Corruption in Religious Authorities & Political Despots

The Reformation kicked off to a roaring start when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of a church in Wittenburg, Germany. This not only began the greatest religious upheaval in European history but also paved the way for the rejection of traditional political systems during the Enlightenment.

Criticizing the corruption and over-abundance of the Church, Luther asked, “Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?" In a similar vein, the founding fathers of the United States of America declared their independence from England "For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent." This is only one of seventeen grievances written in the Declaration of Independence, compared to Luther’s ninety-five, but we see a pattern in the types of accusations that these revolutionaries were leveling against the institutions in power.





Both the Enlightenment thinkers and Luther provided these complaints as evidence that change was needed. In his work The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Luther said that “the church has been robbed of all her liberty.” The same sentiment is echoed in the words of Immanuel Kent, who noted, “Everywhere there is restriction on freedom” while penning a defense for the Enlightenment. The parallels are clear between these two thoughts, though it’s worth noting that Martin Luther supported monarchies, as did many people of his time, as being divinely appointed.





Although it wasn’t his intention, the Enlightenment thinkers were only free to think about liberty from authoritarian forms of government because Luther had already challenged the most powerful institution in Western Europe, the Catholic church, and provided a space for humankind to question centuries-old tradition.





With this newfound independence of thought, the people of the Enlightenment could build on Luther’s momentum and carry their grievances not just to religious authority but to political despots, leading to revolutions and the semi-successful establishment of democracy in the western world. Enlightenment leaders like Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, and Voltaire questioned established political norms. Much like Luther, they came to the conclusion that those in power were hurting their constituents for their own gain. They could either submit to corrupt authority or break away. In the Americas and France, the people chose to reject a distant (geographically or socially) leader to develop their own democratic systems, echoing Martin Luther’s decision to reject the Pope in pursuit of God’s truth.






Gabe Bradford, Mary Bowers, Eliza Anderson, Christy Bradford, Kelsi Hicken