One reason that I like holidays is the extra time for reading. The last book that I enjoyed last week was Martin Luther: A Spiritual Biography by Herman Selderhuis. I started another book on Monday night, but I still find myself thinking about Luther. All books can become conversation partners, but some lead to more reflection than others.
Selderhuis capably traced the spiritual and theological development in Luther's thought, for example on the questions of justification and the proper use of force. He argued for his perspective on the question of exactly when Luther stopped being a monk. He showed Luther as a man of his times, a unique individual but, like everyone, influenced by the historical currents around him. I was fascinated by the way that he described the transition from Luther being the leader of the Reformation to being one important voice within it.
The issue that I still find myself pondering involves Luther's personality. This book reminded me of an issue that has interested me for years. Luther was a great man, but he used rough language, guzzled beer in excess, told crude jokes around his table, and was notorious for his stubbornness. His stubbornness was positive, enabling him to continue to function in spite of many physical problems. It was also negative, resulting in many broken relationships and lost opportunities.
I have decided that Luther's negative qualities contributed to his most celebrated moment. When he stood before the assembled nobles at the Diet of Worms, everyone believed that he was going to be burned alive if he did not back down. Facing the emperor would have been beyond intimidating. Everyone in the room, Luther included, would have assumed that the assembled nobles were better than him. Their society was stratified, and no one would have imagined anything different at the time. The pressure was immense. The best kind of person to stand up to that kind of pressure is a person who does not care what other people think, the kind of person who speaks his mind and does not back down. Those qualities made him the perfect person to begin the Reformation, and those same qualities meant that he could not continue to be the leader for the rest of his life. In the providence of God, the perfect man was there at the perfect time. In his great stubbornness, he made his great contribution to the kingdom.
