Reformation and Martin Luther

Five hundred years have passed since the Reformation, and various ceremonies are being held in Europe to commemorate this occasion. What was the Reformation, and what impact did it have on European history? Martin Luther was a German figure who changed the course of Christianity and Europe. But why did Luther revolt against the Pope? To understand this, it should be recalled that in the Catholic Church, human sins could be somewhat absolved through prayer or confession of a sinner alongside a priest. This phenomenon was abused during the Renaissance, to the extent that by the Pope's order, high priests could issue a kind of divine promissory note that sinners had to repeatedly purchase to absolve their sins. The money went into the church's treasury. This phenomenon took on an exploitative and ruthless form, as it gradually became clear that the Pope wanted to use the money from the sins bought by the people to fund the construction of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Religious authorities collected money in a way that aimed solely to strengthen the earthly power of the Catholic Church and its authorities. In Luther's view, this kind of wealth accumulation for the construction of a church was a form of extortion and a cover-up, indicative of the scheming of the Catholic Church. In one of Luther's theses, it is stated that people will not benefit from divine happiness and salvation through this kind of extortion, and this accumulation of wealth itself is a form of heresy. Luther believed that the forgiveness of a sinner's sins is a spiritual matter and cannot be bought; if a person regrets their sin and is forgiven, they should not have to pay money for this forgiveness, which he believed was purely spiritual. Therefore, the Pope and the Church do not have the right to seize people's wealth under the pretext of strengthening their earthly power and constructing St. Peter's Basilica through a form of state extortion. Luther writes that this kind of extortion has nothing to do with philanthropy and goodwill, and anyone, even the Pope, who takes money from a needy person instead of helping them and exploits their weakness incites divine wrath. One of the greatest intellectual paradoxes of the Reformation movement was that on the one hand, it was a revolutionary freedom-seeking movement, while on the other hand, it promoted conservative religious thoughts. Luther believed that beyond tradition, one should examine and understand objective truths without prejudice, bias, and malice. In Luther's view, the mistakes of the Catholic Church and the Pope created a kind of distrust in religion, questioning why God only cleanses people's sins once a day and not a hundred times daily. Or why the Pope, who has great wealth, does not pay for the construction of St. Peter's himself. In theses 79 to 81, he even states that placing the image of the Pope and extorting priests next to the image of Christ in the church is itself a form of heresy. Luther believed that Christians should follow the path of Christ and not seek a church that seizes people's wealth through deception and trickery. The Protestant Reformation relatively overturned the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. In a class movement, the poor and peasants perhaps unwittingly developed a secularist movement and ultimately questioned the power and authority of the Catholic clergy. At that time, the Catholic clergy held immense social, economic, and political power, which was becoming increasingly unstable. Luther demonstrated that people needed intellectual independence against the intellectual monopoly of the Catholic Church and its governmental monopoly. Luther sought a forgiving God, precisely at a time when the behavior of the ruling Church was oppressive. For his time, Luther is considered a humanist. He concluded that Christians should only believe in Christ and not in the Catholic Church. One of the greatest intellectual paradoxes of the Reformation movement was that on the one hand, it was a revolutionary freedom-seeking movement, while on the other hand, it promoted conservative religious thoughts. Luther believed that beyond tradition, one should examine and understand objective truths without prejudice, bias, and malice. In this way, by questioning and breaking the traditions of oppression, injustice, and tyranny, he created a critical mindset in individual and scientific thought. On the other hand, he initially colluded with the peasant movement and even took the lead in peasant uprisings, but ultimately stood against those movements and became one of their staunch opponents, defending the new ruling government's authority. The Reformation movement, without consciously pursuing this goal, transferred power from the Church to the state. Protestantism established the idea that every individual could be a priest in the history of the Church. It should not be forgotten that the Reformation itself promoted a kind of dogmatic religious thought but insisted on points that led to the emergence of modern liberalism, citizenship, and pluralism. It should also be emphasized that one of the consequences of this protest movement was the separation of the state and the institutions of the country from religion and the Church, which itself was a step towards religious tolerance. Luther's enmity with the Turks and his anti-Semitism were certainly not strengths of his policy. During Luther's lifetime, European powers were at war with each other. However, the reason that united them was the Ottoman Empire. Initially, Luther opposed a crusade against the Turks, but eventually considered the Turks as an enemy. Luther concluded that the Pope was an 'Antichrist,' meaning an enemy of Christianity, but the Turks and, explicitly, other Muslims were, in his view, a demonic force. Protestantism forced people to take the truths of life more seriously and to break traditions. However, the independence that modern humans found over several centuries in Europe led them to believe that they could not only understand the laws of nature with their science but also govern those laws, which might be an impossible task. Ultimately, modern humans placed themselves against religion and theology because they could no longer tolerate superstitions and, for this reason, believed that they were no longer creations and could replace the Creator with their knowledge and science. The issue of Luther's anti-Semitism and Islamophobia is briefly scrutinized here. Luther's enmity with the Turks and his anti-Semitism were certainly not strengths of his policy. During Luther's lifetime, European powers were at war with each other. However, the reason that united them was the Ottoman Empire. Initially, Luther opposed a crusade against the Turks, but eventually considered the Turks as an enemy. Luther concluded that the Pope was an 'Antichrist,' meaning an enemy of Christianity, but the Turks and, explicitly, other Muslims were, in his view, a demonic force. Particularly, anti-Semitism was another intellectual weakness of Luther that must be placed in a historical context. On the one hand, the Reconquista, meaning the fall of Islamic rule in Spain and the expulsion of Muslim Moors in 1492, led to anti-Semitism in Spain, which had negative effects on other European countries. On the other hand, Christianity in Europe was still engaged in confrontation with the Ottoman world after the Crusades. After all, the Ottomans had managed to conquer Constantinople in 1453, which was under the rule of the Roman Empire until then. Thomas Kaufmann, a church historian from Göttingen, Germany, writes that the Turks actually allowed the Lutheran movement to grow successfully. According to him, the Turks were an external threat, and Luther was able to encourage his movement and supporters to continue their struggle more decisively to counter this threat, which contributed to the greater success of the Protestant movement. Luther, who died in 1546, stated that the threat from the Turks was a divine scourge that endangered the Christian world due to the sins of the Catholic Church. Therefore, only Protestantism, which Luther believed was true Christianity, could offer a new solution for Christianity. In 1529, when Ottoman forces reached the gates of Vienna, Luther used this military confrontation with the Turks to develop his movement. He did not speak of confrontation with Islam; rather, in his view, the enemies were, on the one hand, the Pope and the Catholic Church and, on the other hand, the Turks. Of course, Luther spoke of the Muhammadan movement instead of Muslims. In Luther's view, the problem with Muslims was that they neither drank wine nor could be happy and were more pious than Catholics, and the silence prevailing in their mosques was only because Muslim women wore veils and sat separately from men. Thomas Kaufmann writes that for Luther, the behavior of Muslims was even somewhat admirable, but this astonishing understanding also provided the grounds for Luther's enmity with both the Turks and the Jews, to the extent that he believed the Turks had a demonic power. After Luther read the Latin translation of the Quran, he requested a German translation of the Quran at the end of his life. Luther explained the importance of translating the Quran so that Germans could understand how disgraceful Islam is as a religion. It should be added that Lutheran and Protestant churches in the 21st century no longer pursue Luther's theories of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. The historical truth is that the Reformation broke and shattered the magic of the Catholic Church and prepared society for the discovery and acquisition of modern sciences, for naturalism and nationalism. Perhaps without Luther and the Reformation, scientists like Charles Darwin would never have had the opportunity to present their ideas.