On a Lighter Note ... Luther's 95 Tweets

Encouraged by the cartoon above, I decided to scan over the list of Luther's 95 Theses to ascertain which ones would be suitable for tweeting without any editing. Constrained by the limit of 140 characters, a surprising number managed to squeeze into this space.

For example:

#1: Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said “Repent”, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance #6: The pope cannot remit any guilt, except by declaring that it has been remitted by God and by assenting to God's remission ... . #10: Ignorant and wicked are the doings of those priests who, in the case of the dying, reserve canonical penances for purgatory. #21: Therefore those preachers of indulgences are in error, who say that by the pope's indulgences a man is freed from every penalty, and saved. #27: They preach man who say that so soon as the penny jingles into the money-box, the soul flies out [of purgatory]. #62 (My personal favourite!): The true treasure of the Church is the Most Holy Gospel of the glory and the grace of God. #76: We say, on the contrary, that the papal pardons are not able to remove the very least of venial sins, so far as its guilt is concerned. #79: To say that the cross, emblazoned with the papal arms, which is set up, is of equal worth with the Cross of Christ, is blasphemy. #92: Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Peace, peace," and there is no peace!

Evidently, when Luther knew the occasion demanded it, he could be incredibly concise!

Just to gauge what these theses/tweets would look like when posted by means of this modern medium, I decided to 'throw a few into the web wind.' I haven't many followers (truth be told, I only very rarely tweet) – and my guess is that the appearance of a little line of these Luther Tweets will be guaranteed to further reduce the number of followers!

Still, it's been an interesting project ... .