Luther: Conservative or Revolutionary?

Put the title question another way: was Martin Luther an innovator? No major historical figure breaks entirely new ground, all great men and women build on foundations laid by predecessors. This was certainly true of Martin Luther, Even in his most radical offensive – against the papal church – Luther was anticipated by medieval precursors. In England, John Wyclif (circa 1328-84) identified the papacy as 'antichrist'. In Bohemia (roughly, modern Czechoslovakia) John Hus (1373-1415) decried the materialism of the Catholic church and met a martyr's death. Both Hus and Wyclif anticipated Luther in looking towards a national reformation of the church, whether in England or Bohemia or, with Luther, Germany. Luther reminds us particularly of John Hus; with his peasant background and great courage; with his call for the holy communion to be given out in the forms of bread and wine; in these ways Luther put contemporaries in mind of the earlier figure of Hus.