why was martin luther successful in establishing the Protestant church?
He didn’t really establish the Protestant church — he was a very strong Catholic, but he objected to practices in the Catholic Church, and provided the impetus for others to move ahead with Protestantism. Queen Elizabeth I did more to actually establish the Protestant Church, with the establishment of the Church of England, after her father, Henry VIII, plunged the country into civil strife over his break with the Catholic Church, than Luther did, although his writings were a major influence. Elizabeth had to act decisively to heal her country from the effects of her sister’s (Mary I, “Bloody Mary”) bloody attempts to make Catholicism the primary religion of England. His primary goal was to reform the Catholic Church. His “95 Theses” was written in direct confrontation to the Church’s then-practice of the selling of indulgences — church doctrine at that time was that faith wasn’t good enough, one had to do “good works” to earn credit for going to heaven, and one way that was strongly
