There are many, many books about Martin Luther, written on almost every aspect of his life and thought. And with the five-hundredth anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017, there are (and will be) many more books written in a similar vein, so the question anyone might reasonably have is, “why yet another book on Luther?” Yet given all the new books on Luther, there is still room for good and helpful books on him; this is such a good and helpful book.

The topic of this book is Martin Luther's political thought, a subject that has received a considerable amount of attention. Since the rise of the German Empire in the late nineteenth century, a number of German writers saw in Luther a hero of their movement for German nationalism and unification. In the early twentieth century, with the rise of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists in the 1930s and the horrors of World War II that followed, Luther's political thought has been scrutinized by many others for any sign that Luther was responsible in any way for these tragic events. Popular authors blamed Luther for the rise of Hitler and for the failure of the German Protestants to resist him; one even dubbed him “Hitler's spiritual ancestor” Peter F. Weiner, Martin Luther, Hitler's Spiritual Ancestor (Hutchinson, 1945) Later scholars have blamed Luther's doctrine of the “two kingdoms” for Protestant failures in engaging with political movements, especially with resisting repressive and dictatorial governments. Others have stepped in to defend Luther from these charges, and the debate has raged on.

Jarret Carty (Concordia University, Montreal) has attempted to step back from many of these more charged discussions of Luther's political thought in order to re-examine his writings on politics and government in their original context. Carty is very clear and helpful in a number of ways. First, he re-emphasizes that Luther himself was not a political theorist, and such a thing was not his goal. This seems like an obvious point, but it very often gets lost in the acrimonious battles that surround the subject. Luther was a theologian and reformer, and although he had clear and definite ideas about the civil realm (from the standpoint of his theology), he did not make them a central point of his reforming work. Second, Carty deals seriously with the context of Luther's writings and statements on political matters, especially grounding his major political treatises in their time and place. By use of contemporary letters, sermons, and other writings, he shows a much more nuanced reading of these political writings, countering the tendency of some to focus only on a few texts taken out of their historical and theological situations. And third, Carty helpfully refocuses the modern discussions of Luther's political thought on the much-maligned idea of the “two kingdoms,” showing that this is central to his whole theological project. The idea of the “two kingdoms,” so often caricatured, is given new life and new understanding as a serious and nuanced ideology.

In his reevaluation of Luther's political ideas, Carty keeps as central that Luther was not a political theorist, and did not intend to be one. Nevertheless, through Luther's theological understanding of God's creative work, Luther understood that in creation and human society, God had indeed established laws and norms that God intended for the safety and welfare of all human beings. These laws, the political and social norms, were intended for all human societies, whether Christian or not. Christian persons were called by God to vocations in the realm of the political and social world and carried out their vocations on the basis of this universal law. Christians also lived, as well, under the religious and moral law of God revealed in the Bible and Christian tradition, but it was not appropriate for Christians to work in the world on the basis of this second set of laws, the second realm or kingdom. This doctrine of the two kingdoms was the cornerstone of Luther's thought.

The Protestant Reformation of the 1520s and 1530s was, however, a tumultuous and complicated period. Civic and religious life could not always be so easily separated, especially as the nascent Evangelical movement was dependent on sympathetic political rulers to keep itself alive and safe from imperial and papal attacks. Carty shows how the political realities of this period both shaped Luther's ideas and caused him to have to modify them at times. Luther's initial reaction to the Peasant's Revolt of 1525 was mild sympathy with their grievances, but his reaction turned harsh, as he feared civil disorder and radicalism. Carty carefully places Luther's response to the situation in its context and shows that Luther's last and harshest response was complicated by a lag in information—the revolt was already put down by the time Luther wrote it. Later Luther's nuanced political theory clashed with the needs of the political rulers who supported his cause, especially over the question of rightful rebellion against their political overlords. Luther had to modify some of his earlier views on the matter, and his contemporaries would modify his ideas even further.

Carty provides a fair and balanced reappraisal of Luther's political writings and is sympathetic to him without overlooking Luther's shortcomings and mistakes in his political writings. This attempt at nuance, balance, context, and fairness, along with the conciseness of the work and its readable prose, are the reasons that this book should be read and considered. Carty has done a good job with a complex subject, and this book deserves an important place in Luther studies.