Out of the Storm: The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther
By Derek Wilson
Hutchinson, 399 pages
It’s no mean feat tackling a biography of one of the most important figures in all of history.
Wilson was attempting to navigate on ground that was already well trod by biographers and historians and pamphleteers for the past four centuries.
How do you present the same information in a fresh and relevant way? Wilson’s approach was unique in that his point of view was that of the post-modern, secular reader.
As he so aptly elucidated, most previous biographies approached the story of the German monk with some sort of bias, usually broken down along sectarian lines.
Wilson throws all this out, and approaches Luther from the perspective of someone who is neither rabidly Protestant nor Catholic. It is actually written for someone with no particular religious bent, meaning the book us unencumbered by too much dogma.
While it is evident that there is great research and scholarship involved on Wilson’s part, the book is most accessible. In fact the narrative is far from dry, and is indeed quite dramatic. Which makes sense because Luther’s life was one big drama.
The book looks at the intellectual, spiritual and familial forces that shaped Luther’s ideas and behaviours. We get a sense that, while he may not have been marked for greatness at birth, he certainly was a unique young man for his age.
We also look at the significant relationships in his life, from his wealthy aristocratic, and indulgent patron, to his father, to his enemies and opponents to his wife, and the impact that they had on the decisions he made in his life and the ideas he put forth.
Luther’s story is awe inspiring in that he was basically one man taking on the most powerful institution in the world, the Catholic Church.
Wilson does a good job of showing just how revolutionary Luther’s ideas and methods were, and how remarkable it was that he actually made headway, leading a schism from the monolithic structure of the church that has a legacy today in the interdenominational nature of the Christian Church.
But it is interesting to note that it was never Luther’s intention to create a splinter church. He loved the church and wanted to see it reformed, not dismantled.
But one of the truly interesting things about Luther’s story is that he is very quickly shunted aside by more radical elements within the Reformation movement. There were those who agreed with Luther’s ideas on the nature of the Trinity, and that the church was not the only way one got Salvation, and other doctrinal issues, but who did want a complete uprooting of the status quo, and who advocated for a sharp, even violent break with the mainline church.
Luther abhorred violence and social disorder. Far from being a radical, he was actually quite conservative and a traditionalist. He wanted the Catholic Church to go back to its first-century ideals, not drag it kicking and screaming into some amorphous future.
When looking at the legacy of Luther, Wilson shows how his ideas shaped the entire Protestant ethos, but also how it did eventually bring a spirit of reform into the Catholic Church.
We also see how Luther became a touchstone for German nationalism, as many of his adherents saw him as a political leader, rallying the small German states looking for a freeing of the shackles from a Church based in Italy.
This is a wonderful book for those looking for a comprehensive, but not oppressively dense, examination of the life of one of the most polarizing and fascinating people in the annals of recorded history.
- Jim Barber is the Arts, Sports and Lifestyles Editor for the Barrie Advance. Contact him at jbarber@simcoe.com.
