West European Studies

-Pope Urban II, Speech at Clermont, 1095

In his speech to the crowd at Clermont, Pope Urban was trying to rally the people in what would later be known as the Crusades.  It can be inferred here that Pope Urban was trying to rally all the Christian leaders of Europe and this Crusade he was calling for was an opportunity for him to make them stop fighting one another.  Prior to the Crusades, most of Europe was in chaos as feudal lords waged war with one another.
No amount of persuasion from the past Popes had made them cease and desist from their fighting.  Through the Cursades, Pope Urban had given these western leaders a common enemy they could all fight  the Muslims.  In order to prevail over this enemy, they had to set aside their differences in order to win over them.

At the same time, this speech also had a long-term effect in the relationship between Muslims and Christians.  Pope Urban used derisive words to label the Muslims, calling them savage and brutal, calling them a vile race that was a threat to civilization (Urban II).  This was a fallacious statement that forever drove a wedge between Christians and Muslims.  In reality, Muslims, especially the Arabs during the time of the Prophet Muhammad, tolerated and recognized the Christians, as well as the Jews, calling them People of the Book.  with the Crusaders battling Muslims and even massacring them, this forever changed the attitude of Muslims towards Christians in subsequent centuries.  Christians, in the eyes of the Muslims are associated with the west and therefore they tended to be more resistant to efforts to modernize.

-Martin Luther, The 95 Theses, 1517

Martin Luther was an Augustinian friar and a learned scholar of the Scriptures.  What caused him to write and post his Ninety-Five Theses was the apparent deviation of the Church from its mission as the moral arbiter of society.  This deviation was the result of several underlying circumstances that began when the leadership of the Church was exiled to Avignon.  It was here that the ecclesiastical institution was corrupted when it was made up of members of nobility who never let go of their vested interests as members of the clergy from the lowliest monk to the Pope were to make vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.  This was exacerbated by the Great Schism which saw three incumbent Popes sitting in Rome which undermined the confidence of the faithful to the Church.  Furthermore, what prompted Luther to act was the practice of selling indulgences to those who could afford it in order to be saved from eternal damnation.

For Luther, this was wrong.  He believed, based on his knowledge and understanding of the Scriptures that faith is all that is needed to be saved.  He also began to become disillusioned with the practices of the Christian faith with these elaborate and seemingly useless (to him) rituals and felt the Church was now run like a corporation that had forgotten its original mission and roots (Luther).  It was for this reason that he published his theses to make it known and with the hope the Church will reform.  Instead of heeding him, he was censured and this sealed Luthers fate and that of Christianity as the Reformation ensued.  The Christian world was never the same again.  It is not longer the single monolithic faith or institution.