Martin Luther on Indulgences

Martin Luther's theses are a touchstone of western history. In Luther's stand against the Pope, we may see parallels to George Washington's stand against King George or Dr. King's stand against the Jim Crow South. The Martin Luther of popular memory is a visionary and radical who upsets the established order. He leads his people from oppression to the promised land of liberty.

If Luther's 95 theses are to be any guide, the real Martin Luther bears no resemblance to the popular Martin Luther. Rather, he comes across as petty and provincial. We celebrate his stand against indulgences as merely a "buying of salvation," but his grievance seems to be with how the indulgence money is spent. Namely, he prefers that the money be spent on the poor, rather than restoring St. Peter's Basilica. In thesis 50, he states,

Christians should be taught that, if the pope knew the exactions of the indulgence-preachers, he would rather the church of St. Peter were reduced to ashes than be built with the skin, flesh, and bones of the sheep.

This is diabolical. Like Satan tempting Jesus in the desert, Luther taunts the Pope, "if you were the real Pope, you'd turn these stones into bread." Of course, these sorts of arguments have been made over and over by the church's foes at least since the time of Christ. Neglecting St. Peter's Basilica would have made a negligible dent in world hunger and left the world spiritually impoverished. Note that Luther is not disputing the rectitude of indulgences. Rather, he affirms the propriety of indulgences in thesis 71.

Let him be anathema and accursed who denies the apostolic character of the indulgences.

This is astonishing, and completely at odds with what we've been told about Martin Luther. We see that his argument is one of demagoguery rather than vision or principle. Like a false czar, insists that the real Pope would never engage in the behavior of which he disapproves. On the other hand, he fails to make the arguments that we routinely attribute to him. If Luther is of any significance at all, it is not as a great thinker or leader. Rather, it is as more of a mascot for a movement that would far surpass him.