In your plan: Week 22, Fri, 19 Mar 2027.
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Overview
On Christian Liberty, also translated as The Freedom of a Christian, is a treatise by Martin Luther published in 1520 in Latin and German. It sets out in compact form his view that a person is made right with God by faith, not by works, and that this freedom produces voluntary service to others. Its two opening statements, that a Christian is free lord of all and also servant of all, state the paradox the work explains.
Context
By 1520 Luther had been challenged by Rome and was awaiting a papal bull threatening excommunication. A Church envoy, Karl von Miltitz, hoped for reconciliation, and Luther wrote this treatise with an open letter to Pope Leo X. It appeared in the same year as his other major reform writings, and it is milder in tone than some of them, though its theology is no less radical.
Read the full guide: chapter summaries, competing interpretations, key terms
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Curator's notes
- Why it matters
- Broke the Church's monopoly. Individual conscience before institutions.
- Use in training and coaching
- Speaking truth to institutions; change management
- Connects to
- Augustine; Weber's Protestant Ethic
- What to read
- 95 Theses; Liberty essay
- Text (date)
- Luther, 95 Theses; On Christian Liberty (1517, 1520)
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