Luthers English Disciples

The Book Of Martin Luther King, Jr. seeks to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by using the language of the very book that Dr. King himself cherish: The King James Bible. The first of seven planned volumes, it is about the world Martin was born into--a world of fear and violence. And though Writers Digest calls it "...a highly literate tribute to Dr. King...one that deserves a place on every bookshelf..." the author has been called "a traitor to his race..." for writing about Dr. King in this manner. Mr. Bevis answers by saying, "the truth is that we live in a society where it is fine for the majority to think of Charlton Heston--just an actor--as a Moses like leader, but where it is not OK to think of Dr. king--an ordained minister--as an apostle like Paul. There is a lot of hypocrisy here." He adds, "Dr. King truly was an apostle of God. And the ultimate proof is that he obeyed Jesus, never gave up or sold out, and eventually lay down his life for his fellow man. No man in American history is more deserving of being written about in this way."

We cannot afford to ignore Martin Luther--that influential and highly controversial personality in European history. Not only were his activities mainly responsible for starting the Reformation of the sixteenth century, but his ideas also have greatly influenced political, cultural, and social thought ever since. Some modern writers have tried to trace the roots of Nazism and German militarism back to Luther; others claim on the contrary that Luther's ideas form the only real cure for these evils, and that the authority which Luther still possesses among many Germans and other Europeans should be used for the regeneration of Europe. Lutheranism is very international. The Scandinavian countries are practically completely Lutheran, so were some of the Baltic states; Lutheran groups are found in most countries of Europe. In the United States the Lutherans--many of them English-speaking--form one of the strongest religious groups, and there are Lutherans in many parts of the British Empire. Luther's chief importance lies in the field of theology. His influence on political, cultural, and social questions is only an outcome of his religious thought. But even in this field of theology Luther's ideas are puzzling to many. Catholics of various types may consider him to be the arch-Protestant; strict Protestants (including many British nonconformists) consider him to be half-Roman in outlook. His conservatism in Church order and liturgical forms may endear him to some Anglicans, while he annoys others by his insistence that neither prayer books nor ecclesiastical formularies can create Church unity but that unity of doctrine is the indispensable condition for union. This attitude has more than once created problems for the ecumenical movement and made Protestant cooperation difficult. Dr. Kramm in this volume has tried to interpret Luther to the British reader, minister, and layman alike, in an unbiased, scholarly way. At the same time stressing Luther's importance for contemporary thought. He has laid special emphasis on those questions which the British reader is apt to ask, e.g., what was Luther's attitude to morals and good works? Does "salvation by faith alone" mean that it is enough to hold a certain intellectual belief, no Christian life being required? What does he teach about peace and war; about Church and State, about political responsibility? What are his ideas about Church and ministry, about sacraments, about episcopacy and "apostolic succession"? Does Luther treat the Bible arbitrarily? Was he an anti-Semite, did he spread blind nationalism or racial hatred? What was his attitude to human reason, scholarship and free will? And so on.

The writings in this first of four volumes of Luther's Works on Word and Sacrament are for the most part from a fifteen year span- from the year of the Leipzig Debate to the publication of Luther's German Bible. All twelve are translated either for the first time or in revised form by the editor.

Recent studies have increasingly downplayed, and in a few cases even wholly denied, the influence of Martin Luther's theology of Law and Gospel on early English evangelicals such as William Tyndale. The impact of a late medieval Augustinian renaissance, Erasmian Humanism, the Reformed tradition, and Lollardy have all but eclipsed the more central role once attributed to Luther. Whiting reexamines these claims with a thorough reevaluation of Luther's theology of Law and Gospel in its historical context spanning twenty-five years, something entirely lacking in all previous studies. Based on extensive research in the primary sources, with acute attention to the larger historical narrative and in dialogue with secondary scholarship, Whiting argues that scholars have often oversimplified Luther's theology of Law and Gospel and have thus wrongly diminished his very significant, even principal, influence upon first-generation evangelicals William Tyndale, John Frith, and Robert Barnes during the English Reformation of the 1520s and 30s.

Works of Martin Luther is a classic collection of the writings of the religious leader. No historical study of current issues--politics or social science or theology--can far proceed without bringing the student face to face with the principles asserted by the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century and its great leader, Martin Luther Martin Luther was the author of substantial body of written works at the service of the Reformation. All his life Luther published theological writings. His commitment also induced him to write political and polemical texts. According to Yves Congar, a Dominican, “Luther was one the greatest religious geniuses in History… who redesigned Christianity entirely.”