The Reformation

After watching the video, it brought up many points on why Luther broke from the catholic church. First it describes the role that the church played in society, how they were very strict in their rules, how you would find happiness in heaven, and avoid the wrath of God.  Luther grew up in a catholic household where his father would beat him and had very high expectations for him. After he left home he went through various struggles. The first thing that he realized when he faced his friend's death was that he saw man’s mortality and the fear of God's wrath which led to a major turning point in his life. He then joined the monks which were even more strict than the catholics and he believed he would never satisfy the father and that it ruined his health. When he left the monks and went back he saw that the church made profits from the pilgrims to help themselves. Luther did not like the fact that the church was taking the money with no remorse. Since Luther felt that he would never live up to expectations, the guilt from the church, wanting to follow what God wanted drove Luther away from the catholic church and eventually he broke away from it. 

Driven by his anger with the church Luther set out to find some answers for himself. Through this journey he had a very big revelation about God. He realized that to receive salvation you simply had to ask God to save you, and he would. This led to other revelations like the fact that religion is about you and God and not rituals and the church. After trying to spread this message and seeing the people were still only interested in paying the church for salvation he grew angry and started to take a different approach. He wrote a thesis, which spread across Germany quickly. Luther’s revelation started a “new” religion which made a lot of sense. He found that the “religion” was more about the control of the church than the actual relationship with God. This “new” religion, though with pieces of the “old” religion, was intended to help people find God and the faith he wanted each person to have.