If you make the Lord your refuge, if you make the Most High your shelter, no evil will conquer you; no plague will come near your dwelling. For he orders his angels to protect you wherever you go.
Psalm 91:9-11

In the early 1500s two radical ideas crystallized in the mind of a university professor in the backwater town of Wittenberg, Germany: People are saved by faith (not by human effort), and Scripture (not the church) is the test of truth. These ideas seemed radically subversive to the authorities of the day, so the pope kicked the professor, Martin Luther, out of the church, and Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, ordered the "heretic" to appear before him.

Luther relished the idea of arguing his views before Charles, so he agreed to appear at Worms, Germany, in April 1521. Charles V sat on a dais, flanked by his advisers and representatives of Rome, and all around were his Spanish troops decked out in their parade best. The hall was filled with the politically powerful-bishops, princes, ...