This month marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, sparked by Martin Luther’s 95 theses nailed, so his successors claimed, to the door of the church in Wittenberg, on October 31, 1517. His original protest reached a tipping point four years later at the Diet of Worms, where the Augustinian monk famously declared, “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.”
The legacy of Luther’s conscience cannot be understated—it is the impetus for all manner of religious and philosophical developments that have defined the modern world. It also had political and cultural effects, ones relevant to our current American distemper, much of it driven by one particular element of that Saxon monk’s conscience: its scrupulosity. From the tearing down of monuments, to dietary fads, to foreign interventions, America owes much to Luther’s scrupulous conscience.
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