Ahmed Khazaal04/18/2014The Trial of Martin LutherMartin Luther, reformer and founder of the Lutheran Church, was born on November 10, 1483 in Eisleben, Germany, and died there on February 18 1546. Martin was a very accomplished person. He attended the University of Erfurt where he planned to become a lawyer according to his father's wishes. On July 2, 1505, a lightning strike struck Luther while he was still a student at the University of Erfurt, and Luther translated this as a signal from God that he should become a monk. After two weeks, he took up his monastic commitments in an Augustinian cloister. A trip to Rome in 1510 led Luther to begin to really question some Catholic practices. Luther's understanding of Paul's theology led him to view with doubt the Catholic Church's reliance on the practice of selling indulgences as its primary source of revenue. Things began to come to a head the following year when Pope Leo X launched an indulgence campaign to raise capital for the construction of a grand St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Those who fall into this category, as well as all of Luther's broader teachings, are called Lutherans, but Luther asserted that Christian was the only appropriate name for individuals who recognized Christ. He strongly opposed the corruption of absolute power and the abuse of position of popes. He challenged the assertion that freedom from divine punishment for sin could be purchased with financial values, or granted only by a pope, because forgiveness comes only from God. He did everything he could to end the violence and revolutionary uprising that he believed could be directly linked to him through misinterpretations of his writings. I totally believe that Martin Luther was innocent for the following three reasons: F...... middle of paper ...did not write his 95 theses as a way to begin a whole new reformation: he just wanted to give fire to a discussion. I believe he is not guilty of the fact that others have interpreted his writings completely differently than he intended. In fact, he made many sacrifices to avoid the violence that could have been caused by misinterpretation of his writings. Additionally, he lost his friend Andreas Karlstadt because he thought he was wrong and never sided with him just because he was his friend, and the peasants started to hate him because he didn't not supported in their violent revolts. Martin Luther did not want people to violently rebel against the Church. Finally, if Luther was considered revolutionary, why was he only excluded from the Empire after Worms? If he was so obviously revolutionary, why wasn't he burned as a heretic ??