Where did the Lutheran Church come from and what are its beliefs?
The Lutheran Church, as it’s name implies, began with Martin Luther who began the reformation of the church back in the 1500’s. Luther was a brilliant and courageous German Augustinian monk who saw that the Roman Catholic Church was in need of a number of reforms. In trying to bring about the changes, Luther quickly found himself in trouble with the powers that be. His most famous act was the nailing of the 95 Thesis (articles for the purposes of debate) to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1517. Because the Guttenberg press had been invented just a century earlier, this list, along with Luther’s subsequent writings, was printed and soon became widely distributed and read throughout Germany. Luther’s writings eventually wound up in the hands of Pope Leo X. In his writings, Luther was questioning the validity of the then-common church-wide fundraising practice of selling indulgences. Indulgences were papers signed by the pope that, when purchased, granted the buye
