In October 1512 Martin Luther received his doctorate in theology at the University of Wittenberg. The Elector paid the costs of the ceremony. Luther’s doctoral oath bound him to Holy Scripture. In his later conflict with the papal church, Luther appealed to this obligation. From then on he lectured regularly on a book of the Bible, until November 1545.
theology
Theses for Debate
Martin Luther’s 95 Theses of 1517 carry the Latin title Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum, a disputation to clarify the power of indulgences. They were meant as a basis for discussion among expert theologians. Their preamble begins: Aus Liebe zur Wahrheit und im Verlangen, sie zu erhellen, sollen die folgenden Thesen in Wittenberg disputiert werden … (Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following theses shall be debated in Wittenberg …) Luther asked those who could not come to debate in person to take part in writing instead. The debate he hoped for never took place. Instead, a heresy trial began in 1518, and in the end Luther was excommunicated.
Making the Reformation Last
Cities and territories that adopted the Reformation gave themselves a Kirchenordnung, a church order, often adopting one written elsewhere. According to German Wikipedia, these orders marked the beginning of a phase of consolidation. In northern Germany the leading author was Johannes Bugenhagen. Braunschweig adopted his order in 1528, Hamburg in 1529 and Lübeck in 1531. With the Braunschweig order Bugenhagen laid the foundations of the school system and regulated care for the poor. In 1528 Martin Luther saw on his visits to parishes that ordinary believers knew the faith only in fragments. In 1529 he wrote the Small Catechism, which explains the faith in questions and answers. It was meant as a basis for the heads of households to teach their families. It is still often used today in confirmation classes.
Ten Years for the Sunday Readings
Protestant churches in Germany follow a Perikopenordnung, a fixed order of Bible readings for each Sunday. The order in use had been valid since 1978. Its revision began with decisions of the church bodies in 2008 and 2009. In the church year 2014/15 the draft was tested in parishes. In Württemberg alone, 100 parishes tried one of the new series of readings, and their feedback was passed on to the national church office. The tests led to numerous corrections. In November 2017 the synod of the Protestant Church in Germany adopted the new order einstimmig ohne Gegenstimme, unanimously, without a vote against. It was introduced on the first Sunday of Advent 2018.
Man Proposes, God Disposes
Der Mensch denkt, Gott lenkt. Man thinks, God steers. The proverb has the same sense as a sentence in The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, from the early fifteenth century: Nam homo proponit, sed Deus disponit, for man proposes, but God disposes. The Kempis sentence echoes Proverbs 16:9, which in Luther’s translation reads: Des Menschen Herz erdenkt sich seinen Weg; aber der HERR allein lenkt seinen Schritt. (A man’s heart devises his way, but the Lord alone directs his steps.)
Luther’s Apple Tree
Wenn ich wüsste, dass morgen die Welt unterginge, würde ich heute noch ein Apfelbäumchen pflanzen. If I knew that the world would end tomorrow, I would still plant a little apple tree today. The saying is attributed to Martin Luther, but it is not found in his writings or in his table talk. Its first documented appearance is a letter of 5 October 1944 from Karl Lotz, a pastor in Hersfeld, to friends in the Confessing Church. Lotz introduced it as a word of Luther. The theologian Martin Schloemann traced its history in a book published in 1994. The saying spread during the war and remained popular through the years of reconstruction.
A Treaty That Outlived the Reich
On 20 July 1933, the Holy See and the German Reich concluded the Reichskonkordat, a treaty on the Catholic Church in Germany. It is still in force. Article 21 makes Catholic religious instruction a regular school subject. On 26 March 1957, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled on the treaty. It found that the concordat had been validly concluded and never terminated. Violations had led to protests, not to its end. The concordat therefore still existed and bound the Federal Republic.
The same ruling let the states depart from the treaty’s school rules under German law, while the treaty still bound Germany under international law.
Payments Since 1803
Every year, the German states pay money to the churches. These Staatsleistungen, state payments, go back mainly to 1803. In that year, church property was given to secular rulers, and the new rulers took over the church’s obligations. In 1919, the Weimar Constitution ordered that the payments be durch die Landesgesetzgebung abgelöst, bought out by state law. It added: Die Grundsätze hierfür stellt das Reich auf. The Reich sets the principles for this. The Basic Law of 1949 took this article over. The principles have never been set, and so the payments continue. For 2022, the states planned about 602 million euros for the Catholic and Protestant churches alone.
Ablösen in this legal sense means to end against compensation. The payments can stop only against compensation, and in more than a century no federal law has set the terms.
As Dear as I Ought
In 1524 Martin Luther published Von Kaufshandlung und Wucher, On Trade and Usury. He quotes the rule of the merchants. In modern German it reads: Ich darf meine Ware so teuer geben, wie ich kann. I may sell my goods as dear as I can. Luther calls this rule the basis of all the tricks of usury. He tells the Christian merchant to ask a different question: Ja, wie teuer soll ich’s denn geben? Wo treffe ich das Rechte und die Billigkeit, dass ich meinen Nächsten nicht übervorteile oder überteuere? How dear should I sell it, then? Where do I find what is right and fair, so that I do not take advantage of my neighbor or overcharge him? Luther also gives the method. The merchant should count the days he spent getting and fetching the goods. He should weigh his labor and his risk, and compare his reward with the wage of a common day laborer.
Withdrawing the Condemnations
On Reformation Day 1999, the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church signed the Gemeinsame Erklärung zur Rechtfertigungslehre, the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. The ceremony took place in the Lutheran St. Anne’s Church in Augsburg. How a person is justified before God had been a central point of dispute in the Reformation. The direct history of the declaration began in Germany. A key step was a study, completed in 1986, that asked whether the old condemnations still divided the churches. The final text states a Konsens in Grundwahrheiten, a consensus in basic truths. Its aim was a differenzierter Konsens, a differentiated consensus, in which each side keeps its own tradition and language where these do not contradict each other. On that basis, the mutual condemnations of the 16th century zurückgenommen werden und heute nicht mehr gelten, are withdrawn and no longer apply today.