The Reformation I
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An Undeceptions Podcast. Tonight, your Pope, the Vicar of Christ, sends you a gift. A gift to save you from such fires. A special indulgence granted for the building of St. Peter's Church in Rome, where the bones of the apostles lie moldering, exposed to wind and rain, desecrated by wild animals. Take heed.

The words of your Holy Father who says, "Lay a stone for St. Peter's and you lay the foundation for your own salvation and happiness in heaven." How? With this indulgence. When? Tonight and only tonight. Seek the Lord while he is near. Here is your raft. Take hold.

We're listening to a clip from the 2003 film Luther. In this scene, Alfred Molina plays Dominican friar Johann Tetzel, who travelled through Germany as a kind of salesman for the Roman Catholic Church in the early 16th century. I hope that's not too unfriendly a beginning, especially for my Catholic friends.

It's a powerful portrayal of a man who has gone down in history as the villainous preacher who provoked one of the greatest catastrophes or recoveries, depending on your perspective, that ever fell upon Christianity. Tetzel was sent by the Archbishop of Mainz to declare a special indulgence for those who contributed funds towards the rebuilding of St Peter's Basilica in Rome.

Essentially, he preached that those who purchased an indulgence paper would receive full remission of their sins, guaranteeing them a place in heaven. Tetzel wasn't the first to hawk indulgences. Warriors in the 13th century had been promised salvation for their participation in the Crusades. But in the final decades of the 15th century, a new type of indulgence was on the market.

Now you could upgrade a soul from purgatory, a kind of holding place for the not quite pure before they get to heaven. You could make a simple financial contribution for yourself or for someone else. You could buy an indulgence for your dead mother or father to release them from purgatory and send them to paradise.

This practice was denounced by some at the time, within the Catholic Church I mean, but it nonetheless took off and Tetzel preached his heart out across Germany. Here's a taste from one of his sermons. You should know that all who confess and in penance put arms into the coffer according to the counsel of the confessor will obtain complete remission of all their sins.

Why are you then standing there? Run for the salvation of your souls! Be as careful and concerned for the salvation of your souls as you are for your temporal goods, which you seek both day and night. Don't you hear the voices of your wailing dead parents and others who say, "Have mercy upon me! Have mercy upon me!" Because we are in severe punishment and pain.

From this, you could redeem us with small arms, and yet you do not want to do so. Open your ears as the father says to the son and the mother to the daughter, "We have created you, fed you, cared for you, and left you our temporal goods." Why then are you so cruel and harsh that you do not want to save us, though it only takes a little?

You let us lie in flames so that we only slowly come to the promised glory. You may have letters which let you have once in life and in the hour of our death full remission of the punishment which belongs to sin.

Those who purchased indulgences went back to their local parishes assured of salvation for themselves or others. In the small town of Wittenberg in Saxony, the parishioners of a local friar, Martin Luther, returned from a Tetzel sermon reporting that he'd even claimed papal indulgences could absolve a man who had committed the vilest offence.

With this indulgence, I can absolve any sin. I can even save the soul of the man who violates the mother of God herself. Well, that was too much for Martin Luther.

On October 31st, 1517, he posted a set of 95 theses on the door of Wittenberg's Castle Church. They were propositions meant to stimulate academic debate on the sale of indulgences.

they provoked somewhat more than a debate. This was the beginning of one of the greatest ruptures in European history. A rupture that permanently split the church, triggered wars, created new city-states and even led, in the opinion of many experts, to the Enlightenment, science and the secularization of the West.

We're talking about the Reformation. And it's such a big deal, we're going to take two whole episodes to examine it and still only really scratch the surface.

How did one man go from a pious local friar in an obscure backwater town to the leader of a global movement that ripped Christianity in two, and then three, then four, and ultimately thousands of Protestant denominations? What is the real legacy of this thing we call the Reformation? I'm John Dixon, and this is Undeceptions. Undeceptions

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This season of Undeceptions is sponsored by Zondervan Academic. Get discounts on master lectures, video courses and exclusive samples of their books at zondervanacademic.com forward slash Undeceptions. Don't forget to write Undeceptions. Each episode here at Undeceptions, we explore some aspect of life, faith, philosophy, history, science, culture or ethics that's

that's either much misunderstood or mostly forgotten. And with the help of people who know what they're talking about, we're trying to undeceive ourselves and let the truth in.

This episode of Undeceptions is brought to you by Zondervan Academics' new book, ready for it? Mere Christian Hermeneutics, Transfiguring What It Means to Read the Bible Theologically, by the brilliant Kevin Van Hooser. I'll admit that's a really deep-sounding title, but don't let that put you off. Kevin is one of the most respected theological thinkers in the world today. He's a

And he explores why we consider the Bible the word of God, but also how you make sense of it from start to finish. Hermeneutics is just the fancy word for how you interpret something. So if you want to dip your toe into the world of theology, how we know God, what we can know about God, then this book is a great starting point. Looking at how the church has made sense of the Bible through history, but also how you today can make sense of it.

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You can pre-order your copy of Mere Christian Hermeneutics now at Amazon, or you can head to zondervanacademic.com forward slash undeceptions to find out more. Don't forget, zondervanacademic.com forward slash undeceptions. Okay, let's turn to Martin Luther. He's the big name. Can you give us a potted history? I mean, are you able to summarize his life from childhood to, you know, the end in 60 seconds? It's very challenging. Yeah.

Okay, I'm going to do my best. That's the Reverend Dr. Jennifer Powell McNutt, an Associate Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies here at Wheaton College. Jennifer has a particular interest in the history of the Church from the Reformation through to the Enlightenment, co-editing the Oxford Handbook of the Bible and the Reformation and a series of essays called The People's Book, the Reformation and the Bible.

I think the first thing to note is that he is a very unexpected figure. Like there's nothing inevitable about his rise to fame. And that's partly because he comes from a modest background. You know, his father was a miner.

who kind of moves up in the ranks. He makes a good marriage. His family enters into citizenship as a result. So Luther has access to education. And so there is actually some social mobility that is happening in Luther's life. And he's destined to go into law. That is the expectation until we know this famous story of an experience that he has where he's almost hit by a lightning bolt as he is traveling back

to school and he makes a vow to enter into the monastery. On a sultry day in July of the year 1505, a lonely traveler was trudging over a parched road on the outskirts of the Saxon village of Stottenheim. As he approached the village, the sky became overcast. Suddenly, there was a shower, then a crashing storm.

A bolt of lightning rived the gloom and knocked the man to the ground. Struggling to rise, he cried in terror, St Anne, help me! I will become a monk! That's the opening paragraph from The Revered Biography of Martin Luther by Roland H. Bainton. It's a dramatic account of that famous moment that changed Martin Luther's life forever. It also set in motion a chain of events that would change the world.

It quickly becomes clear that he is very intellectually astute and he is directed to take up a position at the University of Wittenberg in teaching, actually at first he's teaching Aristotle, and then he is moving into what will become known as basically a biblical theology is what he's doing.

And, you know, in this, Wittenberg is not really much at this time. You know, the university is brand new. Frederick of Saxony, the prince, he struggles to get a printer to move to Wittenberg because it's kind of a podunk town. It's hard to get to, you know. So all of

what transpires is very shocking, very surprising. And at a time when it would be difficult to become known. - Can anything good come out of Wittenberg? - Yes, exactly. Can anything good? So it's very shocking then what transpires, and there are lots of reasons for kind of trying to understand how it is that Luther becomes who we remember him to be.

Martin Luther is an unexpected protagonist. He's living in a time, though, of great change and tension is already brewing by Luther's time.

Christianity has always had this self-reforming spirit. It goes right back to Jesus' own warnings about religious hypocrisy and his call for self-assessment, you know, take the log out of your own eye, that kind of thing. Through the Middle Ages, there have already been several reform movements. The 16th century Reformation, though, is the biggest one.

And we'll hear a little later about a contemporary of Luther's living across the Alps who comes to very similar conclusions about his beloved Roman Catholic Church. But winding back a bit, I asked Jennifer to paint me a picture of what life was like in the 1500s. What is the average person dealing with every day? And what are the big ideas that are taking hold?

When we're building that story, that narrative of the Reformation, we're trying to get back to the past. I think there are some things that will sound familiar to us about that time period. And there are some things that are really strange and unusual to that time period. And that's just the beauty of history, isn't it? Is just kind of navigating what's similar and what's different about the 1500s. And so some of the things like, for example, the bubonic plague that the

community is recovering from this pandemic, basically for them. That really resonates right now with

Christians today as we think about what we've all been through. But so they're recovering from the bubonic plague. They don't even know that they're recovering from it. And it's also, you know, the 1500s is the turn of the century. So there's also apocalypticism that is going on. The mindset of the average person really thinks that they're living through the end times. But as a result of that, there's also this vibrant, I would say, popular piety that

that is taking place at the end of that period in as we begin the 16th century

And there's this desire, this hunger for Scripture, for participation in the spiritual life of the church. There's kind of multiple lay movements going on of groups that are not going to take vows of monasticism, but they want to have part of that life, that prayerful life and that involvement. And it's important.

in part because of that landscape, that they're going to be so receptive to the Reformation and interested in what Luther has to say. So was everyone super religious in those days? I mean, that's the cliche, but is the cliche basically true or was there impiety as well? There is definitely impiety.

Absolutely, yeah. And one of the ways that we can tell that is with looking at some of the earlier councils of the church. I usually point my students to the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. And we can see there where they say like, hey, you've got to go to Mass at least once a year. You have to go to confession at least once a year. And that's an indicator that they're not necessarily going to Mass. Right, okay. Yeah.

Can you tell us about the intellectual contours of that period? What were the main sort of medieval ways of thinking? I would say the first person that comes to mind is Aristotle. The concept that's so important to Aristotelian thinking is this idea of

potency and act. So the potentiality that a person has and their actualization. And all of life is really thought in those terms, in terms of a person's potential and then their actualization, even their righteousness, right? We have a potential to grow in righteousness and that is our process of salvation that we go through.

According to Aristotle, you are potentially virtuous and you can be trained in the good life and attain the good life. Luther said, nah. He thought Aristotle's work on ethics was the, quote, worst enemy of grace.

Luther reckoned that Aristotle and the church that followed Aristotle had things back to front. "We do not become righteous by doing righteous deeds," he wrote, "but having been made righteous, we do righteous deeds."

This is the crux of Luther's thinking. God declares us righteous and then we live out that righteous status in our daily lives. But here's the thing. This isn't an innovation.

It actually comes from Augustine of Hippo, way back in the 4th and early 5th centuries. Augustine stressed that human beings cannot attain goodness by their own efforts. They are totally reliant on God's grace, not only to do good, but even to will to do good. This is an important part of where we're going in these Reformation episodes.

Luther and the other reformers didn't see themselves as innovators or progressives. They thought and argued that they were calling Mother Church back to the foundations of Christianity, back to Augustine, back to the Apostle Paul, back to Jesus himself. Despite appearances, Luther was not a revolutionary. He certainly didn't want to start something new.

So I like to say it's such a vibrant time and the Latin language has never been so sophisticated. It's never been so capable of capturing these very complex ideas about God. And so the conversation is so rich in those ways. And there's really these two schools of thought.

that come out and they are looking at the world in different ways. One is the via antiqua, which is a philosophy of realism. And then the via Moderna, which embraces the philosophy of nominalism. And that

actually really matters and how they see the world, how they understand, you know, how do we acquire knowledge? When I look at the world, am I seeing how the world actually is or am I needing to explore and question it further? And so we can see Luther, you know, is really shaped by these conversations and this education.

Ever since I learned about the Via Antiqua and the Via Moderna, the old and new ways, back in theological college, I couldn't quite get my head around why this debate was such a big deal in medieval philosophy. One of these ways insisted there was such a thing as a triangle, for example, a true archetypal triangle. And the other said, no, there are just individual things we happen to name triangles.

But weirdly, this did have implications for how we view our connection to God. In the old way, we must begin with God as pure goodness, like the ultimate archetype of the triangle. And from that base concept, everything, including our own goodness, derives sequentially and logically.

But then along comes William of Ockham, of Ockham's razor fame, and he disagrees with all of that previous philosophy.

"Why multiply concepts?" he said. "We don't need to start with God and work through logical concepts to arrive at the goodness in us. It's simpler to assume," he said, "that God could make his covenant with humans any way he likes. He is not bound by any universal concepts, and we're not connected to those universals."

The punchline is that we need not posit God's eternal goodness as the ground of our goodness. Humans just try to be good by their own will, and God in his kindness rewards them for that goodness. Something like that anyway. I asked our next guest, Matthew Barrett, if he could flesh this out for me.

Can you tell us about the different schools of thought that prepared the way for the Reformation? I'm thinking in particular of the Via Moderna and the sort of new school of Augustinianism. Augustine is a person we mention often on this show. I think people are counting it like bingo, but there was a kind of revival of Augustinian thought. Can you talk about those two schools for me?

Yeah, these two schools, I can't stress just how important these two schools are. So let's just begin with Augustinianism. Matthew Barrett is Associate Professor of Christian Theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He's the author of several books, including Reformation Theology and his latest book, Reformation as Renewal, Retrieving the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, which is published by our sponsor, Zondervan Academic.

Matthew's also the host of the Credo podcast, where he interviews some fantastic theologians. We'll, of course, put a link in the show notes. I would argue, and I do argue in my book, that there is a broad continuity that exists from Augustine all the way through Thomas Aquinas. And we could call this many things, but there is an Augustinian stream of thought that

That applies both in philosophy and in theology. It is a long, complicated story, and I spend several chapters on it. But in philosophy, this means that this tradition, while they are realists, they believe that there are such things as universals.

and that things are not arbitrary. The things that we see, you know, we may see many different things in our world, but they have natures. And the good, the true, and the beautiful things of our world, those actually participate in the good, the true, the beautiful. So they're realist in that important sense. And this had significant ramifications then for everything from grace to the church itself.

Now, the first thing we have to just be very clear about is in this Augustinian Thomistic tradition, grace was always primary. And I can't emphasize that enough. All of that changes, I would argue, when you get to the Via Moderna. So think about figures like William of Ockham. Someone like Ockham rejects the realism of that Augustinian Thomistic tradition.

And instead, he proposes a nominalism in which things are the way they are because of the way that they are named. And so you have certain individual things, but they don't necessarily participate in something greater than themselves. Along with that is a voluntarism. This is a very strong emphasis on the will. All of this then plays into salvation because this then meant that God could make a covenant in which people,

If you do your best, if you do that which is within you, God will then reward you with grace. Now that at first can sound very gracious of God.

But actually, it's a very radical shift because notice the condition on which grace is received. Grace is no longer primary. It's now subsequent to you doing your best. Long story short, Luther was trained. He wasn't the only one, but Luther was trained in this via moderna approach to philosophy and also salvation. He tries it on himself. And we see how this brings Luther to a crisis point.

Because as much as he's been told God will come through if you do your best, Luther starts to ask himself, how do I know if I've done my best? And how do I know, after all, Christ seems such a judge, how do I know he will actually be gracious? And even if he gives me grace, how do I know he will follow through to the end to come through on his promise of grace? Luther was plagued with these types of questions and many others.

All that to say, it's not as if the reformers have no nominalist bent in them, but as the decades and certainly the centuries go on, what becomes very clear is that the Reformation, and specifically we could say the Reformed Orthodox, who are their children, their heirs, they react against this nominalist, voluntarist understanding of salvation.

And they want to go back to something far more Catholic, an Augustinian understanding of philosophy and theology. And whether some of them know it or not, some are a bit more conscious of it, even a Thomistic understanding. Thomas Aquinas is that 13th century philosopher-theologian we've mentioned more than once on Undeceptions.

He is arguably the most influential thinker in Western theology since Augustine. And actually, he's on the same page as Augustine on loads of things.

We can think of his project as attempting to integrate Augustinian theology, with its emphasis on the divine goodness as the basis of our goodness, with the philosophy of Aristotle, which had come back into Western Europe shortly before Thomas Aquinas. And his magnum opus was the Summa Theologiae.

It gets a bad rap from Protestants, partly because that's where Aquinas lays out the philosophical ground for transubstantiation, the Catholic view that the bread and the wine change substance, if not form, into the body and blood of Jesus. And also, I guess Protestants don't like that he's a hero of Catholic theology, right? So most Protestants know they don't like him, but haven't actually read him.

But in its own way, the Summa Theologiae prepared the ground for the Protestant Reformation itself. Yes, I was about to ask you about that because Thomas Aquinas, who is also part of the Undeceptions Bingo competition mentioned regularly, is often seen as the bogeyman by Protestants. And yet you make the point that really Thomas Aquinas was unrelenting.

on this question, largely on the same page. You know, John, I'm so glad that you have said that. I'm the one always saying this, and sometimes I get looks. But now you've said it, John, so I can just go to you and say, listen, John said it. On my library opposite me is the summa. So...

Yes. And maybe we could even set this up a little bit, couldn't we? Because I often think that, and to be frank with you, sometimes Protestants, this is our own fault. We've been told a very popular narrative that says to be Protestant is to be against Thomas Aquinas. There's several problems with that. Number one, just historically speaking, it's just not true.

When you go back and you look at the 16th century, and most definitely the 17th century, actually what you find is many of them are quite willing to not just engage Thomas Aquinas, but actually retrieve large swaths of his theology. This is important because Rome is accusing the Reformation of being innovative and therefore heretical.

If the reformers and their reformed heirs depart from Thomas on core doctrines of Christianity, well, they just feed that accusation. They actually lend it support.

So aligning with Thomas, though he's not the only one, you know, this, like you mentioned, Augustine, but aligning themselves with Thomas on innumerable doctrines of the Christian faith actually supports their orthodoxy. Lots of good historians then have demonstrated that when it comes to the Reformed and Thomas Aquinas, there's actually far more continuity there.

than we have assumed. But all that to say, when it comes to the Reformation, it's not the case that it's a reaction against Thomas. So that's the philosophical river that Luther was swimming in. Meanwhile, the papacy of the Middle Ages was also evolving.

In the early 13th century, Pope Innocent III took the power of the Pope to a new level. He claimed not just theological and spiritual rule, but also a kind of earthly rule. He also called the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, which made some really important decisions that set the stage for what was to come.

The Council declared that salvation could not be found anywhere outside the Catholic Church. This, of course, meant that the later reformers, who were excommunicated, wouldn't enjoy salvation. The Council also set in stone the idea of transubstantiation, the Catholic doctrine that during the Mass, the bread and wine used for communion changes substance, if not external form, to become the body and soul.

and blood of Jesus Christ. And the council declared that a person who falls into sin after baptism, you know, all of us, could find favor with God by right faith and good actions. These are all ideas the Reformation will react against.

What sort of power did the papacy have in, let's just say, the 14th and 15th centuries, just at the dawn of the Reformation period? Yes, well, power is probably the right word to use. That's a very strategic word because I think oftentimes the 16th century is approached as if this power was

comes out of nowhere, which of course is not true. I think 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries in particular, there's a divide. And perhaps I can sum it up this way. There are those who think that councils should have a major, perhaps even final say. And there are also those on the other side who think that the papacy, or specifically the pope, should have the primacy of power, as we could put it.

And this divide really evolves over the Middle Ages, so that by the time you get to the 16th century, through many ups and downs, sometimes even popes excommunicating one another, by the time you get to the 16th century, you actually have a primacy of the papacy, if we could put it that way. The scene is set. The context is in place.

You also write about the corruption of the papacy. Are you just one of those annoying Protestants? I just think of my Catholic listeners, even those who aren't very devout Catholic listeners, as soon as they hear a Protestant talk like this, they get very Catholic. So what do you mean by the corruption and debauchery of the papacy of this period? Yeah.

Well, I like to say, though this is, you know, risky because oversimplification is true temptation. But at that risk, I like to say that there's one side of the coin in which there is a broad core continuity issue.

or even, yes, I am Protestant, Catholicity, that the reformers dare not deviate from. And we can get into that later, I'm sure. We will. But the other side of that coin is far more polemical. There are areas, certain corruptions that the reformers think are catastrophic,

Now, to be really clear, there's specific corruptions. I know that sometimes we Protestants can sometimes sound as if it's everything and anything. And Luther's rhetoric early on lends itself in that direction, in large part because of the polemical heat he's experiencing.

However, when we look at the actual polemics of the 16th century, what we realize is much of the heat is over soteriology and ecclesiology. Soteriology, from the Greek word to save, is just the study of how salvation works, how someone gets right with God or justified.

Ecclesiology is just the theology of the church. What role does the church play in salvation and Christian practice? The reformers had loads to say about both soteriology and ecclesiology. Now, there's a lot that falls under those two umbrellas.

But all that to say, as the Reformers are pursuing reform, it's these two domains that are in front of them that they are quite concerned about. So you won't see them, for example, writing treaties after treaties on, say, the Trinity or Christology or any number of other doctrines of the Christian faith. They are primarily concerned with soteriology and ecclesiology,

And they even, they're quite bold, they even say that in terms of the specifics, say purgatory or indulgences or even papal supremacy and so on, there's many examples here, but they are even so bold to say that they think that these are more recent innovations.

rather than beliefs that the church has always held or has a basis in the church Catholic, the church universal down through the ages. Now, that's a bold claim, and we can talk about this more, but it's a crucial claim because they're not severing themselves from the church Catholic. They are actually trying to renew it

because they see these specific corruptions that they think are actually far more new than old. There are certain ways that the papacy, at least in the estimation of the reformers, the papacy...

is actually giving itself towards these innovations. And what do I mean by that? Well, I think by the time you get to the 16th century, they are quite concerned that what they are seeing on the street, which might be different than, say, what a Catholic theologian believed, but what they are seeing on the street

had significant pastoral consequences. Sometimes when we go to 1517, for example, we think of Luther's very famous 95 Theses, but we sometimes forget that's coming out of a pastoral context, even from Luther's own experience, in which at that point he's not so much developing a mature theology that we would later call Reformation theology, but at that point he's actually concerned about an abuse of

of what he's saying. At that point, it's not so much a wholesale rejection, but he's noticing an abuse, say, of the penance system, for example, or the certain claims that the papacy is making as if it has that power. Luther feels as though this is misleading, especially as it kind of manifests itself with popular preachers. Luther is afraid this is then misleading the masses, which, as one who's pastorally concerned, is Luther's primary motivation.

Well, all that to say, at the end of the day, when the Reformers face off with the papacy, I think sometimes we have the impression that, oh, the Reformers are starting a new church or a new denomination. But actually, it's quite the opposite. Their intention was to reform from within. But in the end, Rome is the one that removes the Reformers from the church, something that Luther never intended from the beginning.

In his book, Matthew quotes one of the foremost scholars on the Reformation, Richard Mueller, who illustrates this point in these words.

It's worth recognising from the outset that the Reformation altered comparatively few of the major loci of theology. The doctrines of justification, the sacraments and the church received the greatest emphasis, while the doctrines of God, the Trinity, creation, providence, predestination and the last things were taken over from the tradition by the Magisterial Reformation virtually without alteration.

So the reformers weren't messing with the structure of the Christian faith. Actually, I don't think they're messing with anything in the Christian faith, but they were trying to renew the internal logic of the faith. So I want to zero in on his big reforming idea. Oh, yeah. Like for people who, like lots of my listeners, they don't believe in Christianity. They're just intrigued. What was his idea and why was it so revolutionary? Right. So...

Luther is responding to, in part, how he is shaped by theology. So he is shaped by the Via Moderna school of thought that has

introduce some innovations to thinking about the process of salvation. And one of the most important changes that they introduce is they take away something called "provenient grace." And probably your listeners will be familiar with Occam's razor and how it's kind of cutting things down. Now, the reason that they remove that grace is because they want to emphasize God's benevolence. They think that that is a way to stress God's graciousness.

But in so doing, they opened the door for a righteousness that is earned rather than cooperative. And a cooperative righteousness was what had been taught since Augustine. So Luther

not only retrieves Augustine's thought, he is after all an Augustinian friar, so there's that, but he also comes to a different conclusion than Augustine. Because not only does he reinstate that grace that starts the process of our salvation, he also redefines then what it means to be justified in God's eyes. So that means that

what it means to be treated as holy, basically. And whereas the church before Luther had said,

our justification is our process of becoming righteous. For Luther, it is that we are treated as righteous, even though we aren't, because it's not based on what we do. It's what Jesus Christ has achieved for us. Okay, so it's a really cool idea. And I can understand how many listeners who even don't believe can see that's a lovely idea. The idea that I don't have to act

actually be righteous, to be loved and treated well by God. He can justify me. But why was it so revolutionary? Why isn't it just a lovely idea? Well, I think in part because of how

the whole church structure, you know, it's very disruptive to how the whole church functions. So now it throws into question things like, do we have relics anymore? Do we go on pilgrimages? Do we, you know, how do we practice our piety? Because that was all about sort of accruing more righteousness. Exactly, the cooperative element. And I think it's really important to note that

in the medieval period by this time, there is an understanding that other people can do righteous acts on your behalf and you don't even have to know about it and it could have an impact on you. And so one of the things, so for example, indulgences, you could be in purgatory

So you're dead and someone could buy this certificate to get you out. And that wouldn't require anything on your part and to do that. Or someone could say a mass that you paid them to do. And that can have an impact on your soul, even though you're not there, you're not participating, you're not receiving it. And so one of the things that Luther's doing is he's saying that our internal relationship

our internal relationship with God matters, that God wants our hearts and not just our actions. And so a question is raised about how do we do piety then? What are good works? And I would say that, and based on Luther's own writings, that he was seeking to restore good works that are really good.

good, right? And not being some sort of not done under duress.

Contrary to some caricatures, Luther actually does have a place for good works, but he wants to locate good works in the Christian life as the fruit of the tree that we call God's grace and justification, rather than as, say, the cause or the basis on which we are justified. Yes, he wants to understand good works have a place, but he doesn't want to locate good works as the fruit of the tree that we call God's grace and justification.

but only on the basis of Christ and Christ's good works. And so this is why, you know, there's that famous painting where Luther, his congregation is in front of him, and Luther is pointing, he's in the pulpit, and he's pointing beyond himself. He has the scriptures in front of him, and he's pointing beyond himself to Christ on the cross, who's mediating between the people under Luther and the Father above the head of Christ crucified.

Well, that in many ways summarizes Luther's mission in many respects, because justification then is by grace alone. But perhaps we could be more precise, because for Luther, we are justified by grace alone, through faith alone. So faith isn't the basis of justification, but it is instrumental. And

What is our faith in? Well, it's on the basis of Christ alone and his merits for us. Well, as you can imagine, you know, to mention just one, a second thing, that then set the

But that then put into jeopardy, which is, this is why many of the theologians that opposed Luther were so upset, because that then, of course, put into jeopardy, say, the penance system itself, as well as, I'm going to sneak in another one here, though I know I'm not supposed to, as well as other consequential doctrines like purgatory. Because for Luther, if Christ has actually accomplished our redemption, if his work is the basis, then Christ has indeed paid it all.

And so there's no room for meriting justification. Rather, the works that Luther is so adamant about, those follow from justification. They're the fruit from the tree. Let's press pause. I've got a five-minute Jesus for you. The key insight of the Reformers was right. God's mercy, favor, salvation come to us entirely by God's gift, not our merit.

This isn't simply the theology of Augustine, though it certainly is that. And it's not just found in the New Testament author the Apostle Paul, though it's certainly found there.

It's found throughout the Gospels in the life of Jesus. His famous wining and dining with the so-called sinners makes plain that his mercy has nothing to do with merit. It's Jesus who makes the move. Jesus reaches out to include the sinners. And then, it seems invariably, the sinners are transformed by that pure gift of welcome.

Or in Mark's gospel, a paralyzed man is let down through the roof into the room where Jesus is teaching. And our text, it's in Mark chapter 2 if you want to check it out, tells us, quote, It's a good question.

My point is, it was the man's faith, not his merit, that prompted Jesus' absolute declaration that he was forgiven. But perhaps the clearest example is in Luke chapter 23. It's the account of Jesus' death and frankly is one of my favorite passages.

Jesus is crucified between two other criminals. One of the criminals joins in with the religious leaders at the foot of the cross and abuses Jesus. But then we're told the other criminal asks Christ for mercy.

And Jesus completely accepts him and even promises him a place in paradise. There's no purgatory to work off his sins. There's just paradise with Jesus himself. Here's the passage, just so you know I'm not making it up.

But the other criminal rebuked the first. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."

This is instant, unconditional, free and total forgiveness. This man couldn't do anything for merit. He simply asks, is there a place for me? And there was. There's no purging or purifying. There's just Christ's grace. Grace is enough. That is the key insight of the reformers.

And it wasn't changing the Catholic faith as it was known through the centuries. It was, in a sense, returning to the great Augustinian tradition, which was the great tradition of the Apostle Paul, which was in turn the very point of Jesus' life, teaching, death and resurrection. Our free, unmerited salvation through trusting ourselves to Jesus Christ.

You can press play now. And now we've reached 1517 and the sermons of Johann Tetzel that so infuriated Luther. There's quite a catchy jingle attributed to Tetzel, though some dispute that he ever actually said it in his sermons. When the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs. All together now.

Whether or not Tetzel actually spoke these words, he communicated that vibe for sure. And Luther's 27th thesis, part of the 95 that he posted on the door, seems to be a reaction to that sentiment. Luther stated, "...they preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory."

We might say, oh, that's just Luther blustering. But given that these were official debating points, things Luther wanted to be discussed, there must have been something to what he just said. His colleagues must have recognised that some people were saying things about coins ringing and souls springing. The 95 theses are too many to list here, but we've heard from Jennifer and Matthew what Luther's main gripes were.

He was attempting to expose the abuse of indulgences and call into question the authority and integrity of a pope who would let this happen. In response, Tetzel labelled Luther a heretic and called for him to be burned at the stake.

Tetzel wrote a set of theses himself, defending papal authority and infallibility. Luther also went toe-to-toe with some of the best theologians of the time, including the Dominican theologian Sylvester Pierres and Cardinal Cajetan. Luther was ordered to recant. He wouldn't.

One of Luther's biggest theological challenges came in 1519 at the University of Leipzig. Here he faced off against Johannes von Eck, a talented rhetorician, professor and priest. Eck sort of cornered Luther in the debate, forcing Luther to state things in more extreme terms. Not that Luther ever needed much encouragement to go extreme. In particular, Luther let slip

that he thought scripture reigned supreme over things like church councils and popes. Now this made Luther sound like another heretic of recent memory named Jan Hus. Hus had been burned at the stake a century before for saying something pretty similar. And the University of Leipzig had been founded by Hus's opponents. So Luther was in dangerous territory in this debate of 1519.

And there's a really interesting story actually about the links between Hus and Luther. People really see a connection between those two figures. And I love to talk about a letter that Luther writes where he says, you know, at first I thought I wasn't a Husite because that would mean I was a heretic. And then I read Hus and I was like, oh yeah, that's totally me.

I have taught and held all the teachings of Jan Hus, but thus far did not know it. Johann Staupitz had taught it in the same unintentional way. In short, we are all Hussites and did not know it. Even Paul and Augustine are in reality Hussites. I am so shocked.

After Leipzig, Luther was sure his beliefs were going to get him killed. So he went for it.

In the next two years, he wrote like a madman, producing tracts and essays that were disseminated far and wide, thanks to the recent invention of the printing press. In a tract titled To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, Luther attacked the corruptions of the church and the abuses of its authority, going so far as to call the selling of indulgences a teaching of the devil. And he cast the Pope aside.

as the Antichrist. "Above all, we should drive out of German territory the papal legates with their faculties, which they sell to us for large sums of money. This traffic is nothing but skullduggery. They assert that the Pope has authority to do this. It is the devil who tells them to say these things.

They sell us doctrine so satanic and take money for it that they are teaching us sin and leading us to hell. If there were no other base trickery to prove that the Pope is the true Antichrist, this one would be enough to prove it. Hear this, O Pope, not of all men the holiest, but of all men the most sinful.

Subtle, right?

Luther's reasoning was that it was better to annoy humans than God. He wrote, "I would rather have the wrath of the world upon me than the wrath of God. The world can do no more to me than take my life." Luther's tract to the Christian nobility sold out almost instantly. Thousands and thousands of copies circulated throughout Germany.

By the end of 1520, Pope Leo issued a bull threatening excommunication if Luther didn't recant in 60 days. So Luther wrote two more tracts, of course, and he burned the papal bull in protest. On January 3, 1521, the Pope issued a final bull declaring Luther a heretic and excommunicating him from the church.

Luther, though, was well protected in Germany. His writings gained him many allies, including Frederick III of Saxony, one of the most powerful territorial princes of the so-called Holy Roman Empire.

Frederick had already prevented Luther from being arrested and taken to Rome to answer for his views. But even Frederick couldn't protect Luther when the Holy Roman Emperor himself, Charles V, summoned Luther to appear before him in a Diet, a formal disputation, in the city of Worms in Germany. So we're off to the famous showdown at the Diet of Worms after the break.

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Your Serene Majesty, most illustrious princes and gracious lords, I appear before you by the mercy of God and I beg that you will listen patiently. I demand that you answer sincerely.

Frankly and unambiguously, yes or no? Will you or will you not retract your books and the errors contained in them? Unless I am shown by the testimony of the scriptures, for I don't believe in popes or councils, unless I am refuted by scriptures and my conscience is captured by God's own word, I cannot and will not recant. Here I stand. God help me. I can do no more.

That's a clip from another film about Luther, also called Luther, this time from 1974. It was directed by Guy Green and starred the Shakespearean actor Stacey Keech as an insecure and arrogant Martin Luther. It also starred Dame Judi Dench, who played Luther's wife.

It's a strange film that chose to focus on the inner psychological turmoil of Luther. Classic 1970s introspection, I suppose. It'll never happen, but the story of Luther and the Reformation really does deserve a major blockbuster kind of film. These events shaped our world to this day, and people hardly know about them. Anyway...

In this particular scene, Luther has been summoned by Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, to appear before an imperial diet. A diet was this deliberative body of the Holy Roman Empire, convened by the emperor and populated by the princes of the empire, who were the rulers of the empire's various territories. I guess it's a little bit like a parliament or congress. Luther's words, here I stand, I can do no other, are famous. But sadly, we don't actually know he really said them.

I'll let Jennifer take it from here. This comes to a head at the diet of worms. I wanted to say a diet of worms. I mean, that's an old joke. Tell us what happened in 1521 at this famous, you know,

shindig, theological shindig. Well, okay. So before that, it's so hard to not talk about before, what happens for Luther is he is protected by his prince. And that means that there's some negotiations that allow him to not have to go to Rome. And he would face certain death if he had gone to Rome. So Frederick works it out so that he can go to Worms. He goes before Charles

V, the Holy Roman Emperor, who is a new emperor. And there is a hope. There is an expectation or hope that he will get a good hearing at that place. Frederick's able to negotiate that he have safe travels there and back. Luther

is thinking his life might be like Jan Hus, like he is not going to make it out alive from this council. So he's really afraid, right? There's so much anxiety in his arrival. He's asked

to basically give an answer for what he's written and to revoke what he's written. And it's very interesting to see how he responds to that. He responds with nuance and complexity. There's kind of three levels of his writings, and he does actually apologize for some of the vitriol that he, you know-- - Oh, that's nice.

think that's nice right let's remember when Luther apologized because he's a bit grating to read sometimes right exactly so so there's that so it's unlike Twitter yes so yeah and usually people talk about you know him saying like here I stand I can do no other I even have a few pairs of socks that say here I stand on them but I think

I think the most important thing that happens there is when he says, "My conscience is captive to the word of God." And we know he actually said that. When he says that, he is creating or affirming a different hierarchy of authority that will be the crux of what shapes the Protestant tradition from that point on. Now, he's not saying that my conscience gets to do whatever it wants, right? I get free to just think whatever I want to think.

but it is actually bound to God's word. So that is a really important new dynamic. And I think it matters that then when he leaves the Diet and he is kidnapped unexpectedly by Frederick for his safety and taken to Wartburg Castle, the thing that he does, not knowing if he's going to live, is translate the Bible, the German New Testament.

Following the Diet of Worms, Charles V sided with Rome, with the Catholic Church. The Church declared Luther a heretic, Charles declared him an outlaw on May 25, 1521.

Under different circumstances, this would have led to Luther's execution. But politics was at play, of course. Remember Luther's friend and supporter, Frederick III? He was a big deal among the German princes, and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles needed those German princes for geopolitical reasons. The Turkish attacks in the east, the rise of powerful kings in France and England in the west.

So Luther was outlawed but allowed to live. And this allowed Frederick to arrange for Luther to be kidnapped and brought back to Saxony. Matthew Barrett calls this the most amicable kidnapping in history.

For a year, Luther's kept safe in a castle at Wartburg, where he gets busy translating the Bible into the vernacular German and adding some of his own commentary. It was the original study Bible. When published, it was hugely popular. And many would say that the Luther Bible had the impact on the German language that Shakespeare had on the English language.

Okay, so how did these Reformation ideas spread so quickly? It is a miraculous sort of social movement, if nothing else. It's incredible. Yeah, it's extraordinary. I mean, half of Europe adopts these ideas. Yes, exactly. Yes. Well, I mean, it's the printing press. There is this technological revolution that is taking place that is actually very closely tied to Luther and how Luther uses the printing press, how he adapts the

the printing press to spread these ideas, he is really seen as innovative in the use of that tool. The printing press, of course, was created in the 1450s in Europe, but it just hasn't reached its potential until

you know, until really Luther comes in. And part of that is the medium that they use. They move away from like mimicking manuscripts to something called the Flugschriften, which is a pamphlet. So printing these pamphlets

that are cheap and easy to print and very accessible and easy to throw away or pass around. And that's really the reason, you know, is that these get passed around. Then I think the other part of this is the language that's being used because the majority of what Luther publishes is in German, in the German language. And then

you know, the majority of what is printed in this time is what Luther has written. So there's a lot of that accessibility is hugely important in terms of the medium and then in terms of the language.

Historian and friend of the podcast Tom Holland once likened the beginnings of the Reformation to a Twitter spat that got out of hand. Anachronistic as it is, it's not far off. Luther's writings went viral, powered by the printing press.

In a fascinating book called Brand Luther, British historian Andrew Pettigree writes, Luther and his friends used every instrument of communication known to medieval and Renaissance Europe. Correspondence, song, word of mouth, painted and printed images.

But it was Luther's words that had the greatest impact. In an age that valued prolonged and detailed exposition, complexity and repetition, writes Pedigree, it was astonishing that Luther should have instinctively discerned the value of brevity. Luther, in effect, invented a new form of theological writing, short text.

clear and direct, speaking not only to his professional peers but to the wider Christian people. And Wittenberg became a powerhouse of the new printing industry. Between 1502 and 1516, so just before the Reformation, five successive printers published a total of just 123 books, an average of

eight a year, all in Latin. But between 1517 and 1546, Wittenberg publishers turned out at least 2,721 works, an average of 91 per year, for a total of about three million individual copies of books, including multiple editions of Luther's German Bible.

Astonishingly, one in three of all the books published during these three decades were Luther's own works. And the next 20% were books by his colleagues and followers. Think of that. Half of all the books published in the region in this period were from one stable of writers. This was a remarkable transformation. It was a remarkable time. But not everyone was cheering along.

Obviously, Catholic authorities and intellectuals fought back with great gusto. And Luther clashed with some of his own best allies, and pretty soon there were new, more reformed reformers. And I'm sad to say, Luther reserved some of his most disgusting vitriol, not for Catholics, not for the reformers who disagreed with him, but for the Jews of Germany.

There's so much more to tell about the glorious insights of the Protestant Reformation. And there's also some soul-searching to do for proud Protestants like your host. Join us then for part two of the Reformation, where you'll hear Dixon at his most historically and theologically conflicted. See ya.

so

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Undeceptions is hosted by me, John Dixon, produced by Kayleigh Payne and directed by Mark Hadley. Sophie Hawkshaw is on socials and membership. Alistair Belling is a writer and researcher. Siobhan McGuinness is our online librarian. And Lindy Leveston remains my terrific assistant. Editing by Richard Humwe. Special thanks to our series sponsors, Ondervan Academic, for making this Undeception possible. Undeceptions is the flagship podcast of Undeceptions.com. We're letting the truth out.

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