-an article for the Light Magazine denominational founder
series
By Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird
In 1934, Hitler tragically became the German
Fuhrer. That same year, Mr King, a black preacher from the United States,
visited the places of the Reformation in Germany. He was so impressed that he
changed his name and that of his eldest son Michael, to Martin Luther. His son
Martin Luther King Jr. is famous for
having an anti-racist dream of civil rights for all. In his Letter from
Birmingham Jail (1963), Martin Luther King defended himself against the charge
of extremism by noting the examples of Jesus, Amos, Paul, John Bunyan, Abraham
Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Martin Luther himself: ‘Was not Martin Luther an
extremist – ‘Here I stand: I can do none other so help me God?”’
The original Martin Luther however was not a
King, but rather a copper-smelter’s son.
His dad Hans was always involved in mining conflicts, so decided that he
needed his son to become a lawyer. But after
a lightning-filled storm on July 2nd 1505, Martin pledged that he would become
an Augustinian monk. His father, who
wanted grandchildren, was so upset that he initially disowned his son
Martin. His dad dismissed Martin’s
calling, saying “May it not prove an illusion and deception.” At Martin’s
ordination in 1507, his dad suggested that the devil had caused Martin to break
the commandment to obey one’s parents. After the death of two of Martin’s
brothers, news falsely reached his dad Hans that Martin too had died from the
black plague. This somewhat softened his
dad to his ‘wayward’ monastic son. Both Martin’s father and mother were very
strict disciplinarians: “For a mere nut, my mother beat me until the blood
flowed.” As an Augustinian monk, Martin never felt that he could please his
heavenly Father: “I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes
sinners.” Did Martin have God the Father confused with his often angry and
unforgiving earthly father?
Martin tried very hard to please God through
monastic practices. His day began at 3am
with the first of hourly prayers. He
would whip himself and lie outside in the snow in an attempt to be good enough.
None of his fellow monks prayed more or fasted longer than him. Luther would confess his sins for up to six
hours at a time. His tired confessor
Staupitz told him “Man, God is not angry with you. You are angry with God.
Don’t you know that God commands you to hope? Go away and don’t come back until
you have done some real sinning.”
After becoming a theological Professor at the
University of Wittenburg, Martin began to teach his students about the book of
Romans. God freed him from guilt through
Romans 1:17 which said that the just will live by faith: “This one and firm
rock, which we call the doctrine of justification is the chief article of the
whole Christian doctrine, which comprehends the understanding of all
godliness." This enabled Luther to
bring hope to the hopeless, forgiveness to the guilty, and a born-again
experience to those lost in works-religiosity, who were trying to be good
enough for God. Luther was so excited about this breakthrough that he changed
his family name in 1917 from Luder (cadaver or prostitute) to Luther, based on
a Latin & Greek word (Elutherius/eleutheria) for freedom. Because he saw
himself as bound and captive to the Word of God, he did not see it safe to go
against freedom of his conscience.
You can imagine how upset Luther was when John
Tetzel came hawking indulgences in Wittenburg. Indulgences were paper
certificates that one purchased to reduce one’s time in purgatory. Tetzel, a
Dominican monk, had previously been convicted of adultery, and the Emperor
ordered that he be tied in a sack and thrown in a river. Luther’s own
parishioners thought that Tetzel’s indulgences were like a
‘get-out-of-purgatory’ card, even if they did not give up their adultery and
theft. The Bible, said Luther, calls us
to actually repent and stop sinning, rather than just do acts of penance, like
blooding our knees while crawling up stairs.
Indulgences were the bingo of the sixteenth century. At first,
indulgences were conferred on those who either went on a crusade or helped pay
the Crusade expenses. Indulgences proved so lucrative that it was speedily
extended to build churches, monasteries, and hospitals. Because indulgences were seen as
transferable, one could pay money to reduce their relatives’ time in
purgatory. Luther denounced this
money-making scheme by nailing his 95 Theses on Oct 31st 1917 to the
now famous Wittenberg Door of the Castle Church. Where, he asked, is any mention of
indulgences or purgatory in the Bible?
Luther never intended to start a new Lutheran
denomination, let alone the endless splitting of the 45,000+ Protestant
denominations that followed. He just naively wanted to address these financial
abuses that needed reforming. But Tetsel’s
indulgences were not just going to pay for Pope Leo’s St Peter’s Basilica in
Rome. Half of it was going directly to
the Fugger banking family in Augsburg, Germany. They were the richest merchant
capitalists with a GDP-adjusted net worth of $400 billion. Archbishop Albrecht
of Mainz owed the Fuggers money after buying his Archbishopric position. Luther
was in a lose/lose situation as he upset the financial security of not just the
pope, but also the most powerful politicians in Europe. The Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V, who had bought his position with around 3,000 kg of gold from the
Fuggers, was determined to capture and execute Luther. He made it a crime for anyone in Germany to
give Luther food or shelter. Luther became Europe’s most ‘wanted, dead or
alive’ criminal.
Fortunately for Luther, the Elector Prince
Frederick the Wise ‘kidnapped’ him after the 1521 Diet of Worms debate, hiding
him away in the Wartburg Castle. There
Luther grew a beard, disguising himself as a knight, Junker Jorg. During this depressing time of isolation,
Luther translated the New Testament into German. It instantly became Germany’s first runaway
bestseller, thanks in part to the new technology of the Gutenberg printing press.
The Reformation was a back to the Bible
movement. Luther taught that the Bible
is over the Church, that the Bible commands and directs the Church, not the
other way around. No longer was the Bible only available for the elite who
could read Latin, Hebrew or Greek. It
then took Luther twelve years to complete the German Old Testament. The ancient
Hebrew of the Book of Job was so difficult that Luther could only translate
three lines every four days. Luther’s
Bible had over 100,000 copies purchased by 1525. His bible, like the King James
Version for the English, standardized the German language and literature,
producing a stronger sense of common identity among those speaking German. Through
reading Luther’s bible, German literacy rates skyrocketed. Because literacy is essential
to reading the bible, Luther convinced the German nobles to provide schools for
all children. Sermons were often not a regular part of medieval worship. Luther’s
preaching was based on the Bible and always pointed to Christ Crucified. Because
many medieval clergy didn’t know the ten commandments, apostles’ creed, or the
Lord’s prayer, Luther taught about these in his German-language Greater
Catechism.
How many of our congregations have sung
Luther’s A Mighty Fortress, written during the black plague?
Because he believed in the ‘priesthood of all believers’, Luther as a prolific
song-writer restored congregational singing: “Second only to the Bible, the Word of God, is
the importance of music, because music had the singular ability to elevate the
soul.” Luther said that he had no use for cranks who despise God’s gift of
music: “Music drives away the devil.” He knew that music deeply touches the
feelings of the human heart: “My heart bubbles up and overflows in response to
music, which has so often refreshed me and delivered me from dire plagues.” In classic Luther overstatement, he said: “He
who does not find (music) an inexpressible miracle of the Lord is truly a clod
and is not worthy to be called a man.”
Has God ever amazed you when he uses deeply
flawed people like David and Luther?
Both stood against the Goliaths of their day; both fell into tragic
behaviours. God used Luther to launch a 16th century
Jesus revolution that is still shaping our world today. Luther described himself as a rough woodsman whose job it was to ‘dig out
stumps and trunks, hack away thorns and briar, fill in puddles and clear a
path.’ His weaknesses were hidden in his
strengths. Many deeply admire Luther for his courageous willingness to be an
underdog standing for his convictions against impossible odds. This perseverance sometimes translated into
intractable stubbornness where he would not allow other reformed Christians to
work with him, if they had a different view of Holy Communion. For those of us who deeply admire Luther, the
most troubling area was his later antisemitic comments in 1543. The younger
Luther in 1523 said:
If I had
been a Jew and had seen such dolts and blockheads govern and teach the
Christian faith, I would sooner have become a hog than a Christian. They have
dealt with the Jews as if they were dogs rather than human beings; they have
done little else than deride them and seize their property.
Did the endless
controversy that Luther lived with cause him to embrace the root of bitterness
towards God’s Chosen People? (Hebrews 12:15) As a young student, Luther was
known as the King of the Hops. He later boasted that he could outdrink other
reformers. Luther spoke publicly about alcoholism: “Our Lord God must count the
drunkenness of us Germans as an every day sin, for we probably cannot stop and
yet it’s such a disgraceful nuisance that injures body, soul, and goods.”
Luther even recommended alcohol as a way to fight off depression: “When you are
assailed by gloom, despair, or a troubled conscience, you should eat, drink,
and talk with others (…) Copious drinking benefits me when I am in this
condition.” Might Luther’s drinking problem have influenced his later
antisemitic comments? Fortunately, the Lutheran Church has renounced this
serious mistake.
Luther has had a
lasting impact, particularly on the western world and rise of democracy’s
emphasis on liberty, equality, and individual rights. More books have been
written about him than any other man of history except Jesus Christ and
possibly Augustine. More than 70 million Christians in 79 countries call
themselves Lutherans, a term that Luther didn’t like. The number of Lutherans
is now increasing faster in Africa than anywhere else in the world. All of the 900 million Christians who
identify as Protestants owe a great debt to Martin Luther. John Calvin saw Luther as a great man with
excellent gifts. He added: “Would that
Luther had studied to curb his restless uneasy temper that is so ready to boil
over everywhere??”
May Luther’s
courageous stand inspire us to also courageously stand for the Lordship of
Jesus and the authority of Scripture in 2024.
Rev. Dr. Ed &
Janice Hird www.edhird.com
