To what extent could Luther be called a revolutionary?
A revolutionary is someone who desires or causes a complete or dramatic change, in this case a change in religion, whereas a radical is someone who wants to bring something back to its roots and return it to how it had been. Whilst it can be argued that Luther was a revolutionary because he ultimately caused a revolution to occur, it can also be argued that he was not a revolutionary because he never intended for that to happen and he only had the basic idea to bring Christianity back to its roots, making him a radical.
One way in which it can be argued that Luther was not a revolutionary was because he did not intend for a revolution to happen. This is apparent because when Luther wrote his 95 Theses, he sent them to the Archbishop (and elector) Albert of Mainz on the 31st of October 1517, which is when he pinned them up in the University of Wittenberg. This shows that he had not planned a revolution because it would not have made any sense if Luther had sent the 95 Theses to Albert to warn him in advance of a revolution, as revolutions work better when powerful people are not aware of them before they begin. Another piece of evidence that suggests that Luther had no intention to start a revolution is that the 95 Theses were written in Latin. This shows that they were written to be read by scholars of a university, not peasants. If Luther had really intended a revolution then he would have written the Theses in the vernacular which would have meant the peasants could have read it, understood it, and acted upon it immediately in the form of a revolt. One other piece of evidence that suggests that Luther was not intending a revolution is that Luther’s opening statement on the Theses is ‘Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed at Wittenberg,