What became know as Martin Luther’s “95 Theses” begins with a simple invitation to fellow theologians to debate him in Wittenberg, Germany — or respond in writing — on issues of faith and practice “out of love for the truth and from desire to elucidate it.”
Originally in Latin, the language of 16th-century scholars and clerics, the document was not initially intended to be much more than a spiritual RSVP.
• The idea of indulgences, as they were being hawked in Luther’s time, were pretty much worthless, and their hard sell by “preachers of indulgences” amounted to extortion.