Half a millennium later, we live in the shadow of Martin Luther’s heresy. Martin’s heresy was not the doctrine of salvation by grace; he merely uncovered what Paul had written 1,500 years earlier.

Rather, Luther’s heresy was his inability to put the concept of a priesthood of believers into practice. Luther’s heresy was the imprimatur for Christianity – Protestant or Catholic – to continue down the same path of intolerance and repression that continue to obscure the diversity and true eclecticism of Jesus’ message.

Part of the reason for Martin Luther’s inability to shake the Catholic tradition of intolerance comes from his own proclivity to long bouts of depression. This natural predisposition was reinforced by Luther’s preoccupation with the wrath of God. During a bout of this black horror, he could not bear to read biblical words such as those of Psalm 90: "For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed."

Luther’s inability to fully trust in a priesthood of believers, in individual reason, came as the result of his own insecurities. Because Luther’s God was a god of vengeance, Martin Luther similarly gave himself license to wreak havoc on those with whom he disagreed. As with the church he dedicated his life to tear down, this revolutionary reverted to what he earlier had disdained – a priesthood of one. Papal authority was no more; in its place was substituted Luther the new religious autocrat.

Luther took his historic stand at Wittenburg – placing himself in opposition to the combined weight of more than a millennium of accreted Catholic dogma. His 95 theses unleashed the forces of people, faith and politics against papal authority and the economic hegemony of a single European church-state.

More so than the other heretics of the Christian faith, Martin Luther changed not only the church, he altered the state. The economic and social energies unleashed by the Reformation heralded the end of feudalism, the triumph of capitalism, the resurgence of education, and eventually the swelling tide of democracy.

If the 21st century still resonates in the freedom and dynamic energy released by of these tidal forces, we also remain imprisoned within the socio-religious fortress that Luther reinforced. Jesus remains a caricature of the Nicene Creed which continues supreme.

To the dominant church of the era, Martin Luther’s heresy came in his challenge to papal authority. To those who value the divine, Luther’s heresy was the claim of salvation through grace, not works. But these heresies were nothing new; Luther was merely rediscovering and again unleashing the power of a Pauline ministry 1,500 years earlier.

The reformation of protestants that Luther launched carries forward as the dominant event of Christianity for the subsequent 500 years to this 21st century. Unfortunately, this reformation is incomplete. The Christian revolution was aborted – by none other than Luther himself.

For those who have lived in the ensuing five centuries of Luther’s legacy, the real heresy lies in Luther’s failure to complete the Reformation he started. Luther failed to throw off the shackles of Nicaea, to accept and celebrate diverse interpretations of the Jesus message, and to center a revived church on the message of creative conflict rather than monolithic uniformity. That time, that fulfillment of reformation, has yet to come.