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S5E27 · Used Car Salesman Johann Tetzel (formerly premium content from JSR)
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Standard of Truth · Season 5 · Episode 27 · 1:01:58

Used Car Salesman Johann Tetzel (formerly premium content from JSR)

Richard keeps a picture of indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel on his vision board, and Tetzel's line, 'As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs,' is why.

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The question ·

Who was Martin Luther, and why did Johann Tetzel's sale of indulgences push him to write the 95 Theses?

Richard

Richard introduces a re-release of a Joseph Smith and the Restoration episode, joking that it feels like a substitute teacher rolling in a TV. Gerrit tells how Martin Luther became a monk after a lightning storm, was tormented by his own sins, and found peace in Paul's teaching on grace. Then Pope Leo X needs money for St. Peter's Basilica, and the Dominican Johann Tetzel sells the Jubilee Indulgence with a pitch Gerrit compares to a timeshare presentation. Gerrit reads several of Luther's 95 Theses, including why the pope doesn't just build St. Peter's with his own money and empty purgatory out of love.

Who comes upMartin LutherJohann TetzelLeo XAugustinePaulSt. AnneCrassus
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Richard introduces this re-released Restoration episode.

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Richard Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth Podcast. I'm Gerrit's friend, Professor Richard LeDuc. I imagine that every time you hear this open, it takes you back to high school, when the substitute teacher would be rolling in a TV to show you a video on the migratory patterns of blue whales as they seek colder waters to eat krill. I imagine again, it's the exact same feeling, but this will be the last time that you hear this introduction, for season five at least, as I am introducing to you Joseph Smith in the Restoration episode called Used Car Salesman, Johann Tetzel. In this episode, we talk about one of my favorite characters from religious history, Johann Tetzel, and his job of selling indulgences for the Catholic Church as a fundraiser for the renovation of St. Peter's Basilica. We hope that you enjoy this episode, and look forward to speaking with you again next week.
Intro Welcome to Joseph Smith and the Restoration, a Standard of Truth podcast production. In this podcast, hosts Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Professor Richard LeDuc will discuss the events of the Restoration in the order they occurred. Listeners will follow Joseph Smith as he rises from the obscurity of a poor farm boy to the prophet of the Restoration. They will learn of the trials and triumphs, the miracles and misery of Joseph Smith, and early members of the Church.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of Joseph Smith and the Restoration, a Standard of Truth podcast production. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. In this episode, we're actually going to finally get to Martin Luther. We've been telegraphed.
Gerrit We've teased him.
Richard We've teased Martin Luther since February, and now we're here. We're also gonna talk about probably one of the greatest salesmen in the history of the world.
Gerrit This is why you're excited.
Richard That I look up to as not...
Gerrit You look up to him.
Richard Well, I look up to him not necessarily for what he did, but the way he did it was very effective.
Gerrit If you've got a job, do it well.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit And he understood the assignment.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit Let's just put it that way. Yeah. So yeah, we talked about, as we ended our last episode, how Martin Luther is so transformative and why it matters so much to the Restoration. Now, we're gonna talk about some of these other Restoration churches. Their founding and how they influenced Joseph Smith and his questions that he has. But all roads don't lead back to Rome, actually. For Protestantism, all roads lead back to Martin Luther, who says, I've had enough of Rome. So that's why we have to spend time on Martin Luther. So Martin Luther is a, he's an Augustinian monk, and he has a powerful spiritual conversion. He, his parents want him to be a lawyer because that's how you actually make money. And so he's on his way to law school and he gets caught in this violent thunderstorm. And I mean, lightning is crashing right next to him.
Gerrit And he's certain that he is going to die. And he will cry out, St. Anne, save me and I will become a monk. And lo and behold, the winds abate, the storm dies down and he is saved. And he now has to make good on his promises to St. Anne, who he will later no longer think is a saint. So I think kind of counterintuitive. He will always venerate the mother of Mary, but not in the same way as he would as a Catholic priest. So he will instead head into the monastery. Now not only does that mean that his parents are going to be deprived of grandchildren, it also means that he will not be making the money that a lawyer would be making.
Gerrit And Luther throws himself into the study of the scriptures. And as someone who had been living a life that was not terribly focused on God, and then suddenly became focused on God, Luther became obsessed with his own lack of perfection. I am guessing that there are people listening to this podcast right now who would identify with Luther a great deal. Or you at least know somebody who would identify with Luther. Luther had completely devoted his life to Jesus. He'd taken a vow of poverty and celibacy. He'd joined a monastery. And yet he found that no matter how much he studied, no matter how much he was certain that he was devoting his life to Jesus, he still had sinful thoughts.
Gerrit He still had sinful actions, even in this cloistered monastery. And it drove him crazy. Now I don't wanna say he was crazy, but it made it so he couldn't even sleep. He was so certain and anxious that he was a sinner. He would go to confession. So part of Catholic theology is in order to receive absolution for your sins, you go confess them to your priest. And inside the monastery, his senior monk was the person you would confess your sins to. And he would go to confession not just once a week or once a month. He would often attempt to go if his confessor would allow it. By the way, if you ever hear the term confessor in medieval or European history, you'll hear things like Edward the confessor.
Gerrit It doesn't mean that Edward is confessing his sins. It means he's someone that is having sins confessed to him. So he would go to his confessor and he would go two or three times a day. And to the point where the senior monk is just like, dude, you've got, I mean, I don't think he said dude.
Richard No, in Germany?
Gerrit In Germany, yeah.
Intro He might have.
Gerrit Yeah. Yeah. He was like, da, da, da.
Intro Yeah.
Gerrit I don't know. He, eventually his senior monk was like, you've got to stop this constant self berating, just all encompassing symbols. I mean, and I think this is what's troubling Luther is, I don't have the ability to actually be righteous. Oh, sure. I can keep from committing the giant sins, but then Brother Maynard steps in front of me in the bread line while we're getting our gruel. And I think about the fact that I don't like him very much, even for a second.
Richard Well, in fairness.
Gerrit And now I'm a sinner.
Richard Well, but Brother Maynard's a jerk.
Gerrit Look, first of all, Brother Maynard.
Richard I've heard nothing but terrible things about Brother Maynard.
Gerrit Everyone has talked about Brother Maynard and the way that he, the way that he, I don't even know.
Richard The way he cuts in front of the gruel line.
Gerrit Is there a Brother Maynard listening? If there is, please email the podcast and let us know that you're a better man than Martin Luther thought you were. I don't even know if there's a Brother Maynard that was in his parish, but. Luther is going to be really troubled by this until as he is reading in the Pauline Epistles, especially in Romans and then also in the Book of Hebrews, Luther comes to the conclusion that in fact the law or keeping all of the commandments is actually impossible and that that was part of the purpose of Jesus coming was because you couldn't actually keep the law. Now of course Paul when he is speaking to the Hebrews and to the Romans about the idea, he's speaking to Jewish Christians who are insisting that they maintain all of the law of Moses, including forcing adult male converts to be circumcised, which there's a lot of Greeks who are like, oh, something that would have been nice to know yesterday.
Gerrit They, they, he's, he's talking about something different, at least look, historians and scholars will say that what Paul is talking about is not quite the same thing that that Martin Luther is talking about. Paul is talking about the salvation of a nation, right? Paul is talking about, how is it that people become right with God? A people, how is it they become right with God? Because of course, the Jewish Christians who have accepted Jesus as a Messiah, but are still advocating that you keep all of the law, they think the law is somehow still part of their salvation. And it's not the same thing as Paul saying, hey, you can fornicate with whoever you want. Paul doesn't ever say that. If you're looking at the, where is that? Is that the third Corinthians? Fourth Corinthians.
Richard That's the missing, this is the third time I am coming to you. We're missing that one.
Gerrit The first time I came to you, fornicate with whoever you want. Second time, stop preaching a different gospel. Third time, baptism for the dead. I don't know, I don't know how, whatever happens, but. So in some ways, now again, if you're a Lutheran listening to this, first of all, thank you so much for signing up.
Richard I mean, wow.
Gerrit You signed up for the premium content.
Richard We love our Lutheran listeners.
Gerrit And so a Lutheran will not agree with this assertion. This is obviously an assertion that's coming from people that are not Lutherans. But in general, biblical scholars, New Testament scholars will say that Luther derives his theology in a way by a misreading of the Pauline epistles. Paul is specifically talking about the lack of the necessity to maintain all of the works of the law of Moses in order for people to have salvation. And really, Luther is going to take this to that's applied to individual salvation and works of the law is no longer law of Moses. Works of the law is works, period, right? Luther grabs a hold of this idea. Now it's hard to, I mean, if you read some of Luther's writings, they are dark.
Gerrit I mean, he, you know, if Mother Teresa went through a long dark night of the soul, Martin Luther went through a long dark life of the soul. I mean, his whole life, he was always haunted with the idea that he was still a sinner, even though he'd accepted Jesus. So in some ways, look, it is incredibly, I mean, it's a powerful thing that his devotion to Jesus is such that he is constantly doing introspection and constantly realizing, I don't measure up. If Jesus said be perfect, I ain't even close. But it does give him this release. You actually can't be perfect. The law condemns you or commandments fall with him. The only way you can be saved is through the grace of Christ. Now, Luther is a preacher. He's preaching, not only is he a teacher at Wittenberg University, he also has his own congregation and he's preaching to them.
Gerrit And he begins to heavily focus on these ideas of grace. So for a little while, Luther is a, he is a very, I mean, I don't know how you want to say it, whether you want to say the word liberal or conservative. He's a very eccentric, but fully orthodox Catholic priest, preaching to his flock, highlighting Paul's teachings on grace. Well, what-
Richard I almost envision this as he's Vincenzo di Francesca, from How Rare a Possession.
Gerrit Vincenzo, repent of your stubbornness.
Richard Where he's preaching to a Catholic congregation.
Gerrit Oh, it's not Catholic. It's a Protestant sect that he's a part of, but they don't tell us which one.
Richard Oh, very interesting.
Gerrit But he's preaching from the Book of Mormon.
Richard Well, yeah, right. So, but he's preaching from the Book of Mormon. Here in Luther, he's preaching to a Catholic group, and- but he's, you know.
Gerrit He's pushing the envelopes of the relationship between grace and ordinances for salvation. Now of course, he's an Augustinian monk, and the Augustinians already highly focus on hard- in a very difficult to believe connection, the writings of St. Augustine. In one of the history's unknown mysteries, the Augustinian order seems to adhere to Augustinian beliefs. It's very- we have our crack research squad working on this right now. What in the world are they thinking? And who was St. Augustine? Remember, St. Augustine was the one who himself was a- unlike Luther, was a profligate sinner. I mean, just someone who was filled with sin and iniquity, and in fact, was so in love with the hedonistic things of the world that even after he realized that the church-
Gerrit that Christianity was true, he hesitated joining because he didn't want to give up his sins. He is the one who is often quoted, if he, you know, he said, I prayed to God, give me chastity and give me constancy, but don't give it to me yet. One can only imagine why it is that he wants to wait on receiving chastity. Also makes you wonder whether or not Augustine is aware of what the meaning of the word chastity is, as it seems. Yeah, he was, he was not as chaste a man as he, as he might've been. So for Augustine, knowing how big a sinner he was, he, in his writings, heavily focuses on grace, that salvation is in some ways predestined by the grace that God gives you.
Gerrit And that grace is what causes you to change from being a a profligate sinner begging for less chastity to someone who is devoted to God. So Luther, of course, he draws heavily on August and Augustine, of course, is a Saint Augustine is a pillar of Catholic theology. He is not, he is not, it's not wrong to quote Saint Augustine. Augustine is, he is orthodox, it's okay to quote him. And so Luther is going to rely heavily on them. So what takes Luther from being just a kind of, you know, a little bit of an errant priest, a little, a little, he's a little on the margins of what he's teaching to being a heretic who people want to see his flesh burning in the street. And in fact, people will say things like that. Well, along comes yet another monk.
Gerrit This is Johann Tetzel. Now, I believe this is who Richard was referring to.
Richard It is.
Gerrit When he talked about, he has a picture of him on his wall.
Richard I do.
Gerrit The greatest salesman of all time.
Richard Yeah, I have a vision board and on the vision board is Johann Tetzel.
Gerrit And that's a tough vision board because I don't know if all of the images of Johann Tetzel have all been drawn by Lutherans, but I have a sense that they all have been drawn by Lutherans.
Richard Yeah, he looks like George the Animal Steal from 80s.
Gerrit Yeah, after eight years of retirement. I mean, he...
Richard After letting himself go.
Gerrit Yeah, he looks like... Frankly, he looks like he ate another Johann Tetzel. And I don't know if it's deliberate, but it's not a good look. Now, he's from a different order. He's a Dominican. And the Dominican order in particular has been tasked by the Pope with collecting this great Jubilee indulgence. The Pope is going to issue a Jubilee indulgence. Remember, we talked a little bit about indulgences that for the purpose of rebuilding and creating the magnificent St. Peter's Basilica, if you've ever been to Rome, it is the place to go. St. Peter's Basilica is, it really is unrivaled in the world as a religious building.
Gerrit Well, there had already been a St. Peter's Basilica, but by the early 1500s, that existing church was pretty decrepit. And it was actually kind of an embarrassment to the papacy, right? I mean, well, how do you have your authority? Well, the first bishop of Rome was Peter, and he gave his authority to me, and that's why we venerate Peter. Why is his church falling down? Well, we'll get around to it. Cletus, it was Cletus. Yeah, Linus did that, yeah. So there's this special Jubilee indulgence that's issued that four donations to the rebuilding of this basilica people can receive a Jubilee indulgence that will lessen their time in purgatory. Now of course, look, whenever you talk about the sale of indulgences, having a Catholic with you and having a Lutheran with you will yield incredibly different ways that those are described. The way a Catholic would describe it is that people choose to donate money to the church to help build a great church for St.
Gerrit Peter. Every Latter-day Saint listening can understand that idea. You know what? I'm going to donate money to help build a temple, right? Everybody gets that. And that because you donate the money, the church as essentially a reward to you, because you've donated of your own free will, you will be granted this indulgence that will lessen either your time or one of your relatives' time in purgatory. Now look, the amount of time you spend in purgatory is deemed to be a really, really, really long time. It is not a rare thing for Catholic theologians of the 14 and 1500s to argue that people will be spending millions of years in purgatory. So or to put in reverse what we often talk about, you know, as a day is a thousand years for God, they will often say, you know, that one day of sinfulness on earth requires a thousand years for each of those sins in the next, in purgatory in order to be fully cleansed.
Gerrit So the idea that you, this isn't like, hey, I stopped off at the quick stop on my way to heaven and here I am with a bag of milk that I bought in a Wisconsin, you know, stop and shop. They sold milk by the bags. If you were a missionary, that's how you.
Richard Is that right?
Gerrit Yeah, it was a bit, it was milk. It wasn't, well, it wasn't in a bag. It was in a big. Milk by the big. And you could also buy a pitcher with the big and you'd cut the end of it. And that's, it'd be very, it's the most inexpensive way to buy milk. Now, if you're someone who's used to drinking a gallon of milk per day and you go on a mission and the stipend you're given will only allow you to drink a gallon of milk a week, we've got problems. Yeah, yeah. And so you have to find ways to get around it.
Richard And buying it in a bag, putting it in a bag and putting it in a pitcher.
Gerrit And the funny part about it is where you bought the bag of milk was not at the grocery store. The only people who carried the bag of milk was the gas station. Yeah, I thought maybe I should buy some sushi while I'm there, but obviously my limited funds didn't allow for that either. What do you want from me? I was in Wisconsin. No one was listening to us. The only thing that brought me any joy at all was milk from a bag. In fact, the milk wasn't that great in the bag. And so eventually, eventually I just not eat so I could buy real milk and then I just eat the milk. Yeah, it's very healthy.
Richard That's funny.
Gerrit Yeah, anyway, like milk from a bag that is, it sounds better than it is to a missionary. The idea of the Jubilee indulgence sounds better to Pope Leo and the College of Cardinals than it does to the rank and file as things go down the line. Now, look, important in all of this is there has always been a kind of tension between people in what was then the Holy Roman Empire, these various different Germanic states, and Rome itself, all the way back to Charlemagne and other Germanic kings. They were frustrated by the fact that the Pope, who was almost always an Italian, happened to have so much power because he was the head of this church.
Gerrit And so, that was manifested by some resentment towards the papacy. Well, at any rate, the Pope declares a special Jubilee indulgence, and there are representatives who go out to sell these. Now again, a Catholic will not call it a sale of an indulgence. What is going on is you are donating money to the building of St. Peter's Basilica. Out of his grace, because you are kind enough to donate, the Pope is going to grant you an indulgence that will lessen your time in purgatory, or one of your relatives' time in purgatory.
Richard So, if that's, you know, a Catholic would say that that was the intent. Is that, because Johann Tetzel seems like he's going out there and hawking time out of purgatory for money. Is that Pope Leo X's intent, do you believe?
Gerrit Pope Leo X has been counseled that the way to raise money to build this massive building is through the sale of indulgences. Now, indulgences, of course, are already a well established aspect of both Catholic theology and Catholic finances. So this is not something out of the ordinary, right? In fact, to put it in a Latter-day Saint perspective, none of you even think twice about someone coming to your house and asking for a fast offering, except now in the days where you can pay it online, you're like, why are you coming to my house? I already paid it online. But let's say you couldn't pay it online. Someone comes to your house and asks money for a fast offering. Well, you don't have to pay it. You do pay it because you're trying to help out. But if your bishop said, hey, we've got a lot of people who are really in need in the ward. We're going to send the deacons around a second time this month because we really need to help these people. This is a special fast collection.
Gerrit We need your help. You wouldn't think of it as somehow an evil thing. In fact, you'd probably be like, you know what? We do need to help, right? Because it's operating on the basis of an already existing theology of donating fast offerings for the poor. For Catholic theology, indulgences are something that have already existed. This idea of super-arrogation, again, the lawn care company in Florida, or Georgia. It was somewhere in the south.
Richard Florida, Georgia line. That's right.
Gerrit We need to start one in Rome. Yeah. I think it's mostly dry. It's arid. Yeah. Well, I mean, we need it to be a place where you actually have to have lawn sprinklers.
Richard Well, let's see what we can do. We'll start in Sicily, get some help from, I believe that they've got a strong union presence down in Sicily.
Gerrit A union or the Cosa Nostra?
Richard They're in waste management.
Gerrit Well, they are. Yes. I'm afraid we would end up also in waste management, but in the managed part, we would be being managed were we to try there. Yeah. If you're listening in Sicily and you happen to be a mob boss, that is in no way a reference to the mafia. If you're listening in Sicily and happen to be a member of the Cosa Nostra. Anyway, the reality is that is how they decide they're going to try to fund it. Now, is it ethical? Well, that's going to be an argument that will be had all the way down between Catholic and Lutheran theologians even today. The reality is, when someone's given a task to go do, you kind of lose control of how it is they perform that task. And Johann Tetzel was the greatest hawker of indulgences that ever existed.
Gerrit I mean, he had a pretty set spiel that he would go to various different German towns, and he would, first of all, talk about the horrors of hell.
Richard Well, you want to start in any sales environment. You want to start with the pain points. You want to say, okay.
Gerrit So Richard knows what he's trying to do.
Richard No, you want to start.
Gerrit How many of you have ever found yourself standing outside when it's raining? Yeah.
Richard No. So you start with the pain points.
Gerrit Fire and brimstone because God is destroying you.
Richard Yeah. No. So your family is in purgatory, suffering, and you're going to go there and suffer. Yeah.
Gerrit And the reason why your family is there is you're a cheapskate.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit You know, I mean, your family doesn't have to be killed by the intruders who come into your house, but you won't buy the smart home system. And that's why they're all going to die because you decided to save a few dollars. I mean, essentially, you're right. The kind of the sales pitch is both playing on both love and fear, right? Well, I love my family, and because I love them, I fear for their safety.
Richard So was it just for the people that, the family or friends or whomever that have passed away, or could people purchase their own salvation?
Gerrit So you could buy an indulgence. You got to be careful how you say that. So you said purchase your own salvation. Boy, that, every Catholic listening, every Catholic listening has shut the podcast off.
Richard Well, we're mostly Lutherans at this point anyway.
Gerrit Yeah, I feel like we have a huge Lutheran base.
Richard We're big in Minnesota.
Gerrit But what if Pete ever listened to this?
Richard Catholic, yeah.
Gerrit Exactly. So he would feel like you're mischaracterizing it.
Richard Boy, if our bus driver from our tour started getting the premium content and listening, that would be something. Pete, we're sorry.
Gerrit I wish we could figure out how to give premium content just so we could listen to it.
Richard I haven't looked into it. I'm sure there's a way. I've just never looked into it.
Gerrit So there probably is a way. And you just keep telling me there is no way. So when I'm like, hey, I'd like to give Bill a free premium content, you're always like, they don't even have a way of doing that.
Richard No, I've always said, I don't know how to do that. But I also have never looked into it.
Gerrit Is it willful ignorance? Pretty much. Okay.
Richard Speaking of willful ignorance. So not purchase their own salvation, but make a donation that then in turn causes the Pope to grant my own salvation. Certainly not purchasing salvation.
Gerrit And again, not salvation, but-
Richard The speeding through purgatory.
Gerrit Right. You're not buying your way out of hell. You're buying your way in to heaven. If you, if you look at it as that, again, as a Lutheran would say, as a Lutheran would say. So you're not, you're not buying, you are, you are purchasing through your donation, the application of already existing merit that as a reward for your good works on this earth, by helping construct St. Peter's Basilica, that merit is being applied to you to cover some of your venial sins that you would have otherwise taken with you into purgatory and be there millions of years.
Richard Totally fair. Let me rephrase. So can I purchase my own salvation or the salvation of just my family members?
Gerrit Okay. I feel like your anti-Catholic pro-Lutheran agenda has been clear for quite some time. And I feel like you're just going to keep pushing your, you're so pro-Lutheran, I don't understand. I want you to be fair to our Catholic brothers and sisters. But basically, can I purchase this for myself?
Richard Well, I mean, so this is actually at the heart of the problem, is that no matter how you're trying to describe what it is, the way it looks is the way that I'm kind of teasing a little bit.
Gerrit And part of the reason why it looks that way is people like Johann Tetzel are selling it that way. And this is part of what really upsets Luther. Now, everybody who's listening who's religious, which I'm assuming is several of you, I mean, I don't know. Are there, is there anyone who signed up for the Premium who doesn't listen to the regular podcast?
Richard My wife, she was telling a story like a couple of weeks ago, and she was telling this story about a spiritual experience that she had had. And as she was telling the story, she starts it off by saying, look, I'm not very religious.
Gerrit And I'm like, you're not very religious. You work in the temple.
Richard I work in the temple every week.
Gerrit I hate to break it to you compared to literally every other person in the world. You're pretty religious. How often do you go to church? Well, every week, and then I also go to the temple once a week, and then I also volunteer to go to the temple for other people.
Richard I read my scriptures every day, and I say my prayers every week.
Gerrit Yeah, but I'm not religious at all. I think we have different definitions of religious. I think you just mean you aren't one of those people that speaks down to everybody because you go to church. That's not the same thing.
Richard Yeah, anyway, but so yeah, the majority, I would just say.
Gerrit Right, and so-
Richard And then occasional spouses that are forced to listen to it, like Mike Thomas.
Gerrit Yeah, Mike Thomas may be listening against his will, especially to the premium content. If he's listening to the premium content, Tammy is, they're on a very long, they're driving to Arizona to see their daughter.
Richard Potentially arrested individuals in southeastern Idaho.
Gerrit Oh yeah, anyone who's in the back of a cop car, they're listening.
Richard Infants, their mothers are forcing them to listen.
Gerrit Yeah, strapped to the back. We got another email, we'll read on our regular podcast from someone from Australia who actually wishes she had more time to strap her kids in the back and force them to listen to the podcast. And that's exactly what we're, that's our demographic. Our demographic is apparently Lutherans and people who are forced to listen. It seems like those are our real touchstones. But Tetzel is, my whole point in talking about people who are religious is all of you have had the experience, at least most of you have, where you've heard someone describing what it is that you believe to someone else and every single thing they say is not right. And it is fingernails on the chalkboard to you, right? Let me give you an example from Richard's life. Richard has a hard time when people confuse area authorities and general authorities.
Gerrit I'm not sure why this is the hill he decided to die on, but he's dying on it.
Richard Look, first of all, I love area authorities and I love general authorities.
Gerrit If any of them are listening. Yeah, sure.
Richard Which they're not.
Gerrit They signed up for the premium content.
Richard Thank you for your service. Absolutely wonderful. But we were in a ward and the area 70 for our ward, the secretary was in our ward. So the area 70 came to our ward a pretty decent amount. It was wonderful.
Gerrit He was a great guy.
Richard He spoke.
Gerrit I know who you're talking about. Great guy. Great guy. Wonderful 70.
Richard But there was a counselor in the bishopric that every time he would come, he would be running around with his hair on fire saying, a general authority is coming, a general authority is coming.
Gerrit He was like, Paul Revere?
Intro He wanted to make sure everything-
Gerrit The general authorities are coming. The general, turn out your militia.
Richard Well, no. Do we have enough deacons? Do we have enough people? For heaven's sake, do we have to go? Are we Becky's brother in New Hampshire? Okay, I got to run the family dollar because I forgot to bring bread. Because my house is an hour and a half away. Hypothetically, that's never happened.
Gerrit That's for you, Craig.
Richard Yeah. So he'd be really excited about it. I'm like, look, great. Elder so-and-so is great, but he's not a general authority.
Gerrit He's an area authority.
Richard He's fantastic, but he's not the same thing. And so sometimes people are quick on that. And it's a problem. It's a problem that I have because I'm so quick to want to correct people on it that I'm a jerk about it. Well, I mean, even I'm not meaning to be, but just being so quick to say, all right, let's slow our roll.
Gerrit Richard also has a problem when people bear their testimony and close as if they're closing a prayer.
Richard Okay. Now that's legitimate. I went on this vacation and we saw this thing, and I know that the church is true in the name of thy son, and I'm like, okay, he's not your son. Yeah, right. So that is a bug. It is funny every time it happens, and it happens every fast Sunday, two or three times, and it's not when kids do it, it's like, okay, when adults do it, I'm like, okay, all right. Hey, you know what? Let's have a talk. Let's talk about it. Yeah. My wife looks at me and she's like, don't say anything, and I'm like, I'm going to keep.
Gerrit I think our listeners know from the free podcast, I mean, I have some triggers. So when people will say things like, well, we know every single thing happens for a reason. For me, I'm like, well, actually, literally the church has taught the opposite of that. We have actual prophets and apostles who have said that, no, not every single thing that happens in your life is because you sinned once. Right? But that's how so many people see themselves in relationship to the gospel, to the point where something terrible will happen. And when you talk to them and say, I just don't know what we did to cause this to happen. Well, you chose to come to earth. That's the main issue is you came to a horrible place following this plan, and that's why it happened. But there are many Latter-day Saints who believe that, who believe that they're essentially fatalistic. They believe that every single thing that happens, happens because they're either sinning, or because God is trying to teach them something directly, and that it's not just, hey, sometimes your stake is tough.
Richard I mean, that's the thing. I mean, maybe sometimes that is the case, but to think that every time something bad happens, it's because of your own sinful, terrible nature. People beat themselves up. We did a two-and-a-half parter on the prosperity gospel as the idea that, look, the Lord blesses us with everything that we have. And sometimes the Lord tries our faith, and some side of the Lord tested us, and sometimes the frailties of mortality strike and bad things happen.
Gerrit And sometimes you chose to come to a world that has many other people with many other agencies, as well as mosquitoes and earthquakes and landslides and fires, and there are evil or horrible things that happen that are completely outside of your control. And so the whole point of that little soliloquy there is it's probably one of the most frustrating things to hear someone tell someone else what it is that your church believes when you know that what they're saying isn't accurate at all. Because you care about what you believe. It matters to you and you want it to be right. If you're sharing it with someone else, this is kind of Luther's reaction to Tetzel. Tetzel, like I said, he comes in and he's saying, look, hell is pretty awful. You're all going to go there. By the way, the few of you who aren't going to go to hell, guess where you're going?
Gerrit Purgatory for like a trillion years. You're all going to purgatory forever. They'll never get out of purgatory. Unless, unless you buy. Buy now.
Richard Buy now. It was, I assume, the first timeshare presentation essentially was Purgatory as perhaps.
Gerrit Yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Richard But so he's got this great line that I'm paraphrasing a bit. So, Gerrit, correct me because you want to get it exactly right because it's just so tremendous. Every time a coin in the coffer rings, the soul from Purgatory springs.
Gerrit Yep. Yep.
Richard Boy, that's got a ring to it.
Gerrit As soon as the coin in the coffer clings, the soul from Purgatory springs. Now, of course, it was in German, so maybe it was, you know, Clink, you know, it probably was, I mean, every time you hear a German say, I love you, you're like, I'm not sure you do, you know, because it's very guttural language. I'm saying this as a Dutchman, right? So I'm well aware. My name's Gerrit for crying out loud. But the selling point of that, that as soon as the coin in the coffer clings the soul from purgatory springs, enraged Martin Luther. Because look, Catholic theology was still that because you are doing a good work by donating to the cause of building St. Peter's Basilica, the Pope, through the doctrine of super-arrogation, is now granting you an indulgence to lessen your time in purgatory. You are buying less time in purgatory.
Gerrit You are being rewarded for a good work. Except the way that Johann Tetzel is talking about it is, you know what? You're buying your way out of purgatory. Come on down to Johann Tetzel. We'll get you out of that purgatory. We'll get you into indulgence and be in a better indulgence than you've ever had. You come on in. We'll give you the Rust-Oleum treatment on it. You're gonna be in an indulgence. Are you gonna have your family not go get out of a purgatory? No, you gotta get them all out of purgatory. Come on, get the minivan of purgatory. I mean, it's...
Richard So, was it partly the thing that he was saying, certainly this infuriating, but also that it was as successful as it was in generating a tremendous amount of money, revenue for the...
Gerrit Yeah, I think both things. So, for Martin Luther, he feels like you're preying upon these uneducated people. Now, remember, the Bible has not been at least legally or allowed to be translated into any language other than Latin for a thousand years. So, do you think that your average German peasant behind a plow speaks Latin? About as many German peasants speak Latin as Americans speak Latin right now. I mean, it's not a language that people speak especially. It's especially difficult for Germans to learn it. Because it, at least if you are living in Spain or in France, it is, you know, those romance languages are based upon Latin. And so, there's at least some comparisons. Nothing in German at all. That's not, there's nothing romantic about German. I think we've already gotten that across. Ich liebe dich is not, that's not a way to win your lover over, right?
Gerrit So, so it's, it's, he feels like these poor peasants who are already being led astray by all these structures of the church are being fooled into believing that they in some way are getting salvation from purgatory because they paid money. So it's those two things. It's first and foremost, it's an affront to the grace of Jesus Christ that you could in any way donate money and then that covers any sins. But the reason why it's such an affront is because it is convincing so many lay people and they don't know, they don't know what Luther knows because Luther has been reading, you know, he's been educated now in Greek and he's been reading the early manuscripts and he's a professor and he, you know, has studied these writings of Paul.
Gerrit The people hearing Johann Tetzel, the only way they have any of their religious learning is by listening to what the priests teach them. They don't have the ability to read the Bible in Latin, so they go to mass, they hear what the priest tells them, that's how they develop their religiosity and that's how it is going forward. So you're right, it is both aspects of it. It is this, the success of it because it's preying upon the uneducated and it is the doctrine itself. Both of those things are a big deal. And Luther can't stand it any longer. As Tetzel is in the neighborhood making his pitches and selling numerous indulgences, Luther decides that now is the time to pick up his pen and to write some, well, merely questions but also some refutations.
Gerrit Luther had a very great way of writing a question as a statement that was telling you exactly what he believed. I get these all the time when I go and do presentations, and people ask questions about my presentation, but really it's just a statement. So they raise their hand and they'll say, uh, now we know that Joseph Smith was wrong to destroy the Nauvoo Expositor. Can you talk to us about that? That's not really a question. That's you stating what you think and then wanting me to address it. And Martin Luther is the king of the question that's really a statement. He is also an incredibly sarcastic writer. Once he decides you are on the other side, he will invade against you. One thing that Martin Luther is not is someone who compromises with anyone over anything. It's funny because he does, spoiler alert, when he finally does leave the Catholic Church, one of the first things he does is he gets married.
Gerrit Because he thinks there's no actual biblical injunction against marriage, so that's all tradition. And kind of self-serving in that. But I always think, how did Martin Luther's wife deal with this? Because look, I said I put my coat on the bed. Well, I don't think that you did. I know that I did, because Martin Luther was never wrong about anything. Which is really a surprising thing, given his personality was one of just almost self-loathing. He was so aware of his own sinfulness that he was constantly berating himself, and yet could not get along with anyone when it came to theological reasons. He believed that what he was preaching was coming from God, and there was no way to compromise, because there was only one thing that was coming from God. And the indulgence Campaign was pretty successful.
Richard It was. So it's always difficult to look at money today and go back in time. You go back 30 years, you can use some sort of inflation calculator, but it's difficult to...
Gerrit Especially when you get to the modern era, and we go off the gold standard, and it just becomes like, I think dollars are worth this.
Richard Well, yeah. So it's difficult to compare this to in the 1500s. So it's about 500,000 ducats is estimated to have been collected. Which translates to around $75 million, but it's going to be way more than that.
Gerrit Purchasing power is going to be way more.
Richard Way, way, way, way more.
Gerrit Well, and so look, it is successful, and it's part of the reason why Martin Luther is so incensed. Now, a way of debating in, you know, early modern Germany was to signal your position in a public place by nailing your theses or your position to the wall. The 95 theses are not Luther's declaration that he's no longer a Catholic. They are points of debate. And look, there are debates that go on inside of the Catholic Church all the time. There are debates that go on right now inside the Catholic Church, right? From fully orthodox theologians, arguing, for instance, how lenient should the church be on people who've had divorces? Should they be able to have full sacrament? Right? I mean, you would have a theologian on both sides of that, on whether the church should accept them in complete and full fellowship, or whether there should still be a mark because they got a divorce and the Catholic Church doesn't allow divorce.
Gerrit You'll have two completely orthodox theologians argue both sides at that point within a realm where it's allowable inside the church. Everyone has this. I mean, inside of our church, you have people making arguments about, you know, what the actual breadth of the atonement is on one side and people on the other side, but they're both still agreeing that you're saved by the atonement of Jesus. They're both still agreeing that Joseph Smith's a prophet, or you could even do the translation of the Book of Mormon, right? There are people who think that the translation happened more by inspiration, and there are people who think that it happened more directly word for word, and they're both considered orthodox faithful members because they still believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God. So there are debates that happen inside of Catholicism all the time. It's not, in and of itself, a excommunicatable offense that Martin Luther nails these theses to the door. But the topic of these theses are points for consideration.
Gerrit They are points of argument broken down. Now, Luther adopts a very kind of almost ingenious, but, I mean, it's pretty, you're able to see through it pretty quickly. He doesn't want to be seen as attacking the Pope. So what does he do? He attacks people like Johann Tetzel and others who are perverting the doctrines and addressing how it makes the papacy look. Well, this makes the Pope look like X. Now, that's a way of saying the Pope is doing that. Like, this makes it seem like the Pope is just and cares about money, right? So that Luther can at least rhetorically say, I didn't say the Pope only cares about money. I'm saying it makes it look like he only cares about money. And that's a problem. We've got to protect the Pope's honor. So we don't want him to look like he only cares about money. So he's using this kind of rhetorical device that, hey, the way things are being done is making the emperor look bad.
Gerrit I mean, in some ways, it would be the way a highly partisan Democrat or Republican today would try to defend their president. I just wish that people in the Biden administration were better at their jobs because it's making Biden look like X, right? Well, what's that doing? It's a way of diverting blame, right? It's a way of saying, I just wish the Trump State Department was better at X because it makes it look like he doesn't know what he's doing. It's a way of saying, you know, I wish Trump got his people under control so that he didn't look bad. And Martin Luther is doing the same thing. He's trying to use that as a rhetorical device. So let's give you an example of some of these. I'm not going to read all 95 theses. I know that that's what you were waiting for.
Richard That would be in part two.
Gerrit Yeah, part 11, all of the 95 theses. So in part, what Luther is arguing, of course, these are translations from German. And so they won't sound as beautiful as they were when he wrote them. Luther thinks that as people are buying indulgences, they need to be taught what the actual doctrine is. Christians should be taught that buying of indulgences is optional and not commanded. Christians should be taught that the Pope in selling pardons has more want and more desire of devout prayer than for money. It's great if you buy an indulgence to help build the Savior's Basilica, but what I want you most is to be righteous. Not exactly what Johann Tetzel is teaching. He's teaching, where's your money? Where's my money, man? Where's my money?
Gerrit Christians should be taught, now again, notice how he's using this as a rhetorical device, that if the Pope knew the ways and doings of the preachers of indulgences, he would prefer that St. Peter's Basilica should be burned to ashes rather than it should be built up on the skin, flesh and bones of his lambs. Now, that's a pretty biting criticism, but notice how he does it. If he only knew what people like Johann, of course the Pope is well aware of what Johann Tetzel's raking it in. And Luther of course knows that the Pope knows, but it's a way of providing this criticism without actually criticizing. The Holy Father certainly would have a problem with this if he knew about it. Wink wink, nudge nudge basically. Why doesn't he have a problem with it, right? Christians should be taught that the Pope, as his bound duty to do, is indeed willing to give his own money.
Gerrit And should St. Peter's be sold therefore, to those to whom the preachers of indulgences do most extort money. It is a vain and false thing to hope to be saved through indulgences, though the commissary, nay, the Pope himself was to pledge his own soul therefor. Those who on account of a sermon concerning indulgences in one church, condemn the word of God to silence, and others are enemies of Christ and of the Pope. Wrong is done to the word of God if in one in the same sermon spends as much or more time as on indulgences as it does the word of God. You can already hear some things that you might even hear throughout your life. Well, how come we're spending so much time talking about ham radios and we didn't even mention Jesus, right? You can hear some of this here. The treasures of the church, whence the Pope grants his dispensation, are neither sufficiently named nor known among the community of Christ.
Gerrit He's going to go on to say that... I'm going to skip quite a few here, but he's going to go on to say, for instance, the 63rd indulgence or 62nd indulgence. The right and true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel and glory and grace of God, 63. The treasure, however, is deservedly most hateful, for it makes the first to be last. 64. While the treasure of indulgence is deservedly most agreeable, for it makes the last to be first. 65. Therefore, the treasures of the gospel are nets with which in times of yore one fished for men of mammon. 66. But the treasures of indulgence are nets with which nowadays one fishes for the mammon of men. Now notice that rhetorical turn of a phrase there. Getting further into it, he's going to become more radical the further he gets by asking some questions.
Gerrit For instance, Thesis 82. Why does not the Pope deliver all souls at the same time out of purgatory for the sake of most holy love and on account of the bitterest distress of those souls? This being the most imperative of all motives, while he saves an infinite number of souls for the sake of that most miserable thing, money, to be spent on St. Peter's Basilica, this being the very slightest of motives. So he's asked this question. If the Pope has an innumerable amount of merit, it's inexhaustible, the amount of merit, that he can apply at his whim to whoever he wants in purgatory, well then why doesn't he just give it to everyone in purgatory? Do you realize how it makes the Pope look? That he's only giving it to people who pay money for it?
Gerrit Shouldn't he out of his own good Christian heart just give it to everybody? That's a pretty good question. It's a good point. Yeah, here's some others. What is this new holiness of God and the Pope that for money's sake they permit the wicked and the enemy of God to save a pious soul faithful to God and yet will not save the pious and beloved soul without payment, out of love and on account of their great distress? Why does not the Pope, this is 86, this one's direct. Now, the way that Luther has couched all these later theses is, if you don't change what you're doing, people will ask these questions. Again, Martin Luther's not saying, I'm not saying I'm asking these questions, but I'm saying that the people, seeing what's going on, they will ask these questions. Here's one of the ones they'll ask.
Gerrit Why does not the Pope built St. Peter's Basilica with his own money since his riches are now more ample than those of Crassus rather than the money of poor Christians? Crassus was one of the triumvirate Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus back with Julius Caesar, and the way he got his position was he was a billionaire in Rome. He was by far the richest, people say the richest person who ever lived in antiquity, at least at that time. And so he is a, people use him as an example of someone who is incredibly wealthy, right? That he, someone today might say, well, I mean, it might as well be Bill Gates or something, or, you know, I'm Elon Musk. In Luther's time, you invoked Crassus to say the person's not just wealthy, they're ridiculously wealthy beyond any comparison. Or, whenever I talk about Richard. I mean, you are listening to the Premium, aren't you?
Gerrit Anyway, as he gluts in himself, why does the Pope remit or give to those through perfect penitence, who through perfect penitence have already a right to punnery, remission and pardon? So again, if this person is someone who is right before God because they've already gone through the repentance process, why is the Pope granting them some kind of extra legal indulgency? You can see that this is all coming to a head over the ideas of indulgences and purgatory. This is something that Martin Luther has spent a lot of time thinking about. How long am I going to be in purgatory because I'm a sinner? It really is the trigger for Martin Luther, because it's talking about how long someone is going to suffer in purgatory before they're finally allowed into heaven. Martin Luther had spent his entire adult life asking that question, how do I keep myself out of purgatory?
Gerrit He is going to go on to say that Christians should be exhorted to endeavor to follow Christ their head through the cross, death and hell, and thus hope with confidence to enter heaven through many miseries rather than false security. In fact, part of what Luther is going to argue is people thinking that they're going to heaven because they bought an indulgence are going to see the preacher who sold them that indulgence when neither of them get there. Yeah, yeah. Again, kind of a shot across the bow to old Johann Tetzel. So we didn't quite get to it this week, but what we're going to talk about in the next episode is how this degenerates. What is the reaction to the 95 theses? Is it an immediate excommunication bowl for Luther? What happens to him? And again, what sparks Luther's new theology that will come to inform the entirety of the Protestant Reformation and affect all of us even to this day, every Christian you talk to who is not a Catholic, whether they know it or not, whether they like it or not, whether they acknowledge it or not, they are descendants from these points Martin Luther is going to make, and we will make them, hopefully, if we get there the next time.
Gerrit Thanks for listening.
Intro Thank you for listening to Joseph Smith and the Restoration, a Standard of Truth podcast production. Please join us for our next episode. For our other productions, please visit standardoftruth.com.

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But all roads don't lead back to Rome, actually. For Protestantism, all roads lead back to Martin Luther, who says, I've had enough of Rome.

GerritInsight

Well, but Brother Maynard's a jerk.

RichardBanter

I mean, he, you know, if Mother Teresa went through a long dark night of the soul, Martin Luther went through a long dark life of the soul.

GerritInsight

Yeah, I have a vision board and on the vision board is Johann Tetzel.

RichardBanter

Frankly, he looks like he ate another Johann Tetzel.

GerritBanter

Well, you want to start in any sales environment. You want to start with the pain points.

RichardBanter

We have actual prophets and apostles who have said that, no, not every single thing that happens in your life is because you sinned once.

GerritInsight

It was, I assume, the first timeshare presentation essentially was Purgatory as perhaps.

RichardBanter

It's first and foremost, it's an affront to the grace of Jesus Christ that you could in any way donate money and then that covers any sins.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Posting the 95 Theses was Luther's declaration that he was leaving the Catholic Church.
Every bad thing that happens to you is a punishment for sin or a lesson sent directly by God.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

Martin Luther's devotion made him painfully aware of his sins; finding grace in Paul's letters gave him relief, and that struggle shaped all of Protestantism.

Catholics saw indulgences as a reward for donating to St. Peter's, but Tetzel sold them as a way to buy loved ones out of purgatory, and that is what enraged Luther.

Luther's 95 Theses were points for debate, not a resignation letter, and he framed his sharpest criticisms as 'if the Pope only knew.'

Not everything bad that happens is because you sinned; we came to a world full of other people's choices and natural disasters.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
The substitute teacher's TVRichard says the re-release intro feels like a sub rolling in a video on blue whales, and promises it's the last one for Season 5 (0:01).
Tetzel on the vision boardRichard admires Tetzel's salesmanship (2:02-2:26) and keeps him on his vision board (17:09); he looks like George 'The Animal' Steele after retirement (17:25-17:34).
Brother MaynardThe monk who cuts in the gruel line; Gerrit invites any Brother Maynard to email the podcast (7:07-7:58).
Third CorinthiansGerrit and Richard invent the missing epistle (9:15-10:19).
Super Irrigation, now with the Cosa NostraThe lawn company is back; they'll start in Sicily, where the union is in waste management (25:42-26:42).
Milk in a bagGerrit's Wisconsin mission budget (21:04-22:33).
Huge with LutheransThanks to Lutheran premium subscribers (10:37-10:42); 'We're big in Minnesota' (29:20); the demographic is Lutherans and people forced to listen, including anyone in the back of a cop car in southeastern Idaho, a nod to Officer R (33:08-33:17).
Free premium for PeteRichard has never looked into how to gift premium content, which Gerrit calls willful ignorance (29:28-29:58).
Area authorities are not general authoritiesThe hill Richard has chosen to die on (33:17-35:53), plus testimonies closed like prayers (36:12).
The first timeshare presentationTetzel's purgatory pitch, Rust-Oleum treatment and minivan of purgatory included (39:31, 41:02).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
Luther's reading of Romans and Hebrews versus what New Testament scholars say Paul meant by 'works of the law' (9:15, 10:42).
How indulgences and the doctrine of supererogation worked in Catholic theology before Tetzel (24:41, 40:00).
Reading all 95 Theses, which Gerrit jokes will take until part 11 (51:43).
What happened after the 95 Theses and whether Luther was excommunicated right away, promised for the next episode (60:10).
SOT Litner · S5E27.