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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2017
I once quipped in a class that I wondered if the Martin Luther portrayed in some books would even be able to recognize the Martin Luthers of other works. Would Erik Erikson's sexually repressed, rebellious Luther recognize the confident and assertive Luther of the recent popularly aimed biography How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World? The five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation seems an apt moment to reflect a bit on the place and significance of Martin Luther in the Reformation and the church. The anniversary year will see at least a half-dozen new biographies, numerous conferences, and nearly ubiquitous commemorations. As we mark this year, what portraits are now being drawn? What conclusions? Is there any hope of synthesis and common representation, or shall we each have our own Luther, few of whom recognize the other? Since the last centennial of the Reformation, scholarship on the Reformation generally and Luther specifically has emerged from the tight quarters of confessionalized history. In 1917, there were no commemorations. Luther was celebrated by Protestants and lamented by Roman Catholics. There was little in the way of neutral ground between those two poles. In 1999, the Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican issued a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. In 2016, Pope Francis traveled to Sweden to participate in a joint commemoration of the Reformation with a Lutheran (and female) bishop. Such would have been unthinkable in 1917, or 1817, or 1617. As Luther has been released from the confessionalized walls that held him so long, what image do we see now? In what follows, I would like to reflect on three aspects of the “new” or “newer” Luther that has emerged.
1 Compare Erikson, Erik H., Young Man Luther (New York: The Norton Library, 1962)Google Scholar and Nichols, Stephen J., The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2007)Google Scholar.
2 “Göttlicher Schrifftmessiger, woldenckwürdiger Traum…”, 1617. Images and more information on the broadsheet can be found at the British Museum.
3 d'Aubigné, J. H. Merle, History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, trans. White, Henry (New York: American Tract Society, 1853), 1:277Google Scholar.
4 The image appears on the reverse side of the title page. Luther, Martin, Acta et res gestae (Strassbourg: Schott, 1521)Google Scholar.
5 The image is attributed to Hans Brosamer and appears on the title page. Cochlaeus, Johannes, Septiceps Lutherus: ubiq[ue] sibi, suis scriptis, co[n]trari[us], in visitatione[m] Saxonica[m], (Leipzig: Valentinus Schumann, 1529)Google Scholar.
6 Compare Leppin, Volker, Martin Luther (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2010), 29Google Scholar; and Roper, Lyndal, Martin Luther: Renegade and Luther (London: The Bodley Head, 2016), 47Google Scholar. Leppin's biography has recently been translated into English: Leppin, Volker, Martin Luther, trans. Bezzant, Rhys and Roe, Karen (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017)Google Scholar.
7 Oberman, Heiko, Luther: Man between God and the Devil, trans. Walliser-Schwarzbart, Eileen (New York: Doubleday, 1982), 155Google Scholar.
8 Whitford, David M., “Erasmus Openeth the Way before Luther: Revisiting Humanism's Influence on the Ninety-Five Theses and the Early Luther,” Church History and Religious Culture 96, no. 4 (2016): 516–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Bainton, Roland, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1950)Google Scholar.
10 Kasper, Walter, Martin Luther: An Ecumenical Perspective (New York: Paulist Press, 2016)Google Scholar.
11 Said during an interview on a plane from Armenia to Rome, June 6, 2016, http://www.lastampa.it/2016/06/26/vaticaninsider/eng/the-vatican/the-pope-on-brexit-no-to-balcanisation-but-we-need-a-new-european-union-vj94ZnoFQTdjk8kQK4BZpK/pagina.html.
12 Schilling, Heinz, Martin Luther: Rebell in einer Zeit des Umbruchs (Munich: Beck, 2013)Google Scholar.
13 Eire, Carlos M. N., Reformations: The Early Modern World, 1450–1650 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016)Google Scholar.
14 MacCulloch, Diarmaid, The Reformation: A History (New York: Penguin, 2003)Google Scholar.
15 Gregory, Brad S., The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 Ibid., 15 (emphasis in the original).
17 Ibid., 7.