Book Briefs: April 17, 1987

The Quest for the Historical Luther

Martin Luther: The Man and His Work, by Walther von Loewenich, translated by Lawrence W. Denef (Augsburg, 446 pp.; $19.95, cloth); and Martin Luther: An Introduction to His Life and Work, by Bernhard Lohse, translated by Robert C. Schultz (Fortress, xi + 288 pp.; $26.95 cloth, $16.95 paper). Reviewed by Heiko A. Oberman, professor of history, University of Arizona, and author of Masters of the Reformation: Rival Roads to a New Ideology and The Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Age of Renaissance and Reformation.

Almost simultaneously, two German books have been published in English translation that afford a fine window through which to assess the present state of German Luther scholarship. What the two authors, Erlangen’s emeritus professor von Loewenich, and the Hamburg church historian Lohse, have in common is that they have invested the better part of their academic lives in Luther research. They differ in that von Loewenich (born in 1903, a quarter of a century Lohse’s senior) set out to write another Luther biography (first published in 1982 on the eve of the Luther year), whereas Lohse wanted to provide a tool for Luther scholarship (first published in 1980, well in time for the many interpretations of the Wittenberg Reformer in the quincentenary 1983).

Luther: How To Begin

Lohse has addressed his book to the beginning student of Luther’s works who needs orientation in the bewilderingly complex world of Luther research. Dividing his material into 249 sections over only 243 short pages, Lohse lists first the political and intellectual characteristics of life on the eve of the Reformation in Germany, turns then to the usual stages in Luther’s life, deals more extensively with theological issues and the chief writings of Luther, and finally sketches the history of Luther interpretation. A ten-page appendix about the several editions, journals, and scholarly conferences completes the volume.

A useful manual for beginning seminary students, this book is less suitable for college courses exactly because Lohse has been so successful in writing descriptively and dispassionately. He is more concerned with recording the present state of Luther research than developing his “own” Luther. Each single section is, of course, too short to do more than whet the appetite. But like the well-trained speed skater, Lohse touches the ice just long enough to start his next stroke, selflessly intent on drawing less attention to his own perfect technique than to the vastness of the terrain to be covered.

Admittedly, there are some structural deficiencies, such as the lack of grasp—or appreciation?—of late medieval theology (Ockham, Gregory of Rimini, d’Ailly, Gerson, and Biel), which may explain why Lohse feels that the fervent disciple of Joseph Lortz, Erwin Iserloh, “carefully documented the decline of theology in the late middle ages.…” In the treatment of Luther’s life, the findings of recent research about the reformed wing of the Augustinian order, which Luther joined in 1505, are not reflected. Furthermore, in the theological section, Luther’s powerful eschatology and awareness of living “in these last days”—so thoroughly missing in contemporary theology—is relegated to half a page under the heading “Luther’s View of History.”

Yet, Lohse’s introduction is more comprehensive and discerning than anything else available. Hence, I recommend the beginning Luther student start with Martin Brecht, Luther’s Road to Reformation, 1483–1525 (Fortress, 1985), and proceed to Heinrich Bornkamm’s Luther in Mid-Career, 1521–1530 (Fortress, 1983). Thus prepared, he or she will be able to make optimal use of Lohse’s reliable guide, which does not want to win the reader for one particular point of view, but rather to lead toward independence of judgment and, above all, pave the way for a direct encounter with the great Wittenberg Reformer himself.

Luther In His Time And Place

More measured must be the praise for von Loewenich’s latest monograph. Advisedly, I did not include it in my readers’ advisory. In its description of Luther’s life, the book is more traditional and less substantial than those of Brecht and Bornkamm. Whereas the translation does not allow for a fair comparison in style with Roland Bainton’s moving and elegant Here I Stand (Abingdon, 1950), von Loewenich’s book has the advantage that it can claim to deal with the whole life of Martin Luther. But it reflects the general weakness in Luther biographies by summarily dealing with the years after 1530; the larger part of Luther’s writing career is presented in just 56 pages.

Among the surprising number of inaccuracies in the footnotes, only one falls under the responsibility of the translator (p. 425, note 72), together with a misleading rendition of the concluding sentence of the last chapter; here the author’s intention is exactly inverted by changing Luther’s “concern about” into “concern for” the hardships awaiting a Germany unwilling to listen to the gospel (p. 386).

Luther’S God

More problematic and independent of the translation is the author’s evaluation of Luther thought. Two examples must suffice. In the chapter dealing with “The struggle to find a gracious God,” Luther is presented as having fallen for the idea that God “can be angry or forgiving.” At this point von Loewenich balks: “The anthropomorphic elements in his portrayal of God, as well as in the God of the Scriptures, are all too prominent. We can only consider them as pointers to a reality that lies ‘behind’ them. It has become clear to us that all of our statements about God will always be inadequate and approximate. That which we now understand as metaphorical or figurative language, Luther took literally” (p. 75f.). At this point, one must wonder how the Incarnation, as the center of the Christian creed, will survive a thoroughgoing campaign against the presentation of God in human form.

From the historian’s perspective, much more serious is the question of how one can do justice to Luther when a “modern,” purified concept of God, rather than the “impure” while human God of the Scriptures, is made the standard of evaluation. Perhaps the problem can be reduced to the fact that von Loewenich has not seen that Luther’s search for the gracious God has not only a personal but also an institutional dimension: In the admission ceremony to his Augustinian order, the prior has to ask whether the candidate “seeks the merciful God.” A true quest for the historical Luther should pursue the question of whether Luther interpreted the Scriptures correctly in the context of his time and place.

Von Loewenich’s approach leads, of course, to grave problems for his appreciation of the treatise that Luther regarded to be one of his most lasting achievements, namely “On the bondage of the will” (1525). While Lohse cautions his readers that the Lutheran Confessions did not adopt “the more extreme assertions” made by Luther in this work (p. 134), von Loewenich makes his disapproval explicit. He presents Luther’s distinction between the revealed God and the hidden God as if it were the distinction between “the word of God and God himself” (p. 272)—which would have horrified Luther.

Luther insisted on the fact that God revealed himself in his Word; insofar as God is hidden, he is not our concern, since as such he is unknown and unknowable. The hidden God has not “emptied himself” (Phil. 2:7) and is not committed to the Covenant of Grace: he is the unexplainable and unaccountable, blind cosmic force “behind” history and nature. This confusion may explain the author’s philosophical assessment of a theological vision: “Luther was obviously a consequent determinist.” Luther’s discovery that man is either ridden by God or by the Devil is regarded by von Loewenich as an “eruption” that “reduced systematic theology to a pile of rubble” (p. 276). It suffices to add: as intended!

Such criticisms do not come easily to von Loewenich, who obviously loves his Luther but regrets the Reformer did not express himself in more modern categories. There is good reason to wonder, however, whether Luther would not have assailed this kind of “relevant” theology with as much fervor and conviction as he did the scholastic theology of his time. After all, the God that von Loewenich wants to find behind the human forms, Luther unmasked as the hidden God of the philosophers.

“Spiritual evolution”: Modernists, who were “only trying to slave the Bible,” blended Darwin with the emerging kingdom of God.

The Zeitgeist Of Banality?

Modern American Religion, Volume 1: The Irony of It All, 1893–1919, by Martin E. Marty (Univ. of Chicago Press, xi + 386 pp.; $24.95). Reviewed by Mark A. Noll, professor of history, Wheaton College, and coeditor of Voices from the Heart: Four Centuries of American Piety.

The Irony of It All is the first in a projected four-volume series in which Martin Marty, a widely traveled and prolifically published professor at the University of Chicago, sets out to tell the story of American religion throughout the entire twentieth century.

For once at least, the title tells the tale. This history is about religion, not primarily ecclesiastical or theological history. It is greatly concerned with what being in America meant for the subjects of the study. Especially for the period of this volume, stretching from the Parliament of Religions at Chicago’s World’s Fair in 1893 to the collapse of the Interchurch World Movement after World War I, Marty focuses on responses to modernity.

The subtitle sets forth Marty’s thesis. However America’s religious communities aligned themselves with regard to “the modern,” the results were ironic, or different from what they had intended.

By modern Marty means more than simply recent. Rather, the word speaks of the ideas that America’s elite scholars promoted during the period: a belief in progress, a patronizing attitude toward traditional Christianity, and above all, a supreme confidence in the enlightening power of science (both natural and social) to construct a better life.

Cast Of Characters

Having established this standard, Marty divides his actors into five groups. The “modernists” were theological liberals of the old English-speaking denominations who wanted to infuse traditional Christian language with new content from evolutionary cosmologists, idealist philosophers, and the phenomenologists of religious experience. Second, Marty’s “moderns” are six historians, four philosophers, and five social theorists (of whom William James and John Dewey are most important) who exemplified the search for scientific, personally satisfying, but post-Christian values.

A third collection reacted to “the modern” by focusing more directly on their ethnic identities (native Americans, blacks, Jews, non-English Catholics) or by seeking security in denominational structures (Southern Baptists, Lutherans, English-speaking Catholics).

Fourth, “countermodernists” were the theologically conservative Jews, Catholics, dispensationalists, biblical inerrantists, and Pentecostals who resisted the modern age. And a final group, including proponents of therapeutic religion, ecumenicism, the social gospel, and the transcendent character of America, fall into the “transmodern” camp.

Marty dwells at length on the ironies experienced by each of his five groups. Thus, “modernists” tried to make Christianity relevant by adjusting to the new age, but ended mostly with the irrelevancy of themselves. “Countermoderns” claimed to be upholding a traditional Christian faith, but often ended up promoting dramatically new positions. Of these, Marty highlights the new theology of dispensationalism and the new practices of Pentecostalism. Again, “modern” Catholics insisted that their “one true Church” could contribute to American democracy, but in the process came to act more and more like simply an additional denomination among the many.

Intriguing Scheme

In the end, it is not quite certain if Marty pulls it off. To be sure, the book is a virtual abecedary of useful, and sometimes surprising, information on Adventists, Baptists, Catholics, Disciples, Elijah the Destroyer, Federal Council of Churches, Ghost Dance, Higher Criticism, International Missionary Conference, and so on. It is also loaded with telling paraphrases and quotations from the men and women of the period. The best come from the disgruntled Harvard philosopher George Santayana who felt, for instance, that modernist Protestants “were in love with the Zeitgeist of banality.” Marty’s interpretive scheme is unquestionably intriguing, especially as an effort to integrate a very heterogeneous collection of materials.

At the same time, there are problems. Since the story is told thematically, the narrative is jumbled. For example, we see how greatly World War I influenced religious communities, hastening ethnic groups and Catholics into the mainstream, puncturing progressive aspirations, exciting visions of the End. Yet nowhere are the war and its effects treated systematically. In addition, “modernity” and “irony” are elusive concepts. The effort it takes to explain and apply them sometimes detracts from the flow of the book and does not always ring true.

In sum, this is an important chronicle of an important era, and an ambitious effort at systematic interpretation. Not the least of the book’s virtues, however, is the stimulus it provides for others to consider whether “modern” and “irony” are actually the best controlling categories for the period.

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