The late David Steinmetz, endorsing this book, wrote, “I did not expect to learn much from reading yet another Luther biography. But I was wrong.” Others will have the same experience. Hendrix provides an extraordinary biography, presented masterfully.
Hendrix is cognizant of Luther scholar Helmar Junghans's caution from 1983 that “writing a thoroughly accurate and fitting biography of Martin Luther is too much to ask of a single historian” (x). Yet through the years when asked to name a “good Luther biography” in English, Hendrix did not find one that covered the whole of Luther's life, was free of Luther lore, and was based on the latest research. An accessible, readable book of manageable size for students, did not exist, Hendrix felt, “I could not find a biography that satisfied me, and to attempt it myself seemed too daunting” (xi).
Indeed, the challenges are numerous and difficult, as Luther scholars know and others can imagine. In the end, gratefully, Hendrix took up this task and oriented his work around three touchstones. The first is that “Luther was neither a hero nor a villain, but a human being with both merits and faults” (xi). Luther's dictum, simul justus et peccator—“at the same time saint and sinner”—fits exactly Luther himself. Second, Luther was not a reformer in isolation but “lived and worked closely with relatives, friends, colleagues, and political advisors without whom the reformation would not have been possible” (xii). Third, Hendrix seeks to present events and characters in their sixteenth-century historical contexts and “not judge them by modern criteria” (xii). He is, of course, an interpreter of what he reads and provides his opinions along the way. But he hopes readers will enjoy the story, even if they disagree with his opinions. Hendrix notes that “the past can be studied but not relived. That is the attraction and frustration of history” (xii).
What Luther emerges from Hendrix's extremely thorough and engaging work, based on the widest range of sources and contemporary research? Luther is, says Hendrix, “best understood not as a reformer of the church but as a reformer of religion, who strove to replace bad religion with a faith that valued freedom and justice instead of narrow orthodoxy and moralism; religion that opened minds instead of closing them; religion that opened hearts with ‘mutual consolation’ (his words) rather than closing them with bitterness and exploitation” (xii). All was based on faith—which is hard—but which is “the only sure foundation of a religion that was both humble and hopeful: humble about its own power to remake the world and yet hopeful about a power—greater than that of religion itself—to save us from ourselves” (xiii).
Hendrix's view on Luther as a “visionary Reformer” (the book's subtitle) is maintained throughout his thoroughly interesting historical presentation. The fullness of Luther's life is displayed and not his theology alone. This allows Luther to live in a present tense that immerses us in his vortex of relationships, events, and motivations. We live in Luther's impulses, his responses, and his dedicated desires to be a person of Christian faith where faith was not simply a private opinion but was compelled to a public commitment to love and serve the “neighbor”—others.
Hendrix presents Luther's life in two parts: before and after he took on the task of being a reformer. 1521 is the dividing point when Luther—who had burned the papal bull threatening his excommunication and a papal edict which ousted him from the Roman Catholic Church—was ensconced in Wartburg castle—an outlaw, yet working on projects that began to express his freedom in Jesus Christ. More than critiques of indulgences or papal authority alone, Luther's sense of freedom meant “living bound to Christ” which gave him “a larger vision of what religion could be and a mission to realize that vision by making other people free” (115). Hendrix sees Luther's decisive turning point as happening not with the ninety-five theses or the Diet of Worms, but “at the Wartburg, where he adopted a new identity and a new purpose that he believed to have come from God” (115).
Luther's “Pursuit of a Vision” marked the 1522–1546 period. His reforms and theology developed and he had to navigate difficult religious, political, and cultural waters. Hendrix treats these with judiciousness and sensitivity. Luther's attitudes are conveyed throughout.
For example, when the Marburg Colloquy (1529) was called by Philip of Hesse to unite protestants and then featured “the largest and most diverse group of protestant theologians so far assembled,” Luther was sure nothing would be gained. He told Philip: “I know I cannot give an inch and, after reading their arguments, I remain certain they are wrong” (205). The Lord's Supper was the sticking point between the Lutherans and the Reformed. Agreement on fourteen points came to naught when the fifteenth paragraph could not resolve “whether or not ‘the true body and blood of Christ are bodily present in the bread and wine.’” Luther told the Reformed: “Our spirit is different from yours; it is clear that we do not possess the same spirit . . . Therefore, as I have previously said, we commend you to the judgment of God” (208). Hendrix comments: “Luther had indeed said it earlier, but now Zwingli shed tears.” Hendrix sees “the misfortune of Marburg was not that theologians disagreed, rather that they did not agree to disagree while accepting that they stood on common evangelical ground” (207). Similarly, Hendrix is nuanced on the notorious matter of Luther and the Jews. He says: “Luther's repugnant anti-Semitism was not foaming at the mouth; his motives and arguments can be identified and explained even though they are indefensible” (277).
Luther described himself as a “prodigious” sinner. Yet, says Hendrix, his friends learned from Luther that “real sinning was a prerequisite to salvation and that a little faith was often more genuine than a lot” (285). Hendrix's splendid book vividly brings Luther the sinner and saint to life.
