Luther Who?

Steve speaking at our synod assembly

A few years back, I invited the young people from the synagogue up the street to join us for three classes (and we were invited there for the same). It was a wonderful interfaith experience. For our first class, I came up with a quiz, with questions about Lutheranism/Protestantism and Judaism, just to see what the kids already knew about each other’s faith tradition. I remember my first question: The Lutheran Church is named after a) Martin Luther King Jr. b) Martin Luther or c) Luther Vandross. Two youths thought it was MLK; one picked c)—and, I blush to disclose, it was one of the Christ’s Lutheran kids! Oops!

Most people know little about the life of Martin Luther, the Catholic monk who questioned the church and began the Reformation. But this year (October 31^st, to be precise) we celebrated the 500^th anniversary of his bold action (nailing 95 theses, or points of discussion, on the door of the Castle church in Wittenberg). As this was obviously a once-in-a-lifetime event, we have spent a lot of time in class this year on the history of our church. The kids (and adults) learned so much in the process—including the reason for the rapid spread of Luther’s ideas (the recent invention of the printing press). For the first time, books were mass produced. Luther translated the Latin Bible into the common language of the people, because he felt so strongly that everyone should be able to read Scripture.

But the Luther expert in our house is my Steve, hands down. In 2014, Steve traveled with our bishop and a group of other church leaders to Germany for a tour of the different places important in Luther’s life. Steve came home inspired to write a program, to share what he had discovered. The result “Luther 500: A Layman’s Guide to the Protestant Reformation,” was a hit, traveling during the past year to many area churches.

The portrait of Luther that emerged from Steve’s presentation was that of a deeply faithful, yet complicated man. Luther journeyed from the depths of despair, to a life-changing acceptance of grace and the promise of salvation as a free gift from God. Steve told the story well, peppered with typical Stevo humor. He didn’t shy away from the topic of Luther’s anti-Semitism, which unfortunately became pronounced later in life. But Steve also described Luther as a devoted husband and father, and emphasized his unwavering efforts to spread the message of Heaven as attainable, not through any good works of ours, but through our faith in a loving God.

Steve ended his program with the question: “What will the next 500 years bring?” We none of us know, of course, but it’s worth thinking about. Modern technology has given us access to all information, but knowledge without reflection and understanding does the world little good. We are not necessarily doomed to repeat history. We can learn it, and learn from it. I hope and pray that we do.