Martin Luther: Catholic dissident
Peter Stanford

• Wednesday 14 June 2017, 7.00PM to 8.30pm
• Free admission
  Booking required
  Book tickets
• Memorial Hall, St Peter's School, Clifton (map)
• Wheelchair accessible

Event details

Peter Stanford presents a new appraisal of theological firebrand Martin Luther on the 500th anniversary of the religious revolution he triggered - the Protestant Reformation.

On 31 October 2017 it will be the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther pinning his 95 'Theses' - or reform proposals - to the door of his local university church in Wittenberg. Most scholars now agree that the details of this eye-catching gesture are more legend than hammer and nails. However, it is certainly true that on this day (probably in a letter to his local Archbishop in Mainz), the Augustinian Friar and theologian issued an outspokenly blunt challenge to his own Catholic Church to reform itself from within - especially over the sale of 'indulgences'. This ultimately precipitated a huge religious and political upheaval right across Europe and divided mainstream Christianity ever after. Peter, author of Martin Luther: Catholic Dissident, will look at Martin Luther from within his Catholic context, examining his actual aims for Catholicism as well as his enduring legacy - and where he might fit within the church today.

About the speaker 

Peter Stanford's previous investigations into the history, theology, enduring appeal and cultural significance of religious ideas include: Judas: The Troubling History of the Renegade Apostle; The Devil: A Biography; Heaven: A Traveller's Guide to the Undiscovered Country; and The She-Pope, an investigation of the Pope Joan legend. His other books include biographies of Bronwen Astor, Lord Longford and the Poet Laureate, C Day-Lewis, plus the polemical Catholics and Sex that became an award-winning Channel 4 series in 1992.

Peter is a senior features writer at the Daily and Sunday Telegraph titles, and contributes to the Independent, the Observer, the Daily Mail and the Catholic weekly, the Tablet, where he is a columnist. He has presented programmes on BBC 1, Channel 4 and Channel 5, as well as BBC Radios 2 and 4 and the BBC World Service.