Religion Essay Example: Letter from Luther to Anyone During The Reformation

I hereby write this letter to express my deepest concerns over the abuse of religion exhibited by the Catholic Church over the ages. The Catholic Church is a global movement and it has led numerous amounts of people toward the wrong direction. The church sells indulgence and pardons for peoples sins which is in contradiction with the teachings of the Holy Bible.

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This is so unfair fair and ungodly because the system advocates that only the people that are financially capable will see the Kingdom of God. The poor, however, will not have the chance because they lack the financial capabilities to buy the pardon offered by the Catholic priests. I strongly believe that freedom from God’s punishment and the pardon of sins are gifts granted to mankind by God through Jesus Christ and no price tag should be put on that.

Salvation is received through acceptance of Jesus Christ and it’s only through this way a person can receive eternal life. The teachings advocated by the Catholic Church that good deeds can earn you eternal life is a misunderstanding of the concepts taught by the Holy Father Jesus Christ. The Bible states that, “Only those who seek the father [God] through me [Jesus Christ] will be able to earn themselves eternal life.” This is in total contrast with what the Catholics advocate for and this is why I write this later to you to prove the point that good deeds alone cannot earn you eternal life.

The preachers abuse their positions in the Catholic Church by selling plenary indulgences. They trick their congregation into believing that this would reduce the punishment their loved ones would endure while in Purgatory. This in turn, promotes corruption in the churches as the clergy have used this opportunity to benefit themselves by selling indulgence to the believers in Roman Catholic.

The pope in this scenario is seen as a demi-god as he has the power to issue or deny plenary indulgence. He is portrayed to be having the power to forgive any other sins that one may have committed therefore eliminating any other temporal punishments one had to endure due to sins. This contradicts any teachings revealed by the Bible and I firmly take my position in this matter to speak strongly against the Catholic Church. Nobody has the power to grant plenary indulgences except God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The All Saints’ Catholic Church at Wittenberg has taken the indulgence phenomenon a notch higher by tricking their congregation into believing that by venerating the vast collection of relics at the church one would acquire indulgence. I take a stand against this because according to the Bible one can only seek goods favour and forgiveness if he/she truly repents and change their earthy ways. The Catholic Church exhibits indulgence as a cheaper and easier way of acquiring God’s grace instead of true repentance in accordance to Jesus Christ.

I also wasn’t to single out the Tenzel’s congregation that claimed that they no longer needed to repent and change their day to day lives in order to be forgiven of sins. This was after they had bought indulgence from Tenzel. I want to correct this by saying that true repentance is better than seeking indulgence because true repentance exalts God’s righteousness and reinforces the Bibles teaching about internal punishment of sins. The Catholic Church therefore should change their analogy of selling indulgence to their congregation because it is against the teachings of Bible

Yours Sincerely,

Martin Luther.