What really happened back on October 31, 1517? Christians today look back and realize that it was the start of the Reformation. A German monk named Martin Luther was actually reading the Bible. He could not find anything in the Bible regarding indulgences. In Luther's day, its almost like the coins in your pocket could free your loved ones from suffering under God's wrath and send them straight to heaven. Because of the church�s unprecedented indulgence sale, Luther posted The Ninety-Five Theses. This was in response to Bishop Albert of Mainz, who with papal blessing, was selling indulgences for past, present, and future sins! Hard to fathom isn't it? While this action of posting on the church door was typical of what scholars of that day did, yet this was different. It had the affect of sparking something much more than merely a localized scholarly debate. Luther, while still being changed himself, had realized that God�s Word is the ultimate authority in this world, and that the perfect life and sacrificial death of Jesus Christ was the only answer for evil and the only basis on which sinners can stand before a holy God. Listen and learn who some of the key players were in the dynamic that unfolded in the years subsequent to 1517. This movement became so profound that the principles of the Reformation even had an effect on the formation of America during the time of the War for Independence. The colonists, many of whom were deeply affected because of Reformation thinking, realized that civil officers were also inherently sinful. God had ordained lesser magistrates who could intervene when a ruler became despotic. This teaching, commonly known as the �doctrine of the lesser magistrate,� gave the American colonists a theological basis for resistance to Great Britain. When the American Revolution ended, the leaders of the new states established a new national government with strictly limited powers. And so the thinking of the Reformation directly affected the formation of our nation. Participants: Rev. Mark Diedrich, Dan Elmendorf