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Martin Luther and the Early Church


            Back in the mid-16th century, people were fooled into believing that they could buy their way into heaven. However, one of the greatest of all revolutions, known as the Reformation, changed this preposterous idea. The Reformation called for spiritual renewal and institutional changes; it stressed the importance of individual thinking over the church's authority. The church insisted that it alone had the authority to interpret the meaning of the Bible for people. However, John Wycliffe, an English priest and teacher at Oxford University, declared that people had the right to read the Bible and interpret it for themselves. The concept of indulgences, forgiveness for a person who confessed a sin and showed remorse, was a means for the Catholic church to remove penance for sinners who performed certain acts of charity, prayer , pilgrimage, or other pious work. However, some preachers took advantage of this situation and told others that they could purchase indulgences to buy their way into heaven. Luther, the leader of the Reformation in Germany, protested that some of the clergy were selling indulgences without making clear that people must also be sincerely repentant for those sins. Martin Luther broke away from the Catholic Church to build his own interpretation of Christianity. Martin Luther was justified in breaking away from the Catholic Church because of the prevalence of selling indulgences, the exclusion of financially deprived people, and the unrestrained amount of funds that were channeled to Rome.
             Martin Luther made a wise choice of breaking away from the Catholic Church to promote ending the selling of indulgences. It seemed unbelievable how priests would convince people to donate large sums of money and thereby somehow secure a place in heaven. According to document 1, "Listen to the voices of your dear dead relatives and friends beseeching you receive complete forgiveness of all their sins Remember that you are able to release them, for as soon as the coin in the coffer rings the soul from purgatory springs" (Tetzel).


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