Islamabad, April 22, 2022 (PPI-OT):Martin Luther King challenged the church hierarchy of his day, calling Christians back to the Bible and to salvation through faith alone, said Prof Emeritus Aslam Syed on Friday. The European Reformation was a major movement within 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in particular to papal authority, arising from what were perceived to be errors, abuses, and discrepancies by the Catholic Church, the guest speaker viewed at a Webinar on Discourse of History on European History from Antiquity to Modernity VIII here.
Prof. Emeritus Aslam Syed has been serving the Centre for Religious Studies, Ruhr Universität, Bochum, Germany. He remained Chairman, Department of History, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad and also served the NIHCR as its Director. Responding to a question, he said that the Reformation was the start of Protestantism and the split of the Western Church into Protestantism and what is now the Roman Catholic Church. It is also considered to be one of the events that signify the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern period in Europe.
The Webinar arranged online by the National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research (NIHCR), Centre of Excellence, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, was attended by a large number of participants from all across the world ranging from students, teachers and researchers to have greater insights into the valuable views of the guest speaker.
Replying a question, Prof Syed said that Martin Luther King publicly protested the exploitation of the poor. Luther’s objections to the Catholic Church’s teachings on justification to how people are saved came to a head over indulgences. At the time, indulgences could be purchased to grant remission of penalties for sins. Indulgences became a means of widespread economic exploitation, preying on the poor’s fear of punishment in the afterlife, he said.
It was the 42nd consecutive session on the Discourse of History, a brainchild of the NIHCR Director Dr Sajid Mahmood Awan. On All Saints Eve of 1517, Prof Syed recalled, Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg church door to denounce the sale of indulgences and invited church leaders to a public debate. This was a calculated public protest. It was meant to dramatize the suffering of the marginalized in a way that the powerful could not ignore, he responded to a questioner.
The NIHCR Director Dr Awan conducted the Webinar by triggering a dialogue with Dr Syed for substantiating this discourse. This inclusive activity has been taken up every week for the benefit of students in general and capacity-building of the teachers and researchers in particular, he said.
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