Martin and Me (Part I)

 

“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." Psalm 133:1

Have you ever seen the Werner Herzog documentary ‘Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski’, (My Dearest Foe - Klaus Kinski) about Herzog’s dysfunctional relationship with the now thoroughly discredited and disgraced Kinski? The film was released back in 1999 many years before the allegations concerning the late actor’s abusive behaviour was disclosed by his family. Throughout ‘Mein liebsterFeind’ we see Kinski’s explosive and often violent on-set outburst directed at the filmmaker Herzog during the production of now classic movies such as Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, the Wrath of God, yet at the same time, we also observe Werner Herzog’s admiration and even sympathy for a fine actor who was clearly a deeply disturbed individual, perhaps caused in some part by his experiences during the war. It’s as if Herzog needed something from Kinski and is somehow able to see a great artist through the fog of madness and malice. Even so, all this was of course previous to the more sinister and serious allegations against Kinski which eventually came to light.

Nonetheless, I sometimes view my own relationship with the reformer Martin Luther in somewhat similar terms to the relationship between Kinski and Herzog. Indeed, for many decades I regarded Martin Luther as the author of all our misfortunes and miseries as a Catholics; As far as I was concerned, the architect of the Reformation might as well have been twirling the baton at the head of Orange Order parades through Glasgow each summer on the twelfth.

Worse, as a Christian of German ancestry, I could draw a direct line from the anti-Semitism contained within Luther’s horrific 1534 tract ‘The Jews and their lies’, to the Nazis ‘final solution’ during the 20th century. Worse still, as a good working class, social democrat I was appalled by yet another of Luther’s tracts ‘Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants’ in which Martin Luther basically hangs the German peasants out to dry and encourages the Princes of Germany to deal harshly with them and their demands for justice.

Basically, when I think upon anything negative, there stands the bold Martin - the iconoclast wrecker of Benedictine monasteries and destroyer of all the charity which the monks once dispensed to the poor, a cheerleader for all the statue smashing mobs who sacked our finest Cathedrals, the dog-whistler in chief, calling down every anti-Catholic fanatic who has ever burned a Catholic family out their home down through the centuries, from the Gordon Riots to the Belfast Pogroms. Not for nothing did the Church eventually begin to identify Luther as a demonic anti-Christ, an insult which was equally returned in spades by Luther as his relationship with the Church in Rome continued to deteriorate.

Yet despite all this, it was Luther who rightly cleansed our Church of its most obvious and indefensible abuses concerning the selling of indulgences, it was Luther who put the Bible into our hands, it was Luther who allowed us to hear the liturgy in our own language again, it was Luther who allowed us to receive communion under both auspices, in both the bread and the wine, it was Luther who reminded us that our salvation was to be found in God’s saving grace and not our own works, restored privileges which all of us post-Vatican II lay people enjoy today.

Perhaps life would be so much easier if Dr Luther’s personal failings and guilt was beyond any doubt, then we could all agree he was a devil, that the Reformation was a massive error and close the case against the Reformer for all eternity but unfortunately, like many of the relationships in our own lives, the case against Luther is not quite as black and white.

In reality, Luther was a man of his time and his negative attitude towards the Jewish community and the peasants was unfortunately no different from that of his Catholic opponents or anyone else in Europe at that time. It’s also worth noting Fredrich Nietzsche (Another thinker who stands accused of being the inspiration for Hitler) despised Luther for reviving what he seen as Christian morality and true Christianity.

Equally, if Lutheranism and its theology concerning the divinely ordained authority of the secular State, is culpable of sowing the seeds of unquestioning loyalty to Hitler, then it’s only fair to acknowledge the fact that Bonhoeffer, the Confessing Church and all the good German Christians found within the Resistance, also flowed out from the Lutheran tradition. The same tradition which gave us the sublime beauty Bach and Buxtehude and later offered the world the famous ‘Friday Prayers’ for peace at St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig during the Cold War ,helping to build the human rights movement and demonstrations against the repressive Communist East German Government, just as Pope John Paul had done in Poland during the same period.

Lutheranism is also the very same tradition which produced Joseph Ellwanger and Robert Graetz who were among the few white pastors who acted as important figures in the US Civil Rights movement, marching shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with another Martin Luther in the 1960s - Dr Martin Luther King.

The truth is, that there is nothing contained within the Augsburg confession which demands unquestioning loyalty to the Government, it actually states that secular laws are to be followed unless they are commandments to sin. Neither did Martin Luther ever called for Churches to be sacked and destroyed by the iconoclasts whom he strongly condemned, nor did he begin by looking to break with Rome, rather Luther initially sought to reform the Church from within, writing ‘We on our part confess that much is Christian and good under the papacy; indeed, everything that is Christian and good is to be found there and has come from that source’.

 Most of all, Luther is not considered a saint by Lutherans and his teachings are not considered to be infallible or beyond criticism by Lutherans themselves, he is by his own volition the greatest sinner of all. The early Reformers did not even want to be known as Lutherans, regarding themselves as ‘Evangelicals’ and referred to themselves as such until eventually accepting the label of Lutherans which had been placed upon them by others. It’s also worth noting that Lutheranism is a branch of Christianity whose origins lie, not in the teachings of Martin Luther alone, but also in the writings and works of Melanchton, Chemnitz, Bugenhagen, Rhegius, Agricola and other Reformers. In reality, the modern Lutheran tradition is as diverse and often as divided as our own.

For example, alongside my love for the North German organ school, I am also an admirer of the Swedish Lutheran Gustaf Aulen and Gehrard Forde who were both advocates for what is known as the ‘Christus Victor’ theory of atonement which places a strong emphasis upon Jesus resurrection as victory over sin and death, rather than suffering on the cross to pay some kind of debt for our sins.

Similarly, just as I am drawn to Brick Gothic Cathedrals, so too am I also drawn to the Finnish School of Tuomo Mannermaa and its interpretation of salvation which is much closer to the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis. Yet neither of these are considered to be the only interpretations of salvation and atonement within the Lutheran tradition. 

Yes, Luther was a hot head whose diatribes could be cruel, extremely polemical and harsh in their words, and he was regarded as such even at the time. Luther begins his mission by trying to appeal to the Pope and ends his career describing the Pope as an anti-Christ but there is another gentler side to Luther which strongly appeals to me; Luther did not believe that the sin of despair leading to the sin of suicide was a mortal sin, nor did he believe that those who took their own lives out of despair or depression, were damned for all eternity.

Rather, Dr Luther accepted that people could have momentary losses of hope and faith, Luther felt that we could at times be overcome by the powers of darkness in our lives but still find our way back home to God’s loving embrace because of what Jesus had done for us on the cross. Luther himself endured periods of deep depression and despair and its thought by some that he may have suffered from bipolar disorder.

In this sense, Luther took a more pastoral and merciful position than the prevailing beliefs of the time and I’ve always taken great comfort from the idea that we cannot put ourselves beyond a God whose love for us is infinite and boundless, regardless of who we are whatever we’ve done.

I also find myself taking ‘comfort’ from some of Luther’s quirks and idiosyncrasies contained within his small catechism wherein he compels us to pray at bedtime and then go to sleep in good cheer, rising early in the morning, going joyfully off to our work while signing a hymn.

Again, we find a pastoral care and an awareness of life in the real world, yet at the same time we are being given the liturgy of hours to pray in our homes amid the struggles of daily life.

Indeed, it’s not so much that Luther, the former Augustinian monk, abandoned his vows and left the monastery behind, rather he brought monasticism out to us lay people. This is why Lutheran monasticism played such a central role in the growth and development of Catholic-Lutheran ecumenism during the 20th century with the emergence of Lutheran religious communities such as the Catholic-Lutheran St Jakobus Brotherhood, the Brotherhood of St Michael and the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary. Today there are numerous Lutheran Franciscan and Benedictine communities using the Brotherhood Prayer Book.

Of course, many great experts in Church history, scholars and notable theologians (and even barely educated ordinary and humble lay people such as I) have been debating Luther’s legacy and the rights and wrongs of the Reformation for centuries and will continue to do so for decades to come. As Emeritus Pope Benedict stated inside the Lutheran Christuskirche in Rome 2010: “There is only one Christ, whom we behold together.”