What exactly was Martin Luther so hot and bothered about?

Answer 1

That really depends on what year in Martin Luther's life you wish to discuss. In his early life, he was hot and bothered about sin, to the point where he entered an Augustinian Friary out of guilt and fear of hell. That guilt and fear seemed to drive most of his life until he started to question his basic assumptions. At that point, he got hot and bothered about what he *thought* the Catholic Church teaches, which is when he wrote and posted his 95 Theses (which you may read below). This was all the more remarkable because a great deal of it was NOT what the Catholic Church actually taught. But Martin Luther was on a roll, and he became more and more convinced of his own rightness and the Church's wrongness, so he left his solemn vows (without permission) and started his own Church. At this point, things got away from him, the rulers in Germany used his new theology as an excuse to break from Rome and not send them taxes. Other priests and theologians used him as an excuse to start their own Churches, and the whole bloody mess got really out of hand.