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Review of Eric Metaxas' Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World
Metaxas, Eric. Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World. New York: Penguin Books, 2017.
“Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders!” This famous proclamation, attributed to Luther at the Diet of Worms, is often translated, “Here I stand, I can do no other!” But that’s kind of an awkward wording in English, don’t you think? Actually, I’ve often thought that it’s better translated as, “Here I Stand. I can’t do anything else!” I hope my high school German teacher would agree.
Because Luther found himself at a crossroads, didn’t he? On one side was the long-standing institutions of church and state, and the equally long-accepted corruption that came along with them. But on the other side was God’s Word. Which path should he follow? He had to make a decision, and his choice was to follow holy scripture. He simply couldn’t do anything else!
And if you think about it, this new translation changes the entire narrative of Worms. Gone is the defiant Luther, boldly challenging the princes of his day; replaced by an exasperated Luther, a reluctant hero stuck between a rock and a hard place – a simple Christian who humbly chose the word of God because he had no alternative.1
But what other possible misconceptions, or even myths have crept into the Luther saga? Well in this book, famed author and radio host, Eric Metaxas, uncovers quite a few and he spends much of the work debunking such misconceptions as: Luther’s impoverished upbringing, his abusive father who led young Luther to see God as vengeful, the lightning experience that drove him to become a monk, his trip to decadent Rome that led him to recognize the need for reform, his nailing of the 95 Theses on the Castle Church door, his time at the Wartburg castle where he threw an inkwell at the devil, and Katie Luther’s escape from the nunnery in a pickle barrel. All of these stories, in one way or another, are false according to Metaxas, and he is quite convincing in his reasoning.
Now sadly, one of the things you receive while earning a PhD is a large dose of intellectual snobbery. As such, I had decided years ago that I was not going to read this book. After all, Metaxas has no earned PhD – only three honorary degrees! Seriously? But since I was constantly questioned about the book by laypeople within my church and without, what could I do? I decided to take the plunge―and boy am I glad I did! Because Metaxas has produced a meticulously researched work with an eye for storytelling, and these tales bring the Reformation era to life. He also includes some beautiful artwork of the Reformation players themselves, as well as an example of the intricate woodcuts that were included in Luther’s’ works.
But since this issue is on the office of the ministry, we might ask what ministerial teaching can be learned from the Luther story? And perhaps the best lesson can be gleaned from Luther’s involuntary absence from Wittenberg – indeed it is a lesson for our time.
As you may already know, Luther, shortly after his “Hier Stehe Ich” moment, is branded an outlaw, meaning he could be arrested by anyone in the empire and sent to his death. So to save him, Luther’s prince devises a plan. He has his men kidnap Luther and whisk him off to safety in the secluded Wartburg Castle in Thuringia. And while he is hiding out, he leaves his pastoral duties to two of his most trusted assistants, Andreas Carlstadt and Gabriel Zwilling. But rather than carrying out Luther’s tempered reforms, they quickly instituted a series of radical changes that threw the little Saxon town into chaos. “Brother Andreas,” as Carlstadt now referred to himself, introduced a new service on Christmas day 1521 with so many changes that people wondered if they were even celebrating a valid mass. At the service, Carlstadt wore secular clothes instead of vestments, he shouted the words of institution instead of whispering them, and he let the laity partake of both the consecrated bread and the wine, instead of just the bread. Zwilling even took the reforms to the streets, participating in mob actions to destroy images in local churches. Both Carlstadt and Zwilling also welcomed three so-called “prophets,” who had recently been ejected from the city of Zwickau after being radicalized by a young Thomas Müntzer (a pastor who would later foment violence in the peasant revolts of 1524/25). These lay “prophets” claimed they received direct revelation from God himself, further agitating the religious climate of the city.
By March of 1522, Luther realized that he had to risk his life and return to Wittenberg to save the city from possible rioting. But through diligent preaching and personal instruction, he was able to bring the situation under control. Indeed, Luther had a rare ability to quickly detect theological quackery. He rebuked Carlstadt and the “prophets,” who soon left town, and he managed to convince Zwilling of his errors, retaining him as a trusted colleague and friend.
The entire episode is a lesson in pastoring as relevant today as it was five hundred years ago. Indeed, Metaxas notes that “there is nothing quite like religious madness.”2 So how does a pastor make liturgical changes in a congregation? Luther’s answer? Slowly and carefully, obeying the law, keeping the peace, and respecting the “weak” (Romans 15). The pastor also needs to be on the watch for those he allows to become leaders in the church. The sad fact is that almost no one these days wants to be a pastor. But in the rare cases of those who do, the majority in this category are ill-suited to the task, either intellectually, emotionally, or in their ability to be servant leaders.
Metaxas also has a brilliant chapter on Luther’s Tower experience, the moment he understood that the righteousness of God was not our own righteousness that had to attain God’s level of perfection, but rather the righteousness that God imputes to us through Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross. This revelation comes to Luther in the “cloaca,” the outhouse inside the tower of the monastery.
Metaxas writes, “So it fit well with Luther’s thinking that if God were to bestow upon him―the unworthy sinner Luther— such a divine blessing, it must needs be done as he sat grunting in the “cloaca”…This was the ultimate antithesis to the gold and bejeweled splendor of papal Rome. There all was gilt, but here in Wittenberg it was all Scheisse.”3
If one’s parish members have the chops to traverse its 480 pages, this book might make an excellent adult study, especially if the small group leader can tie together some of the Reformation events with similar corruptions that commonly occur in our churches today.
Rev. Dr. Dennis Di Mauro is Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church (NALC) in Warrenton, VA and he teaches at St. Paul Lutheran Seminary and the North American Lutheran Seminary at Trinity School for Ministry. He also serves as editor of SIMUL.
1Thanks must be given to my friend, the Rev. Dr. Phil Anderas, who helped me draw out the implications of this new translation.
2Eric Metaxas, Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World (New York: Penguin Books, 2017), 319.
