why do you think martin Luther's ideas might have been so attractive to the common person ? long answer please

Question

the monk

Answer 1

At the time the Lutheran Church came into being the Catholic Church was ripe with corruption. (much like today in many ways.) There was very little central control over priest and parish, many catholics were illiterate, and Martin Luther felt strongly that the people were being led away from the teachings of the bible. People began to feel abused by the leaders of the local churches who would often demand large tithes in the name of the church. Money that would never find it's way into the church coffers but instead go to finance the lavish lifestyle of the local church leaders. Martin Luther promised a return to the strict teaching of the Bible, and a chance to return the word of God to the people without the unreasonable demands of the catholic church. Also at the heart of many converts may have been the chance to rise up in violent rebellion against the oppressor Mother Church. Never underestimate the lure of blood-lust. The Chance to commit violence without fear of reprisal and more the promise of a great reward.

Answer 2

Martin Luthers' ideas were attractive to the common person because the common person, forced by Catholic dogma, confessed their sins to the Catholic priest once or twice a year,sometimes after traveling(on foot) many miles. Following confession, the priest would then tell the person what they must do for penence. Depending on the nature, and frequency of the sin(s), the priest would then often fleece the pilgrim, starting first by terrifying them into believing that he or she would have to spend many years, or decades in pergatory (a mythical tool thought up by the arch diacies)to absolve the sin(s). Most often out of pure fear, the pilgrim would ask if there might be some other way of absolution, and of course there would always be. The preist would most commonly, once he had the believer ensnared in his trap, make monetary demands(often the bigger portion of that families anual income.) The monies fleesed from the terrified believers paid for the construction of Europes grand cathedrals. These practices were refered to as "indulgences" by Martin Luthor, which were one of the points he wished to debate his brethren in the Catholic priesthood on. As history shows, the catholic church excomunicated MArtin Luthor, which is the closest thing I thing Catholocism has ever done to spread the good news of The Gospel world wide. After the excomunication, The Luthran Church was born, and from that, the free birth of protestant(note the word being rooted in "protest" of Catholocism) belief that is sweeping the world as we speak. I hope this helps. If I can be of more help, please feel free to email me.

Answer 3

I'm going to assume you mean the father of the Protestant Reformation, and not the civil rights leader... it's actually a pretty simple answer, when you think about it: he wasn't alone in his dissatisfaction with the church practices of the time. The sale of indulgences is one of his chief complaints, since he was disgusted by the idea that one could simply buy one's way into Heaven, while the poor might very well be doomed to damnation simply because they couldn't afford to get a "get out of jail free" card. He saw greed infiltrating the church (the sale of indulgences was, in the years prior to Luther's "95 Theses," used to fund the renovation of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome) and argued that wealthy parishoners were depending upon the indulgences to atone for the sins they had committed or MIGHT COMMIT at a future date, rather than confessing to a real live priest. The whole idea of confession is to repent, show remorse for having done wrong, and to learn from experience not to commit sin again if possible, while the idea of the indulgence is that you know you're going to be naughty at some point and whatever it is that you're going to do, you're going to be really, really sorry for it. Really.

Luther wasn't alone in his opinions -- lots of people took exception to the idea of the indulgence -- but he was the first to actually put his complaints about church practices into writing, for the general public to read and discuss. As a result of the 95 Theses that he nailed to the church door in Wittenberg, he began a grassroots movement that became the Protestant Reformation, because he demonstrated to people that you COULD speak out against the church, and just because someone in Rome said that what they were doing was okay and officially sanctioned by God didn't mean that they were RIGHT. That's why there are so many Protestant sects -- once people saw that you COULD differ with the church, people realized they disagreed with different aspects of Catholic doctrine, and organized themselves into groups based on different interpretations of the Bible, or different practices, or on things they decided we simply BETTER than what some old priest spouting Latin phrases at them did during service.

Answer 4

Martin Luther (1483-1546) stands in history as one of those unique forces, an individual who by force of will and by his ideas changed the world fundamentally. There are several ironies incumbent on Luther's pivotal role in history: 1) he doesn't really represent a break with the past, but rather a flash point where ideas and trends which had been smoldering in Europe for several centuries suddenly blazed aflame; 2) Luther initially saw himself as a great reformer of the Catholic church, a simple monk who thought the force of his ideas would single-handedly redirect the Leviathan of the church; in the end, however, he divided Christianity into two separate churches and that second division, Protestantism, would divide over the next four centuries into a near infinity of separate churches; 3) finally, Luther (and all the other reformers) saw themselves as returning Christianity to its roots, they believed that they were setting the clock back; in reality, their ideas irreparably changed the world and pushed it kicking and screaming, not into some ideal past, but into the modern era.

Luther was not a person you would want to have dinner with; he was temperamental, peevish, egomaniacal, and argumentative. But this single-mindedness, this enormous self-confidence and strident belief in the rightness of his arguments, allowed him to stand against opposition, indeed, to harden his position in the face of death by fire, the usual punishment for heretics

Luther's primary concern was the sale of indulgences--papal grants of reduced punishment in the afterlife, including releases from purgatory.While he was in Wittenberg a man called Johann Tetzel arrived in the town from Rome. He was selling documents called indulgences that pardoned people for the sins they had committed. Tetzel told people that the money raised by the sale of these indulgences would be used to repair St. Peter's cathedral in Rome.

Luther was very angry that Pope Leo X was raising money in this way. He believed that it was wrong for people to be able to buy forgiveness for sins they had committed. Luther decided to write down his views on the subject. He then nailed the paper to the door of the church in Wittenberg.

Pope Leo X ordered Luther to stop stirring up trouble. This attempt to keep Luther quiet had the opposite effect. Luther now started issuing statements about other issues. For example, at that time people believed that the Pope was infallible (incapable of error). However, Luther was convinced that Leo X was wrong to sell indulgences. Therefore, Luther argued, the Pope could not possibly be infallible.

If the Pope could be wrong about indulgences, Luther argued he could be wrong about other things. For hundreds of years popes had only allowed bibles to be printed in Latin or Greek. Luther pointed out that only a minority of people in Germany could read these languages. Therefore to find out what was in the Bible they had to rely on priests who could read and speak Latin or Greek. Luther, on the other hand, wanted people to read the Bible for themselves.

In 1521 orders were given for Luther to be arrested. However, Luther had many supporters in Germany and some of these people helped to save his life by hiding him in a castle. While Luther was there he translated the Bible into German. It was not long before copies of Luther's Bible were being read by people all over Germany.

He wrote..The deplorable, miserable conditions which I recently observed when visiting the parishes
have constrained and pressed me to put this catechism of Christian doctrine into this brief,
plain, and simple form. How pitiable, so help me God, were the things I saw; the common man,
especially in the villages, knows practically nothing of Christian doctrine, and many of the
pastors are almost entirely incompetent and unable to teach. Yet all the people are supposed to
be Christians, have been baptized, and receive the Holy Sacrament even though they do not
know the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, or the Ten Commandments and live like poor animals of the
barnyard and pigpen. What these people have mastered, however, is the fine art of tearing all
Christian liberty to shreds.

Answer 5

he wasn't trying to start a new religion he wanted the church to change. it had become corrupted by it's own power.

he had the courage to stand for what he thought was right at a time when it could have cost him his life, but he didn't and the Lutheran faith (protestant movement) was born.