“Take care that no one’s man-made laws
should e’er destroy the gospel’s cause;
this final word I leave you”
“Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice” — Martin Luther

Martin Luther wrote more than 40 hymns during his lifetime, all but a few of them written in German. “Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice” happens to be the first hymn that Luther ever published among his long list. In 1854, Richard Massie of England published an English translation of all of Luther’s hymns.

While Luther’s hymn writing was certainly prolific, he’s most well-known for a very different avenue, one that celebrates its anniversary every Halloween.

On October 31, 1517, Luther nailed a list of 95 concerns that he had with the Catholic church of the time to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and thus he began what is known as the reformation of the Christian faith.

While many portray Catholicism as the only expression of the Christian church when Luther nailed his thesis to that church door, that is not exactly true.

The “Great Schism” occurred in the Christian community in 1054, and the Catholic church split from the Orthodox church at that time. However, the work that Luther began soon saw the Christian church splinter, with “Lutheran” congregations that trace their roots to that day in Wittenberg and the Church of England, more commonly known as Episcopalians today, beginning their church within a decade. Now there are more than 20,000 Christian denominations worldwide.

What truly made all of this possible was the Gutenberg Bible.

While still written in Latin, the Gutenberg Bible became the first mass-printed book in the world, though the “mass” printing consisted of roughly 150-200 copies.

However, that showed that books could be copied en masse, and soon after, printing plates for many books were developed to mass-produce books far beyond a couple of hundred copies.

While the printing of the Bible allowed for it to be more available to the common man, the Catholic church at the time did not allow anyone but clergy to read scripture aloud in worship. True knowledge of what was printed within the Bible was treated as some level of secret, something that the “common man” could not handle or understand, so clergy were expected to tell parishioners how to understand Biblical texts.

Luther wanted to end that division of the “haves” and the “have nots” in church pews, and that was part of the discussion he hoped to have.

November 1 is All Saints Day, and church leaders and community leaders would be coming to Wittenberg to meet and exchange pleasantries. That is why he posted his discussion points the day before - not as some sort of radical anti-church move, but to open discussion, hoping to bring sides together.

He was excommunicated from the church for his effort.

To his dying day, Luther badly wanted reconciliation with the Catholic church.

It was not his intention to start a new religion, especially not one that would come to bear his name! His goal was to open up the church for all, not to sew division and eventually a split within the Christian faith.

What’s ironic - and even a bit on the sad side - is that since he was excommunicated, the Catholic church has implemented the vast majority of Luther’s 95 theses, even going beyond his original point(s) of contention.

Much in the way that Luther despised the Church using its man-made doctrine to push down and exploit the marginalized, while actually telling those same people that those rules were going to provide them a unique path to God, we experience politicians and political operatives who attempt to say that their particular political belief system can provide us a path to success, power, or happiness in life that the other party could not.

Rewarding those who spread such messages only encourages them.

Instead, we should take a stand, like Luther, and encourage dialogue and mutual respect, even with those who disagree with us. Find those who are public about their desire to work across party and ideological lines to find what is best for all, not what is best for party, for donors, or for their own pocketbook.

A whole new reformation could begin…