![]() ![]() When peasants embraced his teachings to justify rebellions in Germany in the 1520’s, Luther denounced them in his Against the Robbing Murdering Thieving Hordes of Peasants, a vitriolic text urging his readers to kill rebellious peasants as if they were “mad dogs.” Luther, who often sided with Germany’s princes and conservative forces, could be nasty, deliberately playing on the hatreds and prejudices of his readers. And when the doors to public debate swing open - as they did in Luther’s time and as they are again today - the conversation can quickly turn ugly. Just as there are today, there were those in Luther’s time who were willing to make a profit off fake news and the coarsening of our discourse.ĭemocratization of thought is inherently disruptive. There was also money to be made from the new media of the time. ![]() Meanwhile his political writings veered towards authoritarianism. His religious teachings helped advance democracy, shifting the locus of authority away from the church to the individual believer. And, as in our time, the results were decidedly mixed. Luther helped democratize and accelerate the way we debate ideas. More than any other writer at the dawn of the modern age, Luther turned the new technology of print into a fast-paced medium of debate and dispute. Luther’s publications alone accounted for nearly one in five of the works printed in Germany from 1500 to 1530. Flugschriften – the German word for “pamphlets” – captures the new reality Luther was creating. ![]() Luther’s opponents often answered in kind, publishing tracts and treatises against him. Luther published frequently and quickly, responding almost immediately to his detractors. The volume of Luther’s works was as striking as their occasional viciousness. Sujin Pak: 500 Years After the 95 Theses, Martin Luther's Influence Remains Stanley Hauerwas: The Reformation Is Over. Duke faculty reflect on lessons from the event five centuries later. This week marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther launching the Reformation by posting his 95 Theses on a church door. He published tracts and pamphlets ridiculing both the papacy and fellow Protestant theologians. He indulged in fast-paced polemic, publishing frequently and quickly, responding almost immediately to his detractors. And in the short term, that can frankly make discourse downright uncivil. New forms of communication also always challenge traditional forms of intellectual authority. That’s not unlike what social media and other new technologies are doing today. In Luther’s time, the acceleration of the spread of ideas upended social and political hierarchies. Much as in our time, a radical new communication technology spurred democratization of thought. Driving Luther’s outsized influence was his use of the printing press, invented just a generation before his birth. In doing so, he drew theological battle-lines that resulted in bloody, religious wars across Europe over the next 130 years.īut Luther’s influence went beyond the religious sphere, roiling the society of his day for good and ill. Five hundred years ago a monk’s protest against the Roman Catholic Church went viral.Īccording to lore, on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his “Ninety-five Theses” to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. ![]()
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