Thursday, July 12, 2018
In terms of denominational origin stories, it’s hard to get more dramatic than Lutheranism: in October of 1517 a young monk, troubled by the dissonance between what he reads in the Scriptures and what he sees in his church, boldly nails 95 statements of theological challenge to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg and unleashes a revolution that changes the entire direction of Christianity and European history. This compelling narrative arc, embellished over time, became the common reading of the beginnings of “The Reformation.” That story has also created a number of misconceptions about the branch of the Western church that would bear Martin Luther’s name.
