Martin Luther has a big birthday on the horizon. In 2017 it will be 500 years since the rebel Augustinian friar nailed his Ninety-Five Theses against indulgences to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, and thus inaugurated the Protestant Reformation.Except perhaps he didn’t. In the 1960s, the German Catholic church historian Erwin Iserloh caused a fuss by arguing that the Theses were never posted in this way; the church door was a myth. Iserloh’s intentions were ecumenical: he wanted to strip away the image of Luther as an angry revolutionary and relocate the Reformation’s origins in respectful and thoughtful doctrinal discussion, with which modern theologians could still engage. Many Lutherans understandably felt they were being robbed of an heirloom of identity