What are the ideas of Luther?

Answer 1

* Luther emphasized the doctrine of justification by grace through faith. This emphasis on "faith alone" was a significant shift in perspective. In particular, it undercut the selling of "indulgences," artifacts sold by the church as symbols of religious devotion. By criticizing this practice Luther challenged an important source of revenue for the church. * Pushed by the church hierarchy and backed by some of the German nobility, Luther rejected the authority of the Pope. He suggested that the Bible alone should be the guide for Christian life, and that German Christians did not need to listen (or pay taxes!) to the Pope in Italy. * Encouraged people to read bible alone * Luther also disagreed with the idea that priests were needed to approach God on behalf of the people. Rather, he proposed a priesthood of all believers, saying that people could communicate with God directly. * Luther insisted that the church should use the common language of the people, and not Latin as was the practice in the Roman Catholic tradition. As a result, Luther led Mass in German and even translated the entire Bible into this European language.

Answer 2

At first, Martin Luther, who was an Augustinian monk, objected to some particular practices and abuses of the Roman Catholic Church, mostly having to do with the sale of Indulgences, spiritual blessings given by the Pope in exchange for money, that were supposed to buy one time off in Purgatory. Later on, after the smoke cleared from his 95 Theses, he began to progressively split with many more serious matters of the faith. First, he denied the office of the Papacy, and eventually all priests, saying instead that all believers in Christ were priests and needed no one to stand between them and God. He denied that salvation required "works," the religious efforts of man to make himself acceptable to God, but maintained that man was saved solely by faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He didn't deny all of the sacraments that were administered by Catholic priests for conferring grace upon the people, but maintained three out of seven--Baptism, Confession, and Communion. He denied that ministers of Christ should be celibate. He avidly promoted the reading of the Bible in the common language of the people, and made his own translation of the Bible into German. While he brought Christianity back to the common man, he had a great distrust of the masses, and believed that worldly authority was a necessary part of God's providence, in order to keep sinners in line. An obedient believer, he would say, needed no authority of man to control him, being under the authority of the Holy Spirit alone. But the disobedient and ignorant were to be held in healthy suspicion. One of his early tracts, On Christian Liberty, declared that the Christian is both slave to no one to have to obey him, and slave to all, to be obliged to love his fellow man. He was a man of extremes at times, and was given to a biting, sarcastic tone in his writing when he thought an opponent, of which he had many, needed to be humilitated.

Answer 3

I think his basic idea was that the church at the time was misinforming the people about Scripture. People were taught that they had to do things to make up for their sins. If they hadn't done enough good things or they had done too many bad things before they died, they were told, they'd have to go to purgatory to work off their sins before they could be admitted into heaven. The church was corrupt and interested in money, so some of the misinformation was intentional. Many of the people didn't understand because The Bible was only available to the wealthy and educated, and worship services were conducted in Latin even though only the educated would have learned Latin. Martin Luther had been raised in the church and had become a monk. Only by close study of the Bible did he come to understand that we are saved by grace through faith, not by works (Ephesians 2:8-9). Luther wanted the church leaders to debate with him and to change their teachings to reflect what was taught in the Bible. He also wanted to make the Bible available to all people in their own language. Church leaders did not want to debate with him, and instead, they excommunicated him and put a price on his head.

Answer 4

Luther's main beleifs are written in the 95-Theses.