Martin Luther: the man who changed the world?

Lately I've been religiously listening to the podcast The Rest is History hosted by Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland. It's hilarious - these guys are so British which is already funny, but they are also clever enough to riff off of each other and make some downright goofy historical comparisons. I recently finished their series on Martin Luther, the guy who started the Protestant Reformation, so I figured I'd write a little about what I learned. Most everyone knows the basic story so I'll cover it briefly before getting into the more interesting (funny) bits.

Luther was from an essentially peasant family in Germany, and at his father's urging went to law school. Caught in a rough rain storm one night, Luther promised to become a monk if god let him survive the storm (some storm!). He survived, and decided to pursue monasticism, to the disappointment of his father, who basically booed at Luther's first mass. After successfully becoming a monk, Luther moved on to study theology in the university. Throughout his theological studies, Luther apparently was often distressed with his incompetence in the face of god: he felt the weight of his sins so heavily that he would spend hours and hours in confession. Despite this, he graduated with his doctorate and became a professor of the bible. This is when, I think, Luther really began to question the legitimacy of the Catholic church and the institutions surrounding it, noting that much of the ado about practicing Catholicism was naught to be found in the text of the bible. Where did God say to pay the church to go see holy artifacts? Were these artifacts even real? Where did he say not to marry, or that there is a hierarchy under God at all? This is the principle of sola scriptura, to find an understanding of Christianity solely through the text of the bible. He published his Ninety-Five Thesis, popularly by nailing them to the wall but apparently this either didn't happen, or if it did it wouldn't have been unusual and what was more impactful was his use of the printing press to print copies for distribution. The work criticized much of the current institution, and Luther eventually found himself in a battle with the establishment over whether he would recant, which he wouldn't. So eventually he was excommunicated but had built up enough following that the reformation wasn't going anywhere. Luther, however was liable to be executed so his political patron took him in and kept him under hiding. This is where shit (just wait) really goes off the rails.

During this time, Luther was apparently extremely constipated. Even before this, Luther loved to use scatological prose, especially in dealing with the devil. He had descried the establishments behavior as  "worse than the devil’s excrement," and had mechanisms of remaining faithful: "I resist the devil, and often it is with a fart that I chase him away." Luther's surprisingly crass speech worked well for him, however. It is much like Donald Trump's successful use of Twitter, being just shocking enough that people actually enjoy it and want to hear more from the guy. The social media of Luther's day, however, was the printing press. Anyway, during this time locked up, Luther's battle with the devil intensified. At one point, he wrote that the devil snuck into his room and threw nuts at him, and later pretended to be a dog, which Luther responded to by tossing the dog out the window! He seems to have gone a bit insane. Later, Luther became (as so many revolutionaries :/) a force against further reform, coming out against the likes of Thomas Munszer, who wanted to take Luther's logic to further extremes (e.g., that the bread and wine is not actually the blood and flesh of Christ). However, Luther ultimately became part of his own establishment, sided against the peasants in their war for freedom, and indulged in the pleasures of mortal man since his life on earth had no bearing on God's will anyway. He would also write some antisemitic literature, precursors of a later influential German. In the end, Luther knew his own worth:
"I’m like a ripe stool and the world is like a gigantic anus," he said towards the end of his life. 

Despite my qualms with the guy, he undeniably changed the path of the Western world. Sandbrook and Holland make the case that Lutherism was the precursor to humanism, atheism, and probably a bunch of other -isms that rely on knowing your "own" truth.  I should add some more detail and sources to this page, but for now just take from it that you don't learn all the best parts of history in highschool, like how much Martin Luther was obsessed with fecal matter.

(2024/07/14)