Questions and Answers:

Q: How did Martin Luther contribute to a more modern way of thinking?

A: Martin Luther was one of the first to think outside of what the church taught him. He began to question the church’s authority and what was going on inside the church. What he found was corruption, greed, and malpractice. He helped to contribute to the new Renaissance way of thinking: secular and humanistic. In other words, he focused on the here and now and the value of humans. He saw that change was needed desperately in the Catholic Church, and he wanted to change it immediately.

Q: What made Martin Luther successful with his ideas? What made others not largely successful?

A: As they say, timing is everything. It just so happened that the Gutenberg printing press was invented by Johann Gutenberg right around the same time that Martin Luther published his 95 Theses. In fact, Luther wrote the 95 theses in light of this invention. With the advent of the printing press, it was possible for Luther’s word to spread throughout Germany very quickly. Previous to the printing press, people with ideas had no way to spread them.

Q: Why should we care about Martin Luther?

A: We should care about Martin Luther because he started the Lutheran church that is still in existence today and was one of the first people to speak out against the Catholic Church and its corruption. Many of the churches that people belong to now might never have been formed without Martin Luther’s intervention. Luther’s ideas also expanded to another more general group called the Protestants who are categorized as non-Catholic Christians.

Q: What did Martin Luther do?

A: Martin Luther was the catalyst for the reformation in Europe. He not only spoke out against the corruption Catholic Church, but his ideas about salvation through faith alone are still preached about in many churches today.

Q: Who was Martin Luther?

A: Martin Luther was a German monk who changed the way that people thought about the Catholic religion. Others before him had as well, but no one had been able to spread their ideas like Martin Luther did. His humanistic and secular views helped ignite the reformation in Europe by focusing on the present and worrying about the corruption in the Catholic Church.