What Happened To Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses?

One of the greatest acts of defiance in religious history was Martin Luther’s written “Ninety-Five Theses”, which condemned the papacy’s practice of reducing ones time spent in purgatory by paying money, or referred to as indulgences. This act of defiance, caused the peasants to revolt against either the papacy, their rulers, or Martin Luther. This created the debate on who and what caused the revolt in the early 1500s. As seen in “The German Reformation and the Peasants’ War”, through sources of primary documents, Michael G. Baylor reveals that Luther and his followers were in some ways responsible for inspiring violent rebellion and The Peasants’ War because their ideals and rhetoric threatened the churches stronghold. Yet, Luther claims

he never intended to cause violence, his goal was to improve Christianity and revive the church but the peasants were confused my Luther’s intentions.
The German Peasants War was caused because Martin Luther displayed a huge act of defiance against the Church.

His promotion of heresy and Christian defiance encouraged others to follow. Luther stirred up many emotions, “Many people shared the growing feeling of malaise and discontent because of the corrupt times” . These emotions arose after he posted his 95 Thesis and claimed that purchasing indulgences would not actually remove time spent in purgatory. Creating this claim threatened the entire stronghold of the Christian church and directly called out the Pope, the father of the church, as a heretic. In Luther’s 50th point in his 95 thesis he exclaims, “Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the indulgence preachers, he would rather that the basilica of St. Peter were burned to ashes than built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of the sheep”. By stating this and referring to the Pope as a heretic, Luther is ultimately saying that the famous Roman Basilica should be burned which poses a huge threat to the center of worship, which would offend any religion. Luther caused the greatest act of defiance towards the Catholic Church, which understandably upset the peasants because they grew accustomed to their religion and Luther’s single thesis destroyed their

beliefs.
Luther never intended to cause violence, in fact he cautioned those that followed his rebellion to not display any violence to promote his message.

Luther believed that it was a part of his duty as a Christian man to return the Church to its origin and rid it of all added corruption caused by the papacy. He never would have involved himself in such a bold act if he did not feel that it was important and made him so conflicted. Martin Luther stated, “Commoners should only act against the church at the command or with the authorization of the nobles and the princes, who by definition could not be rebellious.” This quote shows that Luther never intended or could foreshadow that a rebellion would occur. His followers created the rebellion, but Luther was not leading it. In fact, one of Luther’s early followers, Thomas Muntzer, was used violence to spread Luther’s message and was considered one of the first to constitute active resistance. Muntzer was a pastor from a small town but he formed a small group to accompany him in burning down a shrine of the Virgin Mary. Munzter threatened in his exposition, “If the princes of Saxony did not act as they should, they would lose “the sword”- the power of government”. Muntzer did not follow Luther’s demands and he used violence anyways, which ultimately caused other peasants to have more hate

towards
Martin Luther.
During the time of religious propaganda the pope desired wealth, therefore, the papacy decided to sell indulgences in return for riches. This corruption affected the entire Church and the practicing peasants, yet the only man to point out the Popes heresy was Martin Luther. Luther observed, “…that the Christian society had lost its vitality, that the nobility had failed in its role as defender of the people, and above all that the clergy and the church had failed as mediators with the supernatural and had lost the favor of God”. Therefore, Luther never intended to cause violence, his intentions were to revive the church by pointing out the corruption. The peasants were just confused because Luther’s thesis could drastically affect their entire lives. If Luther succeeded in ridding the church of all corruption then it “Required the transformation of 
society as a whole according to the law of God. It is no wonder that many traditionalists charged Luther with inciting the commoners to insurrection” . Luther would not be able to make a change without a majority of followers that could help transform the entire religion, which would also affect society as a whole. Therefore, the peasants could foresee a change and it made them scared and confused, which made it easy for them to just attack Luther instead.