Luther's opposition to the sale of indulgences
threatened the flow of money to the Vatican.
- When Luther posted his 95 theses,
it struck at Leo's money stream.
The indulgences were the stream of money
that came to Rome to finance all that Leo did.
When the 95 theses were posted,
that was one of the threats of those theses.
- [Narrator] Leo wanted Luther brought to Rome for trial.
But the extradition was blocked by Luther's powerful prince,
Frederick the Wise of Saxony,
who wanted to protect his star professor.
- If he had been sent to Rome,
we may have never heard of Luther again.
(chanting)
- [Narrator] Luther would now be questioned on German soil
in the city of Augsburg.
- Now I must die.
What a disgrace I will be to my parents.
- [Narrator] Luther's questioner was Cardinal Cajetan,
one of the most skilled theologians of the era.
- [Cajetan] Stand, minister.
- [Narrator] For Luther,
Cajetan had all the authority and power of the pope himself.
- He once described it as kind of the bad cop.
He's trying to break him.
Kind of bring the big man in,
bring the interrogator in,
and sort of break Luther if you can.
- [Narrator] But when Cajetan asked Luther
to retract his statements about indulgences,
Martin would not.
Cajetan produced the official papal pronouncements
that allowed for the sale of indulgences.
- Ah, yes.
You said that the merits of Christ are a treasure.
This says that he acquired a treasure.
To be and to acquire do not mean the same thing.
Do not think we Germans are ignorant of grammar.
- [Narrator] Luther then grounded his position
in an even more outrageous statement.
- His holiness abuses scripture.
I deny that he is above scripture.
- [Narrator] Cajetan was appalled
by Luther's blatant contempt for papal authority
and his rudeness.
- Cajetan is not a clear Christian thinker.
He is about as fit to deal with this situation
as a donkey is to play the harp.
- Take it back, recant.
No discussion, just you recant.
And Luther says, "Wait a minute, no."
That strikes us as being rude, perhaps,
but Luther is frustrated by the inability,
the seeming inability to get people to talk to him.
- [Narrator] Luther's friends
believed his scandalous statements put him in grave danger.
They persuaded him to escape the city,
slipping past the guards,
scurrying back to the relative safety of Wittenberg.
(bouncy music)
A more cautious man might have laid low,
but Luther did the opposite,
agreeing to a very public debate in the city of Leipzig.
The event captured the popular imagination
like a heavyweight prize fight.
Between rounds there was even a jester
to entertain the crowd.
(bouncy music)
Luther's opponent, Johann Eck, scored points as a debater
but his performance was not a crowd pleaser.
Many saw Eck as vain,
seeking only to enhance his reputation.
Luther, in contrast, knew exactly how to connect
with his listeners.
- I am being misunderstood by the people.
So let me be clear in my own language.
I simply assert that a simple laymen armed with scripture
is to be believed above a pope or a council without it.
(laughing)
- It's a sparring match.
The great debaters of the day
would have been akin
to the rock stars and movie stars of our day.
- As for the pope's decree on indulgences,
I say that neither the church nor the pope
can establish articles of faith.
These must come from scripture.
God once spoke through the mouth of a donkey.
(laughing)
I will tell you straight what I think.
(somber music)
I am a Christian theologian.
I want to believe freely
and be a slave to the authority of no one
whether council, university, or pope.
(shouting)
- [Narrator] One thing was clear,
Luther had rejected the pope and the church
as the ultimate source of authority.
Instead, he hangs everything on the Bible.
- At the time, Luther, I think, is sort of astounded
that he finds himself saying this,
but later on he actually gives Eck credit for, in a sense,
helping him to see the implications
of his own ideas more clearly.
- There were a number of issues
that Eck brought up in that debate
which Luther had not thought through.
And it forced him now
to begin to wrestle with some of the issues
that he was being attacked on.
(speaking in foreign language)
- [Narrator] Luther's rejection of the pope's authority
remains the central difference
between Protestants and Catholics to this day.
(gentle music)
Pope Leo wasn't happy about Luther's statements,
but he measured his response
hoping to stay on the good side
of Luther's prince and protector, Frederick the Wise.
Frederick had something Leo desperately wanted,
influence on the choice of the next emperor.
In the early 1500s Germany didn't exist as a nation.
The German people lived in a patchwork of separate fiefdoms,
free cities, and principalities.
These German states, and others,
were cobbled together to form a loose union
called the Holy Roman Empire
ruled by the aging emperor Maximilian.
His death in early 1519
triggered the election of a new emperor,
and just seven powerful men called electors had a vote.
Frederick was one of the seven.
Pope Leo, who had no vote,
none the less wanted to influence the outcome.
So rather than alienate Frederick,
the pope kept his hands off Luther for a time.
(gentle music)
(bright music)
As part of the arrangement,
Luther agreed to stay quiet.
He tried.
But when the opposition derided his ideas,
Luther went on a writing spree in 1520,
churning out some of the most significant works
of his career,
bestsellers that were the talk of Europe.
The first titled
To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation
laid out Luther's ideas for church reform
and addressed a particular injustice
that Luther found disturbing and un-Christian.
The Catholic church had long considered
priests, monks, and nuns as having a higher calling
than regular Christians.
To Luther, this was all wrong.
He saw the Bible leveling the playing field.
- [Luther] Priests, bishops, or popes
are not superior to other Christians.
A cobbler, a smith, a farmer,
each has the work of his trade,
like priests and bishops,
and everyone must benefit and serve every other.
- Your vocation, my vocation, everybody else's vocation
is the same in terms of acceptance to God.
I have a responsibility, then,
as a mother, a father, a laborer, a scholar,
to do my best for the society in which I live.
- Luther's views on this were radical.
They revolutionized a society.
- He often made the point
that somebody doing the simplest job,
whether it was a milkmaid or a farmer,
was serving God just as effectively and just as commendably
as a priest who was overseeing a worship service.
- He said the farmer out in the field pitching dung
is doing a greater work for God
than the monk in a monastery praying for his own salvation.
- Luther is the one who has said,
"It is the attitude with which you pursue your calling
"that makes it Godly and holy,
"not the calling itself."
- [Narrator] Luther's assertion
that in God's eyes peasants were on equal footing
with monks and priests was radical.
Soon commoners demanded more from their princes
and many monasteries emptied out,
their purpose no longer clear.
It was the kind of message the public was ready to hear
and Luther the writer knew just how to grab their attention.
(perky music)
The printers sold every copy of the treaties
they could print.
Luther's fame grew.
- No copyright laws,
so people would buy a copy
and then they'd reproduce it,
which was exactly what Luther wanted.
He did not receive any commissions or anything like that.
He just wanted to get the material into print.
- There's a freshness to Martin Luther's writings
that's unmistakable.
A very fun and interesting writer to read.
- That kind of social media savvy
was something that got Luther a great hearing
and became one of the most published men in Europe
at the time.
- [Narrator] In his other writings in 1520,
Luther attacked the supremacy of the pope
and challenged the Catholic view of the sacraments.
- In 1520 Luther didn't have an editor
and he didn't edit his own works, either.
He wrote as he thought, as he was working through a problem,
in response to an attack, in response to a question.
- He also had a great sense of humor
and didn't mind being provocative
and loved to argue and debate and trade barbs,
and sometimes at a level of coarseness
that would not be allowed in university discourse today,
arguing and debating with his Catholic opponents.
He was never dull.
You may have disagreed with him,
but he was never dull.
- [Narrator] Luther fueled the controversy
by using especially extreme language.
Moderation was nearly impossible for him.
He saw himself engaged in an epic struggle for souls,
a battle that called for strong words, not polite talk.
- [Luther] You are murderers, traitors, liars,
the very scum of all the most evil people on earth.
You are full of all the worst devils in hell,
so full that you can do nothing but vomit,
and out come devils.
- It was quite common
on all sides of the Reformation debates
to make personal attacks on your opponents
and to say absolutely awful things about them
and their mother and all sorts of other relatives.
- At times he does get a little carried away
and he does attack people personally.
He's sorry for that,
but in the heat of battle
you sometimes say things that maybe you later regret.
But he doesn't regret
what he's been saying about God's word.
- [Luther] I beg you,
blow your nose a bit
and make your head lighter and the brain clearer.
- He knew regular, ordinary people's life
and he retained a sort of charming earthiness,
some people would call it profane,
but I think that that just kept him hooked into real people
and real peoples' lives.
- [Narrator] By now,
Luther's understanding of the relationship
between God and people was coming into focus.
The central question Luther was answering
is one that nearly everyone asks.
What makes me a good person,
a righteous person in God's eyes?
- He went to the monastery
because he wanted to be good.
He wanted to match the requirements
that the Roman Catholic church thought he should match.
But he encountered in his own life
his inability to do what needed to be done to appease God.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] Luther had long been tortured
by his feelings of unworthiness,
tormented by the guilt of his failings
that even his devotion as a monk could not remove.
- The righteous will live by faith.
I had conceived a burning desire
to understand what Paul meant in his letter to the Romans.
But thus far there had stood in my way
that one phrase, the righteous will live by faith.
I thought righteousness was the grim wrath of God
with which He punished sin,
so I hated Saint Paul with all my heart.
I meditated night and day on those words
until at last, by the mercy of God,
I paid attention to their context.
The righteous person lives by faith alone!
(dramatic music)
All at once I felt I had been born again.
Immediately I saw the whole of scripture
in a different light.
(knocking)
I ran through the scriptures from memory
and found that other words had similar meanings,
the work of God, that is what God works in us,
the power of God by which He makes us powerful,
the wisdom of God by which He makes us wise,
the strength of God, the salvation of God,
the glory of God.
This sweetest phrase of Paul was now for me
the very gate of paradise itself.
- [Narrator] Luther's breakthrough,
triggered by a passage in the Bible's Book of Romans,
was his understanding that God's favor could not be earned,
even partially, by doing good deeds.
Instead, he saw righteousness as a gift
given by God to those with faith in Jesus.
- He began to understand that that righteousness
was not something that he could give God,
but that God gave to him because of Jesus,
because of what Jesus had done.
- What makes it possible
for us to have a relationship with God?
Not because I'm such a good person,
but because of all that Christ has done for me.
The emphasis on Christ doing this for me,
a poor miserable sinner.
- Grace simply means that when it comes to our salvation,
our relationship with God,
sinners who don't deserve anything from God
receive it from Him as a pure gift of His love, His grace.
It doesn't depend on anything in us, anything that we do.
It's entirely God's view toward us sinners.
- It was a change that took us away
from focusing on what we could do
to put us in good standing with God.
That change was monumental.
- Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection
has accomplished everything.
Your good works do not earn your salvation,
not in the least.
No.
Grace is a gift for you from God.
- [Narrator] To many hearers,
Luther's ideas sounded ridiculous, too good to be true.
It seemed more logical
that God would judge people by their deeds.
But Luther was frightened by that view of God
because he saw himself as a man who could not stop sinning.
- We are all sinful and we all need God's grace.
Now the problem is is that some of us don't realize
that we are all sinful and that we all need God's grace.
- [Narrator] Luther's ideas then faced an obvious follow up.
If God frees people
from the need to do good works to earn heaven,
then what should Christians do with that freedom?
Again, Luther saw the answer clearly.
- Here is the truly Christian life.
When a man applies himself with joy and love
to serving others voluntarily and for nothing,
doing only what is helpful, advantageous,
and wholesome for our neighbor,
since by faith
we already abound in all good things in Christ.
- The more you read Luther,
the more you begin to hear Luther say,
"Look, you now are living a life in this world
"on this earth and God has given you a rich field
"in which to be a useful person to your neighbor.
"And so I want you to serve your neighbor
"as you are now free to serve your neighbor
"and to love your neighbor."
- When you didn't have to worry about your future,
you were free to care for the futures of others.
- If you were caught all the time,
as Luther put it, turned in on yourself
and life is just about you and what you and all that,
what a pitiful life
when you don't have the eyes to see others
whom you could love.
- Now you can live who you really are, a loving person,
to love your neighbor.
- My concern is to do what's best for my neighbor,
what's best for the people I know,
what's best for my society,
what's best for the whole world.
- Your neighbor's need became the measure of what you did
rather than some eternal calculus
that said you've gotta do so many good works
in order to get in good with God.
- You are free.
(laughing)
Well, that's a lot of fun.
It's about as counter cultural as it gets.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] Back in Rome,
Pope Leo was not overly concerned
about Luther's view of freedom or salvation,
but he was increasingly annoyed
at Luther's questioning of church authority.
- To a large extent,
the Catholic church doesn't wanna dispute about doctrine.
As far as they're concerned, doctrine, it's not an issue.
The issue is how to control one and another
of a long line of medieval heresies.
- [Luther] In all good things in Christ.
- [Narrator] Leo tried controlling Luther
by issuing a papal bull,
a formal document that required Luther
to disavow his writings.
(speaking in foreign language)
(chattering)
- Please.
Please.
(dramatic music)
(shouting in foreign language)
The time for silence is over.
The time to speak has come.
(shouting)
- [Narrator] The delivery of the papal bull
stirred up unrest among Luther's supporters.
Luther himself took his boldest step yet,
burning the bull.
- It is better that I should die a thousand times
than I should retract one syllable
of the condemned articles.
And as they excommunicated me for the sacrilege of heresy,
so I excommunicate them
in the name of the sacred truth of God.
Christ will judge whose excommunication will stand.
Amen.
- [Narrator] There was no turning back now.
Yet Luther's outward daring belied a conscience
that was not always so confident.
- [Luther] Do I really think that I know everything?
What if I'm wrong?
I will be destroying 2,000 years of the work of the church
and betraying millions of people to damnation and hell.
- That challenge drove him
to go back and rethink,
to deal with his doubts, and to find certainty.
And Luther found that certainty in the scriptures.
That's what he did.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] When he heard that Luther had burned the bull,
an incensed Pope Leo renewed his demand
that Luther appear in Rome for a hearing.
Luther's luck seemed to have run out
until his supporters arranged for one last option,
an appeal to the most powerful man in the Western world,
the emperor.
(somber music)
When Emperor Maximilian died in 1519
his grandson Charles was elected to replace him.
He was only 19 years old.
- He was raised to be a king,
but he was still 19 years old.
- [Narrator] Charles was now in charge
of a collection of semi-autonomous territories and states
which all wanted their say.
- He was very, very frustrated
and he has people opposing him on every side.
It's just constant conflict.
This is the life of a Habsburg emperor in the 16th century.
It's not a good time to be emperor of anything.
(ominous music)
- [Narrator] The needs of the German people
were not important to Charles,
but he did want to keep his empire united
and he believed the key to cohesion was a unified religion.
A policy that made Martin Luther
an unwelcome thorn in his side.
But Charles had to tread lightly.
Public support for Luther was enormous.
So in an attempt to appear fair-minded,
Charles agreed to a formal hearing on German soil
in the city of Worms in 1521.
- Because people knew that Luther was going to be there,
he was a media star by this point,
and so lots of people came.
- People crowded around him.
They treated him as a saint.
They cheered.
They were all excited about Luther's arrival in Worms.
- [Narrator] Anticipation ran high for this showdown
between the powerful emperor and the lowly but popular monk.
- When he finally got to the gates of Worms,
the crowd went wild.
- Tell your master
that if there were as many devils at Worms
as tiles on its roofs I would enter.
I will have a debate!
I must.
(ominous music)
(somber music)
- [Narrator] As he approached the hearing,
the gravity of the situation began to sink in.
(banging)
Many assumed Luther would be burned at the stake
before the day was over.
- Burning at the stake,
it's terror violence exercised by the state
in order to maintain social control.
It's very powerful, very disturbing.
- [Narrator] In the center of the room
was a collection of books written by Luther.
He was asked to disavow all his writings,
to publicly retract his statements,
and so spare himself.
(banging)
- [Man] Silencio!
(somber music)
(speaking in foreign language)
- This touches God and His word.
This affects the salvation of souls.
Of this Christ said, "He who denies me before men,
"him will I deny before my father."
To say too little or too much would be dangerous.
I beg you, give me time to think it over.
(booing)
- There is a little fear and trepidation there
because Luther recognizes that these are all people
that could snuff his life out.
- This might be it for him.
So, yeah, he's very nervous about what might happen here.
- Everybody else pretty much understood
that Luther was either to recant or die.
- [Narrator] Luther was granted the night to think it over.
- How dreadful is the world.
Behold how its mouth opens to swallow me up,
and how small is my faith in You.
God help me against the wisdom of this world.
My God.
My God, do you not hear me?
Where are You?
My soul belongs to You.
God.
Help me.
(somber music)
(ominous music)
- [Narrator] The next day,
Martin Luther would face the emperor Charles the Fifth
one last time.
(banging)
- [Man] Silencio!
- I ask that your most serene majesty
and your lordships
may deign to note
that my books are not all of the same kind.
There are some in which I have discussed religious faith
and morals simply
so that even my enemies themselves
are compelled to admit that these are useful.
Even the bull, although harsh and cruel,
admits that some of my books are inoffensive.
Allowing them to be condemned is utterly monstrous.
Thus, if I should begin to disavow them,
I ask you, what would I be doing?
Would not I alone of all men
be condemning the very truth
upon which friends and enemies equally agree?
I have written another book
against some distinguished individuals,
those, namely, who strive to preserve the Roman tyranny.
I do not set myself up as a saint.
Therefore, your most serene majesty,
expose my errors,
overthrow them by the writings of the prophets
and the evangelists.
If I am shown my errors,
I will be the first to throw my books on the fire.
- [Narrator] Luther was still deflecting the question,
frustrating his questioner
who finally asked Luther for a simple straight answer.
(shouting in foreign language) (suspenseful music)
- Since you desire a simple reply
I will answer without horns and without teeth.
I do not accept the authority of popes and councils,
for they have contradicted each other.
Unless I am convinced by scripture or clear reason,
my conscience is captive to the word of God.
I cannot and I will not retract anything
since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.
(suspenseful music)
May God help me.
Amen.
(shouting)
- He had a chance to save his neck,
but after he had a chance to test his own commitment
and is it what I really believe in,
he was willing to die for it
and he never changed from that.
- Just the meeting just blew up at him.
Late afternoon, April, dark,
torches providing the only light, and bang.
- He does take his stand,
not a stand because he's so strong,
but he takes a stand on God's word.
He cannot recant because God's word
won't let him go back on what he has been saying.
(melancholic music)
- [Narrator] The cheering crowds at Worms
gave Luther a few moments of seeming freedom,
but he was about to become the most wanted man in Europe.
Charles signed a decree condemning Luther,
ordering that he receive punishment for high treason.
Charles realized it would not be politically wise
to arrest Luther in the midst of the adoring crowds,
so he honored a previous agreement
to give Luther safe passage,
a few precious days of furlough
before the sentence would be enforced.
(bouncy music)
Luther took the opportunity to head for home
but he never made it.
(ominous music)
(dramatic music)
(galloping)
Martin Luther was dead.
That's what most Germans assumed
when they heard about the kidnapping.
But the event was an elaborate rouse
staged by Frederick the Wise
to ensure Luther's safety.
(gentle music)
(lively music)
Luther's hideout was a secret room at Wartburg Castle.
He grew a beard as a disguise.
His codename Knight George.
- He even signed some of his letters,
not with his real name, but with another name
and to try and keep people kind of off balance
so they couldn't find him.
- [Narrator] Martin Luther disliked the isolation
of the castle, but it didn't slow down his work.
Here he embarked
on one of the most significant projects of his life,
translating the New Testament
into the language of the people.
Luther finished the translation in just 11 weeks.
- [Luther] So many people are anxious
to have the Bible in German.
I wish this book could be in every language
and dwell in the hearts and minds of all.
- [Narrator] If, as Luther believed,
the Bible is the ultimate source of knowledge,
then everyone should be able to read it.
- He was a master at the German language
and so he tried to write for the common person,
the common German peasant.
- He translated the Bible into German.
He said so every plowboy could read God's word.
- Joseph is speaking to Mary
in the most beautiful German you could possibly imagine.
(laughing)
- This is a dramatic shift that takes place
at this particular time.
A shift that reverberates down into our own world.
We pick up Bibles,
you can go into any book store and get 'em.
It was different back in those days.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] The translation was an immense success
that would unite the German tongue for the next 500 years.
- [Luther] To translate,
we must listen to the mother in the home,
the children on the street,
the common man in the marketplace.
We must be guided by their language,
the way they speak,
and do our translating accordingly.
I sometimes searched and inquired about a single word
for three or four weeks.
If anyone does not like my translations,
well, they can ignore them.
- Luther's translation, really more than anything else,
unified the various German idioms
or branches of German that were out there
into a unified German language that we know it today.
(bouncy music)
- [Narrator] Luther never received any money
from the printers who published his Bible,
or any of his bestselling works.
Even a small royalty would have made him rich
given that he wrote nearly a quarter
of all the books sold in Europe.
(bouncy music)
But Luther wasn't worried about any loss of income
because he quickly grasped the power of the press
to spread ideas and that's what mattered to him.
- The interesting thing is how quickly Luther said,
"I can get my ideas across
"if I just make friends with the printers."
- He paid great attention
to what fonts the printers would use.
He was very careful to make sure
that his books looked as beautiful as he wanted them to look
in order to have an impact.
- When you think of Martin Luther,
you can't just think of him as a church reformer.
He was also the first living bestselling author.
- He brings these theological, biblical,
sometimes abstract things down to earth.
It's almost like he transport himself
right there in those biblical texts
and he takes the reader with him.
- [Narrator] Luther's exile at Wartburg Castle
went on for months.
(lively music)
He began to hear stories
of how the movement he started was veering off course badly.
(glass shattering) (shouting)
In Wittenberg, anti-Catholic mobs
were smashing church windows and destroying art.
So called prophets were proclaiming they had knowledge
superseding the Bible.
- I think it pained Luther
to see that people that he loved and trusted.
while he was gone his tempering influence was removed,
like the control rods were pulled out of the reactor.
- There's a lot of confusion
about what this Reformation is really about
to the point where Luther feels compelled to return
to try to calm everybody down.
- [Narrator] To quell the unrest,
in March of 1522 Luther ended his exile
and returned to Wittenberg.
- We are the children of wrath,
and all our works, intentions, and thoughts
are nothing at all.
God has sent us His only begotten son
that we may believe in Him
and that whoever trusts in Him shall be free from sin
and a child of God.
We must do to one another
as God has done to us through faith.
For without love, faith is nothing.
(somber music)
And here, dear friends,
have you not grievously failed?
I see no signs of love among you.
- [Narrator] He preached civility, patience,
and non violence.
Order returned for a time.
- He came back to Wittenberg
and then started that series of sermons
where he said, "Look, we do not force people
"to believe what we believe
"and we do not inflict harm on other people
"because they believe differently."
- By the time that that series of sermons is done,
everything has been calmed down.
Instead of a revolution,
we're back to reformation in the church.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] In early 1523
Martin Luther received a secret letter
from nine nuns hoping to escape their convent.
In most German territories this would be simple.
But these nuns lived in the staunchly Catholic land
of Duke George.
Anyone who helped them leave faced a penalty of death.
Luther devised a covert operation.
A local merchant would bring the normal delivery
of pickled herring to the nuns' cloister,
but when he left, the empty wagon wouldn't be empty at all.
The plan worked perfectly
but then Luther had a new problem,
what to do with a wagon load of young women
who had no means of support.
In time, he would find suitable homes or husbands
for all but one.
The holdout, Katharina von Bora,
didn't like the arrangements Luther would make for her,
eventually rejecting several marriage proposals.
But she was willing to marry Luther.
By this point, Luther was 41 years old
and getting pressured by his friends to find a wife.
- Luther's friends kind of say,
"Well, how about her?"
And so he thinks, hm, well, okay.
And they convince him that she would be a good person
to become his wife.
- Luther had a number of other possible matches for Kate
and she refused them.
Finally in frustration he has Amsdorf go and ask her,
he's not brave enough to do it himself,
has Amsdorf go and ask her, "Well, who would you marry?"
And she says, "Well, either you Doctor Nikolaus,
"or Doctor Luther."
(chanting)
- [Narrator] Martin finally agreed to marry Katharina.
Although it wasn't because of any romantic feelings,
at least not at first.
Luther explained that the reason he married
was to please his father and to spite the pope.
Over time, Martin came to love Katie dearly.
She was intelligent, resourceful,
and savvy with finances in ways that Martin was not.
- We remember her as Katharina von Bora
and not Mrs Martin Luther for a reason.
She stood on her own.
She didn't belong to anybody.
- To be married to somebody
as rough and bold a Luther could be,
she had to kind of match him.
- [Narrator] Katie managed orchards, brewed beer,
slaughtered pigs, and gave birth to six children.
(gentle music)
At any given time the Luther home,
a former monastery, housed more than a dozen guests.
Katie managed it all skillfully.
- He would sort of turn to her and say,
"Well, by the way, sweetie,
"we're gonna have 40 extra folks for dinner.
"Find something for them to eat."
- She brewed beer,
she had a garden,
she kept the finances.
Luther was free with money.
He would give money away.
He was very generous.
Katharina understood that you couldn't do that
without inflicting some harm and hardship
on your own family.
So she tried to curtail some of that.
(gentle music)
(chuckling)
- Think of all squabbles Adam and Eve must have had
in the course of their 900 years.
Eve would say, "You ate the apple."
And Adam would retort, "You gave it to me."
Thank you.
- It's impossible to keep peace between husband and wife
if they do not overlook each other's faults.
I wouldn't give up my Katie for France or for Venice.
- [Narrator] In an era when it was illegal
for a man to will his estate to his wife,
Luther did it anyway.
So great was his respect for Katharina.
- Luther talks in glowing terms about marriage,
about his wife, Kate, about his children.
You see another side of Luther in the family
that you probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.
- [Narrator] It had been many centuries
since any clergy in the Western church
had a wife and children.
The Catholic hierarchy
had long declared chastity superior to sexuality.
But Luther championed sex within marriage
as a gift from God.
His family life was a daily expression
of his belief that spouses and children are a blessing.
A school for character that far surpassed the celibate life.
(somber music)
In 1527, Luther fell ill.
Sickness was no stranger.
In the past he'd suffered debilitating kidney stones,
gout, insomnia, dizziness, and ringing in his ears.
But the most challenging of all hit hard this year,
a recurrence of his deep bouts of depression.
At times he would lock himself in his room for days.
- There's a specific word that he basically coined,
it's infektion, that is an attack.
Some people translate it as anxiety or something like that.
It is spiritual attack.
- Luther was depressed for a long period of time
and he just couldn't get out of this depression.
- [Narrator] In this, his most severe attack,
Luther felt utterly abandoned, full of doubt,
alone in the universe,
as if God had died.
(somber music)
By late summer 1527 it might have seemed like God had died
as grotesquely masked plague doctors
arrived in Wittenberg
to try and stop an outbreak of the plague.
The needs of others were enough
to finally break Luther's malaise
and he began to minister to the sick and console the dying.
Many evacuated the city, but Martin and Katie stayed,
even though Katie was several months pregnant.
Her child, Elisabeth, would die a few months after birth.
- Suffering, which was such a thing to fear
and to be avoided in Christian spirituality,
now, for Luther, became an opportunity to love the neighbor.
Luther's advice during the hard times
is to reinterpret those hard moments
as occasions for beauty and occasions for love.
- [Narrator] In these most dire times
of death and abandonment,
Luther wrote his most powerful hymn, A Mighty Fortress.
♪ He helps us free from every need
♪ That hath us now overtaken
♪ The old evil foe
♪ Now means deadly woe
♪ Deep guile and great might
♪ Are his dread arms in fight
♪ On earth is not his equal
- [Narrator] The title might suggest a hymn about battle,
but for Luther A Mighty Fortress
was about comfort and hope in times of trial.
(gentle music)
- I think, to a degree,
it's somewhat biographical of Luther
when you think of all that he had gone through,
what is it like to be excommunicated by your church,
what is it like to be banned by your emperor,
to be truly a man on the run,
a man living underneath the death penalty,
where does a man go for fortress and refuge
at a time like that?
At the end of the day there is only one
and that's the Lord who is our mighty fortress.
- [Narrator] Luther restructured worship gatherings
to include more music,
lively songs sung by the congregation.
- They could sing while they were plowing the fields
or making shoes,
and those hymns then did sink deeply
into the religious consciousness of people across Germany.
- Music wasn't so much
about setting a proper mood for worship
as it was about delivering the message.
I've often thought that Luther's music
is really about what God reveals to us in Christ.
It proclaims the good news of Jesus to us.
It puts the good news of Jesus
in the mouths of God's people.
- [Narrator] Incorporating more hymns
was just one part of Luther's larger strategy
to revitalize the church service or mass.
He advocated the mass be conducted in German
as well as Latin
so that the common people could understand it.
And Luther placed new emphasis on the sermon
as a method of teaching lay people,
who had much to learn.
- Sermons were not a regular part
of medieval Catholic worship.
So Luther's going to make that a very important part
because people need to hear the word,
they need to know what the word means
to them as individuals.
- Now he's the leader of a reform movement
that has to figure out a way
to really make itself a real thing, a real force,
and not then to simply hand the Bible to every person
and say, "Make of it what you will."
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] Luther's plan to reform local congregations
faced a major setback in 1528
when he visited nearby churches
and learned just how poorly trained the priests were.
Some didn't even have a Bible.
- [Luther] How do you do?
(speaking in foreign language)
Please, tell me how have church attendances been?
How many pastors are all together incompetent
and live like dumb brutes and irrational hocks?
The common people have no knowledge whatsoever
of Christian doctrine and yet now that the gospel has come
they have nicely learned to abuse it like experts.
Good God, man.
(speaking in foreign language)
Have you done anything to rectify church attendances?
(speaking in foreign language)
Please, may I see inside?
- I think Luther initially is a bit naive
in how things are going to play out.
But he realized after they went around
and visited these churches
is that nobody really knew anything
about the Christian church
or the things that they knew were just strange and odd,
including the priests and the pastors were uneducated.
- He says, "Ah, God, what misery we beheld.
"The common people know almost nothing of Christ.
"Some pastors don't even have Bible."
- Luther says that many of the priests
didn't know the 10 Commandments,
didn't know the Apostles' Creed
or the Lord's Prayer if you can imagine that.
- For God so loved the world He gave His only son.
- [Narrator] Luther thought parents
should teach their children about the 10 Commandments,
the Lord's Prayer, and other fundamentals of the faith.
With his own children,
he often turned teaching into a game.
- [Luther] Yes.
- [Narrator] A coin in the correct sleeve
meant a reward for the right answer.
- Who's next?
By far the most important of all
is namely the command of God
who urges parents so often to instruct their children.
Faith or love?
Indeed, for what purpose do we old folks exist
other than to care for, instruct,
and bring up the young?
I have a little something for you.
Ta-da!
- He himself was so capable
that he could indeed communicate at the lowest level
to children.
Or he could communicate at the highest level
to the greatest of theologians.
- [Narrator] Part of Luther's response
was to create an educational tool,
a basic textbook of the faith called a catechism.
- His Small Catechism is very parallel
to what Luther was going for
in the revisions of the service.
Simple in common words that spoke to everyday people,
pure and apt speech that was easily learned,
easily memorized, wonderful summaries of God's truth.
(bouncy music)
- [Narrator] Long before comic books,
Luther understood the power of images
to communicate to young people.
His catechism was richly illustrated
with explanatory woodcuts.
Luther tapped artist Lucas Cranach
to illustrate the catechism
and many of Luther's other works.
New inexpensive printing methods
meant that for the first time in history
storytelling images could be widely disseminated
as a new kind of educational tool,
a tool Luther embraced.
- For example, the very first version
of Luther's Small Catechism published in 1529
was actually published on large sheets of paper
and these were really kind of designed as posters.
You could pin 'em up on a wall
and people could come by and see the pictures
and see the message that's conveyed there in the text.
- [Narrator] In more and more homes across Germany
the sheets of the catechism hung side by side
with images of Luther.
- Luther's picture hung in people's houses
because they loved him
and they thought that he was doing something great
and good for them
and they had a passion to see,
even if they didn't understand the theology,
they thought that he was helping
take down the corruption of the church
and that was a very, very attractive thing.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] By late 1529
Luther's reforms had spread
to nearly two dozen German territories,
now labeled with the new term Protestant.
Despite growing popular support for Luther's ideas,
the Protestants faced a renewed military threat
from the emperor.
(somber music)
To strengthen their position,
a meeting of Protestant leaders
was held in the city of Marburg.
The plan was to iron out theological differences
and build solidarity.
But if the goal was mutual agreement,
Martin Luther should have stayed home.
Nothing in his personality
would suggest an ability to compromise
on matters of theology,
especially with his Swiss counterpart, Huldrych Zwingli.
The sharpest difference between Zwingli and Luther
centered on the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
Zwingli saw the bread and wine
as a symbol of Jesus' body and blood.
Luther believed the body and blood were actually present
in a mysterious but very real way.
As the meeting wore on,
Luther wrote the relevant scripture in chalk
and covered it up.
Then he lifted the tablecloth
and revealed what he'd written.
- This is my body.
Here is our scriptural proof.
You have not yet moved us.
- He was adamant about holding on to what God said,
what the scripture said,
because it was Christ's last will and testament
when He said, "This is my body," that's what it was.
- [Narrator] To Zwingli, this was another example
of Luther's condescending attitude.
To Luther, it was an illustration
of how he would never retreat
from what he believed to be a clear teaching of the Bible.
- These are the words of my Lord Jesus Christ.
Hoc est corpus meum.
So I must believe the body of Christ is there.
- Ultimately what Luther was saying
is that I may not understand this,
I don't pretend to understand it all,
but this is what God says
and I'm not gonna play with what God says.
- Luther says, "When I run into something
"that doesn't correspond with my reason,
"I doff my doctor's cap
"and assume that the Holy Ghost
"is a little bit smarter than Doctor Luther."
- I think he thought Zwingli was a rank skeptic
when it really came down to it.
Not really a real believer.
- [Narrator] As a result
there would be no grand alliance of the Protestants
against the emperor.
Luther didn't care at all.
His concerns were theological, not political.
- I pray God you come to the right understanding.
(somber music)
- That's a tradition dividing disagreement.
When they disagree at Marburg in 1529
it's the fountainhead of the still existing distinction
between Reformed and Lutheran Protestantism.
- It is the point at which the Lutheran tradition
and the Reform tradition diverged.
Today we have Lutheran churches
and we have Reformed churches
and they are separate entities.
That separation finds its historical origin
in the failure to reach agreement on half a point
at the Colloquy of Marburg in 1529.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] By 1530, Emperor Charles the Fifth
had a break in his many wars
and once again returned to the matter
of the territories aligned with Luther,
summoning leaders to Augsburg,
promising to weigh their opinions.
Luther couldn't attend because he was still an outlaw,
a condemned heretic in the eyes of the Catholic church.
He got as close as safety would allow,
the castle at Coburg 120 miles away.
The event stretched on for months,
frustrating Luther as he sat on the sidelines
waiting for updates.
- He was frustrated, he was impatient,
he was impatient with the communications back and forth,
he was impatient that he didn't get regular letters,
the letters he expected to get from them.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] In Augsburg,
the Protestants submitted to Charles
a statement of their faith called the Augsburg Confession.
In effect they were asking Charles
to accept their terms to reunite the Christian world.
- The Augsburg Confession has been identified
as a Lutheran confession,
and it was given by Lutherans at Augsburg.
But it confesses universal truths
that every Christian can understand and appreciate.
- [Narrator] Back at Coburg Castle,
Luther's frustration turned to grief
when he received a letter
announcing the death of his father.
- [Luther] My beloved father departed this life
at one o'clock on Sunday.
(mournful music)
This death has cast me into deep mourning.
Although it is consoling to me
that he fell asleep softly
and strong in his faith in Christ.
Yet his kindness and the memory of his pleasant conversation
have caused a deep wound in my heart.
(mournful music)
- [Narrator] Charles rejected the Protestants
and gave them an ultimatum.
Return to the Catholic church or face a military invasion.
Charles' move backfired badly.
His threat solidified the Protestants
and led to preparations for war.
(melancholic music)
Despite the saber rattling
no one really wanted war in the early 1530s.
The Protestant princes could not match the Emperor's army
and Charles the Fifth now had a new preoccupation,
the fate of his aunt, Catherine of Aragon,
who was the first wife of Henry the Eighth.
Henry wanted an annulment of his marriage to Catherine
so he could marry Anne Boleyn,
but the pope would not allow it.
More precisely, it was Catherine's nephew,
Emperor Charles the Fifth,
who was pulling the strings,
pressuring the pope
because he wanted to keep the English throne in his family.
Back in Germany,
churches that aligned with Luther's teachings
began to call themselves Lutherans,
a name Martin Luther himself detested at first.
- The first thing I ask
is that people should not make use of my name.
They should not call themselves Lutherans,
but Christians.
For what, or who, is this Luther?
The teaching is not mine.
Nor was I crucified for anyone.
How did I, poor, stinking bag of maggots that I am,
come to the point
where people called the children of Christ by my evil name?
I am no ones master, nor do I wish to be.
I simply want to share with all men
the one common teaching of Christ
who alone is our Lord.
But by the 1530s, the movement and the name
had become entrenched, bigger than the man himself.
- You run from them.
- All of a sudden you're a Lutheran,
now you're associated with somebody's name.
That's why it's imperative that we as Lutherans
understand who Luther was
and what Luther was doing
and what his intentions were.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] Martin Luther didn't age well.
Now in his late 50s, his body seemed decades older
as illness after illness took their toll.
(somber music)
Luther hoped to hand the reigns to his right-hand man,
the brilliant Philipp Melanchthon.
But in the summer of 1540
Melanchthon suddenly fell ill and seemed near death.
Luther visited, offering a prayer for his old friend.
- Lord.
I know that You are our God and Father.
If You do not heal him,
the result will be disaster for us.
The entire situation is Yours.
It cannot be Your will
for this man to die in his despondent condition.
- He's blunt, he's bold,
and he doesn't hesitate to talk back to God.
- He starts in
and he prays just as urgently and compellingly.
"You sent this man to help us
"and now he's sick with grief.
"You better make him well!"
He's not petitioning, he's demanding.
- [Narrator] Melanchthon recovered,
lifting Luther's spirits.
But not long after,
Luther faced the most devastating emotional blow
of his entire life when his 13-year-old daughter,
Magdalena, fell ill.
- When you love a child and something breaks.
You could just see the raggedness of his heart.
- [Narrator] Raising children taught Luther about patience,
love, and now grief.
Magdalena would die with her father at her side.
(mournful music)
- [Luther] I love her very much.
But dear God, if it be Your will to take her,
I submit to You.
I pray God that I and all of us
may have such a death, nay, such a life.
This is my one petition to the Father
of all consolation and mercy.
We have all lost in her the most dearest of friends.
Her bright presence,
her eye so full of trust,
all drew forth our love,
especially as we knew
that she shared both our joys and sorrows
as if they had been her own.
She is our precursor into the regions beyond
where we shall all be gathered
on our dismissal from this vale of tears
and this corrupt world.
Amen.
- And that event, then,
if you read letters that came afterwards
when he is comforting people who lost loved ones
or children or wives,
he again and again brings up,
"I know what you're going through.
"I still think about my Magdalena.
"I still think and miss her."
- Like every parent,
he felt that rage at what you cannot control
and having to submit and endure.
But it also forced him
to really to see how important the gospel was
that he would see his beloved again
thanks to the resurrection of Jesus.
- Please.
Please.
We are all beggars before God, this is true.
For it is in the gospel
that the righteousness of God is revealed.
The righteousness that is by faith from first to last
just as it is written.
The righteous will live by faith alone.
(somber music)
(weeping)
- [Narrator] On February the 18th, 1546
Martin Luther affirmed his beliefs one last time
before passing away.
- So that he could find the faith to say at the end,
"Don't you believe all of these things?"
"Yes, I do."
- [Narrator] With Luther dead,
Charles the Fifth
finally carried out his longstanding threat
to send armies into territories loyal to the Reformation.
(crying)
His troops marched on Wittenberg
and destroyed the farm Luther had left to his wife.
(melancholic music)
Charles' military victory belied his eventual failure
to reunite the empire under a single unified religion.
Once he came to realize
that not even his army could stop the Protestant tide,
Charles resigned as emperor
and lived out his last days as a monk in quiet solitude.
(bouncy music)
No Protestant church
subscribes to everything Luther wrote and said,
but his ideas have left an indelible mark
on the lives of nearly one billion Protestants today.
- One of the most important things Luther did
was to shift attention back to Christ
and what Christ did.
If you have doubts about your status before God,
don't look at yourself.
Look to Christ and that shift is a fundamental shift
and a critical shift for every human being.
- The main point of the Reformation
is that God showed the sinner
that righteousness, this right standing before God,
is not something that you earn,
it's not a condition that God demands you meet,
but righteousness is the gift that God gives us
because of what Jesus did on the cross for the sinner.
- He was a biblical theologian
and then we have to understand
that we also have to be biblical theologians,
not just the trained pastors,
but everybody has to be a biblical theologian,
and we can be.
That means study the scripture.
- [Narrator] Luther's lasting influence
extends far beyond even the church.
He unleashed new ways of thinking
that continued to profoundly shape the secular world.
For example, as a vocal advocate
for the education of children,
Luther helped pave the way
for the now ubiquitous public school system.
- He saw that teaching people to read,
teaching people to write, was good for society.
- Luther was concerned
about educating, in particular, the youth
because he recognized
that they were the future of the church.
He runs into a bit of a problem
because the people are more interested
in what kind of a job are my kids going to have,
how much money will they be able to make?
Materialism is not a 21st century phenomenon.
- He was always irritated
with people who ran a business
and decided that they were gonna take little Wolfgang
right out of school
and making him work at the jewelry store.
- Faith or love?
- [Narrator] Luther included the need to educate women
at a time when no other prominent figures
thought that worthwhile.
- Within the 16th century context,
to advocate that all girls should receive a basic education
was revolutionary.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] Luther likely
would not have supported the American Revolution,
but he inadvertently set in motion cultural changes
that led to democracy in America and Europe.
- He lets the genie out of the bottle in some ways
on issues that will ultimately bear fruit
in notions of democracy.
- You cannot even, I think, see the democratic revolutions
of the 18th century
without taking into account
Martin Luther's contribution to it.
- In Medieval times,
there was really very little distinction
between the government and the church.
Both were kind of immeshed
in a joint super vision of society.
I think Luther was probably the first
to really clearly delineate the fact
that these two entities, both established by God,
have different roles.
- We're members, we're citizens of two kingdoms,
the eternal kingdom of the church,
which is concerned with my soul,
which is concerned with my life of faith,
and the kingdom of the world
in which I am a citizen of this country,
that country, this town, that town, so on.
I have duties in both kingdoms.
- He did not see those as competing with one another.
They each had a sphere.
While you would seem to have to pick or the other,
Luther embraced both
and he wanted people
to be great citizens of their particular region
and he he also wanted them to be awesome citizens
and subjects of king Jesus.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] Luther laid the groundwork
for Western democracy in one other important way.
He was the first to prove the power of the media
to amplify the marketplace of ideas
and to serve as a check on government.
- Luther is sort of a media rock star.
He recognizes what the technology can do
and he's going to use that technology to the fullest.
- He's able to communicate to people
in a way that not only that they'll listen to,
but will move them to action.
I think that's really a gift.
- [Narrator] Despite his impact,
Martin Luther wanted very little to do
with politics or secular life.
Luther's focus always was the quest
for the right relationship between God and people
and how to show love for others in need.
- I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's word.
Otherwise I did nothing.
While I drank beer with my friends,
the words so greatly weakened the papacy
that no prince or emperor
ever inflicted such losses upon it.
But I?
I did nothing.
The word did everything.
- He speaks to the very basic universal hunger we have
to find our ground of being
and to find an orientation
that helps us to explain why am I here, where am I going,
and that all that has an impact
on how we actually live in this world.
- [Narrator] The millions of words Luther wrote,
taught, and preached all boil down to one idea,
the breakthrough and understanding that changed his life
summarized in just two words, God forgives.
And a forgiven person wants to help others.
These were the words
young Martin Luther desperately needed to hear,
the idea he most wanted to tell others.
500 years later he still is.
(somber music)
(bell ringing)
(lively music)
♪ A mighty fortress is our God
♪ A trusty shield and weapon
♪ He helps us free from every need
♪ That hath us now overtaken
♪ The old evil foe
♪ Now means deadly woe
♪ Deep guile and great might
♪ Are his dread arms in fight
♪ On earth is not his equal
(lively music)