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Fighting Normal

The Story of Martin Luther

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Fighting Normal
Biography.com

As much as they'd like you to believe it, the Church isn't always right. There are times where you'll be the only one who believes something, while everyone else condemns you for seeing something differently. That's not a bad thing. Sometimes God will use you to accomplish something that goes against the beliefs of everyone else. I'm not saying to go against everyone else's beliefs for the sake of argument, but you need to stand up for what you believe is right. If everyone else is telling you to stop and sit down, but you believe wholeheartedly that God is using you to speak the truth, it's your duty as a Christian to keep spreading your message. There's historical precedence for something like this happening. A guy named Martin Luther.

Martin Luther was a law student. One day, he and a few friends went out on a boat, and naturally they got caught in a storm. Expecting to die, Luther made a deal with God. "Help me St. Anne, I'll become a monk!" He survived the storm and true to his word, he gave up law school to become a monk. He devoted himself to study, but was viewed as radical by the other monks. He would confess incessantly, and was the annoying guy nobody wanted to talk to. So they decided to get rid of him by making him a professor and having him bother students instead.

At this time, the Catholic Church was trying to raise money for the equivalent of a modern mega-church (called St. Peter's Basilica). To raise money, they started selling indulgences. The Catholics believe in a place called purgatory, which is essentially the waiting room of the afterlife. Christians would still go to Heaven, but if they hadn't confessed, they would be forced to wait a determined time in purgatory before entering Glory. They sold what were essentially "get out of jail" cards like you see in Monopoly. These certificates would often cost half a year's wages. That's a lot of money for anyone, much less people who didn't have a lot of income.

Luther rode in to a town one day for a teaching conference. On this trip, he saw church officials having relations with prostitutes and also selling these indulgences. Naturally, being the outspoken individual that he was, Luther saw some problems with these. He wrote a list of 95 theses, or ideas of what was wrong with the church. He nailed it to the door of the church, and it became famous. Everybody read them. Some agreed and some didn't, but it had a huge impact. That movement is now known as the Protestant Reformation and it effectively ended the Catholic Church's monopoly on religion.

One man made a difference. Doing what you're called to isn't always popular, but it's the right thing to do in the eyes of God.

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