Actually, Martin Luther took the church back to the early church fathers. He had very strong regard for them. He was an Augustinian monk, and was strongly influenced by Augustin. Specifically, Luther reintroduced the Pauline concept of justification by faith, and he protested the sale of indulgences as a way to earn one’s way out of purgatory (a place with no Biblical support, BTW). Paul was very, very clear about justification by faith. Martin Luther never meant to found a new denomination; he wanted only to return the Christian Church to Biblical practices.
>> (a place with no Biblical support, BTW). <<
The name “purgatory” is a Latin word, used, like “trinity,” to express a thoroughly biblical concept. There are dozens of references to an afterlife existence for those who are not destined for Hell, but who are not yet in Heaven.
>> Paul was very, very clear about justification by faith. Martin Luther never meant to found a new denomination; <<
James was as clear about the necessity of works as Paul was about justification by faith. Luther failed to reconcile Paul and James (or at least he publicly exploited the apparent contradiction), so he tossed James (as well as 13 other books) out of the bible. The Catholic church has endorsed the way to reconcile Paul and James that has been accepted by the major branches of Lutheranism.
>> he protested the sale of indulgences as a way to earn one’s way out of purgatory <<
Had he merely protested the abuse of the sale of indulgences (”Go ahead, do whatever, and just pay money.”), he would be an honored Catholic saint. But the notion of expressing a desire for atonement for sins through a pius act is well-established in the bible, although Luther removed the most explicit example: The 2nd book of Maccabees recounts how victorious warriors mourned that their fallen comrades had been outside of God’s protecting grace because they had practiced superstition. They offered to the Temple their booty, in hopes, explicitly reaffirmed by the author, that their sacrifice would atone for their fallen comrade’s superstition. The author even states that such atonement would have been foolish, since it does no good to atone for those who will remain in Sheol, but because they had done so in the hopes of the Resurrection, it was holy.