This is an extremely important point. Luther’s thought is more subtle than many have given it credit for. The two kingdoms idea, with its strict demar-cation between the world of social discourse, public righteousness, and daily life and the world of individual salvation, righteousness before God, and spiritual life, effectively serves to demarcate the bounds and the application of the teachings embodied in the notions of universal priesthood and Christian freedom. These are ultimately categories which refer to the spiritual and not the material world. Thus their strict democratizing tendencies, in Luther’s mind at least, are restricted to that sphere. What he is doing is to allow for a universal, egalitarian attitude to grace and conversion, while setting up bar-riers which prevent this Reformation programme being carried across into the secular field. Failure to spot this subtlety, or fear that others might fail to spot it, lay behind much of the early Catholic opposition to Luther. Indeed, in the con-text of a discussion of the priesthood of all believers, David Bagchi makes the following observation concerning Luther’s early Catholic opponents: [T]he controversialists in general were much less antagonistic to Luther’s doctrine of the priesthood of all believers than might have been sup-posed. Their objection, as with some of Luther’s other teachings, was prompted largely by the possibility that the rabble might understand it out of ignorance or malice . . . Cochlaeus, Fisher, Bartholomeus Usingen, Eck, Arnoldi Von Chiemsee, Johannes Gropper, and Jodocus Clichtoveus all accepted the universal priesthood, provided that it did not detract from the special priesthood.

DOI link for This is an extremely important point. Luther’s thought is more subtle than many have given it credit for. The two kingdoms idea, with its strict demar-cation between the world of social discourse, public righteousness, and daily life and the world of individual salvation, righteousness before God, and spiritual life, effectively serves to demarcate the bounds and the application of the teachings embodied in the notions of universal priesthood and Christian freedom. These are ultimately categories which refer to the spiritual and not the material world. Thus their strict democratizing tendencies, in Luther’s mind at least, are restricted to that sphere. What he is doing is to allow for a universal, egalitarian attitude to grace and conversion, while setting up bar-riers which prevent this Reformation programme being carried across into the secular field. Failure to spot this subtlety, or fear that others might fail to spot it, lay behind much of the early Catholic opposition to Luther. Indeed, in the con-text of a discussion of the priesthood of all believers, David Bagchi makes the following observation concerning Luther’s early Catholic opponents: [T]he controversialists in general were much less antagonistic to Luther’s doctrine of the priesthood of all believers than might have been sup-posed. Their objection, as with some of Luther’s other teachings, was prompted largely by the possibility that the rabble might understand it out of ignorance or malice . . . Cochlaeus, Fisher, Bartholomeus Usingen, Eck, Arnoldi Von Chiemsee, Johannes Gropper, and Jodocus Clichtoveus all accepted the universal priesthood, provided that it did not detract from the special priesthood.

This is an extremely important point. Luther’s thought is more subtle than many have given it credit for. The two kingdoms idea, with its strict demar-cation between the world of social discourse, public righteousness, and daily life and the world of individual salvation, righteousness before God, and spiritual life, effectively serves to demarcate the bounds and the application of the teachings embodied in the notions of universal priesthood and Christian freedom. These are ultimately categories which refer to the spiritual and not the material world. Thus their strict democratizing tendencies, in Luther’s mind at least, are restricted to that sphere. What he is doing is to allow for a universal, egalitarian attitude to grace and conversion, while setting up bar-riers which prevent this Reformation programme being carried across into the secular field. Failure to spot this subtlety, or fear that others might fail to spot it, lay behind much of the early Catholic opposition to Luther. Indeed, in the con-text of a discussion of the priesthood of all believers, David Bagchi makes the following observation concerning Luther’s early Catholic opponents: [T]he controversialists in general were much less antagonistic to Luther’s doctrine of the priesthood of all believers than might have been sup-posed. Their objection, as with some of Luther’s other teachings, was prompted largely by the possibility that the rabble might understand it out of ignorance or malice . . . Cochlaeus, Fisher, Bartholomeus Usingen, Eck, Arnoldi Von Chiemsee, Johannes Gropper, and Jodocus Clichtoveus all accepted the universal priesthood, provided that it did not detract from the special priesthood.