Martin Luther had a big impact
The body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still, His Kingdom is forever. — “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” by Martin Luther
When Martin Luther was converted to Christianity in Germany a little more than 500 years ago, it began a chain of events within Christianity that has carried on to this day.
Luther’s Christian conversion did not fit the church template of 1517.
“When a man believes himself to be utterly lost,” he said, “light breaks. Peace comes in the word of Christ through faith.”
Pastor, author and theologian R.C. Sproul commented on the significance of Luther’s spiritual pilgrimage.
“His conversion to the faith,” Sproul said, “was brought by Scripture. And that drove him for the rest of his days and gave him the courage to stand before the emperor and the princes of the church at Worms in 1521.”
It was at Worms, in Germany, that Luther took a strong stand, saying he could not go against Scripture, plain reason or his conscience.
From that moment on, people in Europe had to choose sides. On the one hand there was the long-established church in Rome with its monolithic structure, steadfast tradition and carefully prescribed acts of devotion; on the other hand was the belief that the church consists of individual sinners, each seeking salvation based upon his understanding of the Bible.
From history, we know that the latter became known as Protestants because they protested the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, creating the Protestant Reformation that changed the face of Europe and the world.
It was not a smooth transition. It was marked by debates, disputes, suspicion, clandestine activity and even bloodshed, although Luther led no physical rebellion himself. He opposed armed aggression and believed in submitting to governing authorities. But, eventually, Protestant churches covered much of northern Europe, while the Roman Catholic Church maintained a strong presence in the south.
Through it all, Luther wasn’t the only voice calling for a return to Biblical teachings.
Before Luther’s day, John Wycliffe of England and John Hus of Bohemia had called for many of the same things, and during Luther’s time, Ulrich Zwingli of Switzerland and John Calvin of France taught from the Bible in much the same way as Luther did.
From that point onward, Protestant Biblical teachings spread throughout much of Europe, and would soon cross the Atlantic with the Pilgrims in 1620 and the Puritans in 1630.
As a result, the Christian beliefs fostered by the Protestant Reformation were deeply ingrained in the birth of the United States because, from the very beginning, it was the Biblical theology of the reformers that dominated Christian life in the colonies on North America’s eastern seaboard.
If the Protestant beliefs said that faith was an individual matter — that each person can read the Bible for himself, see his own spiritual need, come to God in faith, and live the Christian life according to his own understanding of the Bible — then we shouldn’t think for a minute that this had nothing to do with the notion that a man can govern himself, respect civil authority, live responsibly toward his fellow man and live a life based upon liberty for each individual.
Christianity in America — with the Pilgrims, with the Puritans, and with
the English belief system that influenced America’s founding fathers — eventually established a nation that was, according to a sentiment attributed to James Madison, based “upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves … according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
In short, the Biblical idea of individual freedom as it pertains to one’s faith helped create the idea of individual freedom as it pertains to one’s country.
To be sure, there were other forces at play that shaped American thinking when the country was established in the 18th century (Judaism and Catholicism had an impact as well), but the Protestant influence was extremely prevalent and cannot be underestimated.
Author Chuck Colson wrote how the Reformation influenced American thinking. He explained: “Luther’s belief in the priesthood of all believers, that men and women had direct access to God … provided the philosophic foundation for political change. All men or women, whether sovereign or peasant, were equal in God’s sight.”
Luther’s call for the church to get back to its first-century Biblical origins was embraced by many people in his day and by many people during the founding of the United States.
And it is still being called for today.
Author and pastor John MacArthur Jr. said today’s churches need to recover the Reformation that took place 500 years ago.
“We don’t need to reinvent doctrine,” he said. “We don’t need to update the Bible … We don’t need another reformation. We just need to recover the one that happened, because its truths are correct and eternal and enduring, and cannot change.”