From Gaffigan to Luther: Welcome Reformation Day

Comedian Jim Gaffigan may not be everybody's cup of tea, but I like him.

He's a clean observational comic and his standup act often mentions his wife, Jeannie, and their five children who all live in a New York City apartment.

Gaffigan, 57, talks frequently about his Catholic faith but sometimes references his Protestant roots in the Midwest.

In his 2021 "Comedy Monster" concert streaming on Netflix, Gaffigan refers to Martin Luther, the German monk and theologian/teacher, whose single act of defiance on Halloween 1517 set in motion what became the Protestant Reformation.

"Martin Luther probably thought he would be the most famous Martin Luther. 'That's it, I'm the king of Martin Luthers! Don't be surprised if one day I get my own holiday!'" Gaffigan opined.

Yes, German Martin Luther has been superseded and outshone during my lifetime by the estimable and legendary American Martin Luther King, Jr.

The original Martin Luther's contribution to church history should not be ignored, however.

On Oct. 31, 1517, in the sleepy town of Wittenberg, situated in what during the Cold War was known as East Germany, Luther reportedly posted a document to a church door inviting a debate on issues within the Church.

The original document, known to history as the "95 Theses", has been lost and the door on which Luther tacked his debate invitation burned centuries ago.

Wittenberg is known to locals are "Lutherstadt", or Luther town.

It takes more than an hour to drive there from Germany's capital of Berlin, and if you decide to go someday, better have a German-to-English handbook handy.

When my wife and I visited in 2003, we had lunch in Wittenberg and not a soul there spoke English except the two of us.

If you've had the chance to go to western Europe, you undoubtedly are aware no restaurant seems in any hurry to bring the check to your table.

Wanting to return to our Berlin hotel before it got dark, this writer frantically combed the handbook looking for a phrase to summon our server.

Zahlen, bitte, I eventually called out, which roughly translated means, "Pay, please."

Incidentally, I had the check in my hands within moments.

The issues Luther raised in Wittenberg more than 500 years ago, which need not be specifically recounted in this space, began to get a hearing not long after.

In 1521, in the town of Worms -- where a large sculpture commemorates the event -- Luther was put on trial for heresy.

Following his excommunication by Pope Leo X, Luther retreated to Wartburg Castle, where he translated the New Testament from the original Greek into German.

Famously, Luther refused to put the letter of James into his own language, writing that James is no better than "straw (and) fit only to be burned."

According to one of the many biographies of his life, Luther suffered from severe intestinal trouble later in life, which is said to have greatly impacted his personality -- turning him bitter and antisemitic as he aged.

Regardless of how history may treat seminal Martin Luther, a complicated and divisive religious figure, his impact on modern Christianity cannot be ignored or denied.

The root of the word Protestant is "protest".

The first great protest of papal authority was put forward by Luther, who died in 1546.

Because of him, there are Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, et al.

"Here I stand, I can do no other," Luther's reported exclamation at his heresy trial, stands as one of the great statements of personal conviction in church history.