The Last Testament: A Memoir (46 page)

¹⁹
I would only ask that thou dost not end the Catholic Church entirely, for I retain some affection for the old girl; besides, think how much we have already invested in costumes.

²⁰
But if you would like to create another
branch
of Christianity to compete with it, be my guest.

²¹
Or should I say in H. G.’s case, ‘Be my ghost!’”

²²
(That was mine!)

CHAPTER 8

¹
O
n the morning of October 31, 1517, the citizens of Wittenberg, Germany, awoke after a particularly festive Mischief Night.

2 Toilet paper littered the trees; eggs dripped from City Hall; and the town elders rose exhausted, teenage pranksters having spent all night ringing church bells, then running away.

³
Anticipating the mess, the sexton of All Saints’ Church had set his rooster for 5:30
AM
, to leave himself enough time to straighten the tombstones in the graveyard, and wipe the remnants of the extinguished flaming dung-bags from the narthex.

⁴
But as he approached the cathedral he noticed something odd: a thick sheaf of parchment nailed to the front door.

⁵
The sexton’s first feeling was annoyance: everyone knew the proper place for public postings was the kiosk in the village square, where young students gathered to collect information concerning rooms to let and the location of the upcoming rally to legalize wormwood.

⁶
But his second feeling was shock; for as he neared the parchment he saw its boldly-written title:
Disputation of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences.

⁷
Luther was a young, ambitious professor at the University of Wittenberg; an institution itself ambitious to shed its reputation as the University of Greifswald’s safety school.

⁸
He had spent several years as a monk, devoting himself to abstinence, fasting, and long hours of prayer, but ultimately rejected the lifestyle as too frivolous.

⁹
In his subsequent lectures and writings, Luther came across as liberal; anti-authoritarian; a foe of the wealthy; a hater of corruption; a passionate reformer working for the common man.

¹⁰
But personally he was dour, short-tempered, mean-spirited, tolerated
no
disobedience in regard to himself, and showed contempt for almost every actual “common man” he encountered.

¹¹
Lo, he was Michael Moore in a jerkin.

¹²
It was H. G. who had first spotted this extremely unpleasant person, and saw in his unique combination of cunning, self-righteousness, and deep-seated need to be hated the perfect vehicle to launch a revolt against the church.

¹³
And it was the spirit of H. G. that filled Luther as he spent October of 1517 creating the document that would forever change the way white people silently judged each other.

¹⁴
All of Luther’s work before and after is written in the most Teutonicky German imaginable; to read but a single page of it is to feel one’s spirit grow heavy with beer, sauerbraten, and umlauts.

¹⁵
But H. G. was the presiding spirit behind the work that would go down in history as
The 95 Theses
, and thus it is divinely inspired in its logic, prose, poise, and above all, salesmanship.

¹⁶
In it lay the seeds from which would sprout not only the entire Protestant movement, but much of the history of the next 500 years.

¹⁷
Yet today it is seldom discussed, and resides in the same murky region of the collective unconscious wherein also float the Magna Carta, the Stamp Act, and the presidency of Jimmy Carter.

¹⁸
This may be because with a half-millennium of hindsight, it is now clear that while some of the theses are fantastic, about half of them are filler.

¹⁹
(In fairness, 95 is a lot of individual chunks of theses for
anyone
to squeeze out.)

²⁰
But the ones that are good, are very good; so as a public service I am herewith including what a record company would call
The Very Best of The 95 Theses
; that is, if record companies put out albums anymore.

²¹
Hard-core fans, feel free to cut the following pages out and post them on a church door; but only after purchase.

CHAPTER 9

(THE VERY BEST OF THE 95 THESES)

¹
Hi! I’m legendary theologian Martin Luther, and if you’re reading this, my first thesis is that
you’re
standing outside All Saints’ Church here in beautiful downtown Wittenberg.

²
Friends, I’m not the kind of writer who
needs
to nail his work to the front doors of public buildings to get attention.

³
As I’m sure you remember, my last book,
Explanation of the Seven Penitential Psalms,
was a publishing phenomenon, selling over 13 copies.

⁴
But my message is urgent, because I’m angry: angry at a Vatican that has become a case study in what happens when hoarding goes untreated for twelve hundred years.

⁵
You know, there’s only so much gold you can forge into a crown of thorns and put atop a Carreran marble likeness of Jesus on the cross inlaid with ruby stigmata, before the irony becomes uncomfortable.

⁶
And as for the Pope’s claim that he has the authority to pardon sinners, well, he doesn’t; in fact, if you bump into him in the basilica and you say “Pardon me,” technically he’s not even allowed to do
that.

⁷
And while I’m on the subject of the Pope . . .

[There followeth 10 theses dedicated to the corruption of the Pope; and the cruelty of his temperament; and the foulness of his breath; and the mating habits of his mother.]

¹⁸
And so I have written this document in protest: For I am a protestor, and I am starting a new branch of Christianity that reflects that spirit of protest: Protestantationalism®.

¹⁹
Protestantationalism® is a revolutionary new system of worship that will forever change the way you think about slavish adherence to dogma.

²⁰
It does away with elaborate religious bureaucracy to let ordinary folks like
you
get to experience for yourselves the boundless terror of the L
ORD’S
wrath.

²¹
It eliminates the middlepope between worshipper and God, and in so doing frees the L
ORD
to
literally
pass his savings onto you.

²²
Now let me be clear: our new religion is
not
Islam—just like you, we believe Muslims are godless animals fit for the lance and the pyre.

²³
And our new religion is
not
Judaism—just like you, we believe Jews should be persecuted, ghettoized, and even occasionally out-and-out slaughtered.

²⁴
Why, I myself am so anti-Semitic that in 1543 I will publish a tract called
The Jews and Their Lies
advocating that all Torahs and synagogues be burned to the ground, and that Jews have pig dung thrown on them in the streets!

²⁵
And while I’m on the subject of the Jews . . .

[There followeth 10 theses dedicated to the corruption of the Jews; and the vileness of their temperament; and their control of the Gregorian-chant industry; and the staleness of their bagels; though in the Jews’ defense, it was well-nigh impossible to get a good bagel in Wittenberg in those days.]

³⁵
What this new religion
is,
is all the features of Christianity you’ve come to know and love: God, Jesus, crucifixes, sing-alongs, and of course,
plenty
of days off.

³⁶
But here’s the difference: In Protestantationalism®,
you’re
the boss.

³⁷
You make your own hours; hold your own services; write your own sermons; and, if you get in on the ground floor, even create your own sect!

³⁸
By now you’re probably thinking, “OK, Marty, this all sounds well and good, but it’s going to cost me an arm and a leg, right?”

³⁹
No: you can join our new faith at the unbelievably low price . . . of
simply accepting the divinity of Jesus.

⁴⁰
Let me repeat that thesis:
You can join our new faith at the unbelievably low price of simply accepting the divinity of Jesus!

⁴¹
That’s a belief you probably already have lying around in your head anyway!

[There followeth 12 promotional theses for local businesses.]

⁵⁴
At some point in its history, the Catholic Church got the ridiculous, morally outrageous idea that good works could somehow help you get into heaven.

⁵⁵
This has led generations of Christians to engage in all manner of wasteful activities, like behaving nicely and helping people.

⁵⁶
But the truth is, all men are born stained by a common original sin, even if most of our subsequent sins are plagiarized.

⁵⁷
This means we are all
equally
deserving of eternal damnation, condemned regardless of our deeds: Rape a nun, don’t rape a nun, it’s all the same to God.

⁵⁸
No, we cannot attain salvation through our actions, but
only
through God’s grace, as manifested in the birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection, and 1,500-year working vacation of Jesus Christ.

⁵⁹
The only catch is you must take Jesus as your
personal
L
ORD
and Savior; to the point where you can imagine Him on the cross in agony, thinking, “It is my pleasure to suffer an excruciating death on behalf of [Insert Your Name Here] from [Insert Your Hometown Here], to redeem his sins of [Insert Every Sin You’ve Ever Committed Here].”

⁶⁰
But once you accept that, then as long as
you
keep committing sins,
he’ll
keep having died for them.

⁶¹
That’s right: once you accept you’re a total moral failure, you’re free to go out and be that failure!