Martin Luther from the Eyes of Frederick the Wise by Austin Baller

An opposition has come about, and it is questioning things that have been around for a thousand years. This tyrant is accusing the church of misleading people into thinking that the church can decide if they go to heaven or not. He has gained many followers and has started to force a shift in the way the church uses its money and how it gets its money, I myself have started to see the reason in his words. His name is Martin Luther, a well educated scholar with a degree in theology, and he has spoke out against the indulgences the church is selling.

He has written and mass produced his 95 theses, posting them all around Germany with the help of Gutenberg’s printing press, and this has helped him gain many followers.

But despite his efforts the church still has more power and decide to try him for heresy, and since I am the elector for germany (the home of Luther) I also receive a letter from the pope expressing the things that Luther had done and why he was to be tried. I feel an obligation to remain loyal to the church but I also see sense in the words of Luther, so as to not make enemies with the church but to also support the cause of Luther I got the trial moved to the town of Augsburg on German soil. Even though the trial is on german soil, the church still has a bias on the case, and when Luther gets word that he may be arrested he flees the court and stows away in a nearby castle. Immediately after Luther’s escape, I receive a letter from the pope himself, the letter states that I must either have Luther arrested or Banished from the territories but as seeing the bias in the church I refuse in a way as to not make enemies with the church. Instead I decided to write a letter to the emperor stating that the case either be dropped or sent to germany to be settled by judges. The case was sent to rome where it was continuously debated, back and forth with no clear winner. But in the summer of 1520 Luther wrote and published his books, The Sermon on Good Works, The Papacy in Rome, The Babylonian Captivity, and The Freedom of the Christian Man, These books further spread Luther’s ideas and changed the debate for the better. Luther was not done though and the Pope sent yet another letter saying that Luther must recall 45 of the sentences on the 95 theses or he was to be excommunicated. He was excommunicated on January 3, 1521 and was sent to confront the diet. The trial went on for three days but the diet found him innocent and Luther was freed to keep preaching his beliefs and from that there is now many types of christianity and Lutheranism now has over 80 million followers.

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