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In history, when there was a ferment of drama, out of it came Shakespeare. When there was an emphasis on the epic, out of it came Homer. When there was a stirring of democratic idealism, Jefferson emerged. Luther is one of those figures who summarizes an age.

Having said that, I have a hard time picturing several aspects of the modern world without Luther. Take, for example, the prominence of the gospel of forgiveness. Though others championed this doctrine as well, Luther was fiery hot. That emphasis (though maybe not with the same heat) still characterizes half a billion people called Anglican, Lutheran, Baptist, Evangelical, and the like. That is the longest shadow Luther casts today.

Also, Luther stands symbolically as the greatest single agent in increasing the value of the individual. What eventually emerges (although it took two more centuries and couldn’t have happened without the Enlightenment) is a new kind of individual. That made democratic government possible.

“I have a hard time picturing several aspects of the modern world without Luther.” —Martin E. Marty

What forces, if any, did Luther not intend to set in motion?

Luther would never have said he contributed to modern nationalism. Particularly in his later writings you find endless heapings on the German people: he saw them as loutish, selfish, drunk, self-centered, stupid.

Still, Luther politically and culturally coalesced the German people; he helped to unite in language and culture the two hundred to three hundred little Germanic states. Luther thus contributed to the breaking up of the Holy Roman Empire and the rise of nationalism.

Nationalism, of course, is a mixed blessing. We’re better off with it than we were with the Holy Roman Empire or with tribalism. But modern nationalism is often the rival of the Christian faith; it summons almost idolatrous assent. And Luther inadvertently contributed to this force.

Second, Luther contributed to anti-Semitism in Germany. Because Jews frustrated him by not accepting the gospel, he turned on them, writing, “Burn their synagogues and drive them out!” Not much happened with that sentiment for a couple of centuries, but beginning in the 1800s, anti-Semitism increased more and more. It’s stupid to say Luther is Hitler’s spiritual ancestor. But it’s not stupid to say that in his rather blind striking out at Jews, Luther unintentionally provided the passion, vocabulary, and rationale for some horrible things that happened to Jews in our time.

Any positive, though unintended, legacies of Luther?

Luther contributed unintentionally to the rising status of women.

He was patriarchal, but I teach my students to judge people in the context of their time, and for his day, Luther was progressive. He assumed that girls, along with boys, should be taught the catechism, and in that he anticipated co-education. He insisted that marriage was just as important a vocation as monasticism, and in that he accorded greater status to a woman’s role in marriage. And he was married to and proud of a woman who was, in effect, the treasurer, manager, and administrator of a rather complex business—the informal boarding house that the Luthers kept.

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