Monday, May 3, 2021

Martin Luther On Trial, April 1521: When You Can't Stand Down For What's Right

His words sparked a flame for truth that the darkness of deception never could put out. 

The Roman Catholic monk named Martin Luther was dragged into a heresy trial in the city of Worms, Germany in April 1521. He was compelled to appeared before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to defend what he had taught and written which directly challenged the apostate Roman religion of the day. His revolutionary thought that proclaimed that Scripture alone established Christian truth apart from church councils or tradition had caught the popular attention of medieval German society through the new printing press media.

It had caused a massive uproar in those days that is impossible to overstate. It shook the Papacy to its core and Luther was held in the city of Worms to answer for his "crimes" and this bit of cinema from the 1953 film dramatization is probably the most stirring version of his answer ever filmed.

Although those flames of zeal today are greatly tinged with the alien stink of colorful wild fire that is as just as damaging as Roman Catholic falsehood is, Martin Luther's iron commitment to Biblical truth from just over 600 years ago can't be forgotten.