Thesis Number One
Topic: Life
You may have heard of a guy named Martin Luther and the little stir that he caused back in 1517 when he published his 95 Theses (with hammer & nails) on the door of the Castle Church at Wittenburg, in Germany.
The Castle Church housed more than 17,000 so–called “relics.” Among these relics in which Wittenburg boasted, they claimed to have four strands of the Virgin Mary’s hair, a piece of straw from the baby Jesus’ manger, a nail from the cross, and a piece of bread from the Last Supper.
People would come to venerate these relics, in great hope that in so doing they would earn eternal favor with God. In fact, the pope had decreed that those who did so on All Saints Day (November 1) could reduce their time in purgatory by over one million years — as long as they also made a little donation while they were there.
Well there was a monk named Martin Luther who had been studying his Bible, and he had come to the conclusion that all of this sort of business was vain nonsense, darkness, and superstition. “Christ alone can forgive sins,” he declared. “The pope has no power to forgive or to free souls from purgatory. If he had such power, why does he not release everyone from purgatory at once? Why does he not do it free of charge?”
So, on October 31 (the eve of All Saints Day) he went public with his critiques by nailing 95 Theses to the Castle Church door.