Martin Luther and His Tragedy

Martin Luther, who was living in the 15th-16th century in Germany, was a professor of theology and a monk. He was criticizing the Catholic Church because of the works which turned the Church into an institution of a commercial that served the interests of the clergy by uprooting the actual duties and replacing them with superstitions such as selling indulgences. These critiques that were started being done by Luther led him to be the head of the Protestant reformation. The purpose of the ninety-five thesis, which is also called Disputation for Clarification of the Power of Indulgences was, under the critique of Luther, to prevent the wrong activities of the Church. This is counted as the start point of the movement of reformation. After it was translated into German, Luther was begun to be supported by all segments of the people because his language was easily understandable and interpretable. This was a huge advantage against the Church for him.

Later, he wrote Freedom of Christian, where Christians were described as kings and priests who were independent of and dominated by anything (Arnal, 2018). He argued that people do not need priests to communicate with God. According to him, Christians did not need a government because they were governed by religious rules already. In addition to that, Luther meant equality between princes and popes by implying equality among Christians in his Appeal to the Ruling Class of German Nationality as to the Amelioration of the State of Christendom. Peasants, because they worked and lived in difficult conditions, interpreted it based on their advantage; in other words, it inspired them despite the expressions of Luther which can be interpreted that Christian equality was limited in classes. Luther did not want a popular revolution, but the palace revolt was his aim of him to achieve secularity (Arnal, 2018). The tragedy of Luther, in fact, starts with this, we can say. The inspired peasants started revolting against not only the religious aristocracy but also the feudalism or status quo, which Luther certainly did not plan. After peasant transmitted their desire for freedom through the Twelve Articles which is a threatening situation for feudal nobles and land princes, Luther viewed a neutral way and wrote Friendly Admonition to Peace to invite them both peace and accused both sides.

Luther can be held responsible for that revolting so it can be interpreted that he had to choose a side. When he was involved in politics and was protected by the nobles, it was not a surprise to take a stand against the peasant movement. (Also, it must be added that Luther was a member of a semi-feudal family so it was predictable for him to ignore or just not understand the issues of the lower class.) He criticized peasants and claimed that they deserved to die in terms of revolting against the rulers who were appointed by God, and Luther characterized them as being drunk and ungrateful. In parallel to all those things, Luther was announced as a treater among peasants. The groups which Luther endorsed started to separate while the reformation began to institutionalize in accordance with their interests. In that sense, peasants joined the movement in line with the revolt for both economic and social reasons. However, Luther who was discussing equality between Christians suddenly changed his side because (I think we can assume that) his interests in reform could be realized by princes who were strong enough, not by peasants. The tragedy of Luther, I think, starts with the fact that peasants served his interests of him even in a certain measure, but they were ignored, even more, called disgraceful (and worse), by Luther. He caused an attempt at a popular revolution which ended up very bloody. Even though they played a huge role in this reformation to occur, Luther turned his back on them later. He also had an attitude towards Jews. Jewish people aided the reform movements; however, Luther announced them as faithless and held them the same as Turks, which were identified with Muslims, after Church left its old importance and dominance. He could not appeal to all segments although he seemed he did at first. So, Luther experienced that his own writings and words produced completely different results than he expected. After all these revolution attempts, he accepted the necessity of the existence of a government or a status-quo and he emphasized that people must obey the authority unless it intervenes in the religion, which he had been contradicted by early himself. The spirituality of religion that he planned could not be realized the way that he imagined; on the contrary, he led a worse world to be constructed; a more separated Europe was created instead of Christian unity.

I think the tragedy is Luther's not being able to assume those that were coming, and that he experienced the differences between his beliefs and those which were disparate when they occurred. Moreover, Luther's ideal of creating a Christianity which is commercial and politically free also failed like some of the other things he wished to realize. For instance, he wanted harmony in religion but especially after his death, contradictions increased, and religious wars broke out. His principles (or five solae of Protestantism) were abused by economic actors and they have created a typology of people who could be exploited effortlessly. We can interpret that Luther's functionalist society view also contributed to the creation of the typology, which was, in fact, the root of contemporary capitalism. In other words, most of the things that Luther devoted his life to were not actualized but got worse. Hence, these all are the reason why Luther's life was so tragic.

REFERENCES

Arnal, O.L., (2018, July 30th), Luther and the Peasants: A Lutheran Reassessment, Science & Society, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Winter, 1980/1981), pp. 443-465, retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40402275