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21 " When a burdened Augustinian friar in Wittenberg in October 1516 lamented in a letter how busy he was, no Reformation was in sight. Only Luther’s religious anxiety and his pastoral concern for Christian souls were present. By the summer of 1521, Martin Luther is Europe’s most famous man and its all-time bestselling author. "
― Brad S. Gregory , Rebel in the Ranks: Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the Conflicts That Continue to Shape Our World
22 " Regardless of their leaders' decisions, nation-states-their bureaucratic reach augmented by the increasingly centralized orchestration of tax revenues, industrial and communications technologies, military power, and police forces-controlled the churches and all expressions of religion with greater effectiveness than had ever been possible during the Reformation era. During the Cold War, this was no less true of the United States than it was of the Soviet Union, despite the radically different ways in which these two nations regarded religion and treated religious believers. "
― Brad S. Gregory , The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society
23 " The first hint of what is to come occurs near the end of Luther’s obscurity. In September 1517 the dutiful Johann Rhau-Grunenberg publishes a one-page broadsheet by Luther with a boring title: A Disputation against Scholastic Theology. In his broadsheet, Luther ironically lists concise propositions to be argued over—a central practice of scholasticism—in order to criticize scholasticism itself, sort of like a poet writing a poem to criticize poetry. "
24 " Through the medium of print, thorny questions intended for debate among authorized experts have been made available for public comment for the first time. But only a tiny percentage of the population can read Latin. Writing about touchy theological issues in German would be something else entirely, which is why it’s so alarming when Luther decides to respond to his critics publicly in the vernacular. "
25 " Generally speaking, these Christians want basic changes inspired by the gospel to infuse their traditional, broader understanding of “divine law.” They want the right to choose their own clergy. They want an end to feudal taxes and fees they consider burdensome and unjust. They want access to shared woods, fields, and streams for their use. And they want the abolition of traditional serfdom and the oppressive conditions it entails. "
26 " with competing claims apparent among groups such as the Diggers, Quakers, Ranters, Baptists, Muggletonians, and Fifth Monarchists "
27 " The dispute between Erasmus and Luther signals the end of Christian humanism as a reforming initiative aiming to renew Christendom as a whole. As the sixteenth century unfolds, Protestant and Catholic humanists will marshal their knowledge of languages and scholarship against each other in the service of rival theological commitments. Like Catholics and magisterial Protestants more generally, Erasmus and Luther believe in original sin but remain deeply divided about the extent and the range of its effects. Ultimately, this divide implies very different views about human nature. On one side are those convinced that only if utterly sinful human beings acknowledge their inability to contribute to their salvation can they be saved by God’s grace. On the other side are those who agree that human beings cannot be saved without God but that we retain some goodness and capacity to freely cooperate with God’s grace as a necessary precondition for our salvation. Different views of human nature go together with different views of God and of how God interacts with human beings. And through all the rancor eternal salvation is hanging in the balance. "