Martin Luther

Rebel, reformer, theologian, pastor, family man---Luther stood at a chaotic crossroad of history and preached God's grace to a divided church. This deft account by a renowned church historian chronicles Luther's life and immense spiritual passion in all its complexity. Here is riveting reading for any shepherd called to lead in troubled times. 199 pages, hardcover from Viking.

Martin Marty—professor, author, pastor, historian, and journalist—is, in Bill Moyers’s words, “the most influential interpreter of American religion.” In Martin Luther this man of unswerving faith, rooted in his own Lutheran tradition yet deeply committed to helping enrich a pluralist society, brings to powerful life the devout Reformation figure whose despair for a perilous world, felt anew in our own times, drove him to a ceaseless search for assurance of God’s love. It was one that led him steadily to a fresh interpretation of human interaction with God—as born solely from God’s grace and not the Church’s mediation—and to the famous theses he posted at Wittenberg in 1517.

Luther’s persistence in this belief, and in his long battle with Church leaders—embellished by rich historical background—make Marty’s biography riveting reading. Luther’s obdurate yet receptive stance, so different from the travestied image of “fundamentalism” we currently face, restored the balance between religion and the individual. Martin Luther is at once a fascinating history, a story of immense spiritual passion and amazing grace, and a superb intellectual biography.

Martin Marty, one of today’s most respected theologians, is professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, where the Martin Marty Center has been founded to promote public religion endeavors. His more than fifty books include Modern American Religion. He is a winner of the National Book Award and was the first religion scholar to receive the National Humanities Medal.

"Penguin Lives" has made an inspired choice in asking Marty (emeritus, Univ. of Chicago), the dean of Protestant church historians, to write on Martin Luther, the progenitor of the Protestant Reformation. This work is a model for popular biography, exhibiting a love of the subject but not fawning admiration. Marty does not dwell on Luther's faults but rather lets them speak for themselves, through the use of well-chosen quotations. He does not excuse Luther's anti-Semitism and keeps a good balance in his discussion between Luther's life and his works while citing telling incidents that give a good view of Luther's character. Like most great figures, Luther was a person of contradictions, and Marty's biography is an excellent popular introduction to his life. It will replace Roland Bainton's Here I Stand as the popular Luther biography. Readers seeking a more detailed approach should consult Martin Brecht's three-volume work. Highly recommended for all libraries.-Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, NJ Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Marty, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago and winner of the National Book Award for Righteous Empire, offers a sterling biography of history's irascible reformer. In concise, accessible style, Marty outlines Luther's life and times, gauging why this man changed the face of Europe and Western Christianity. Marty excels in distilling debates that were matters of life and death 500 years ago but seem obscure to Christians today. Although the celibacy of the clergy is a controversy that no contemporary reader will need explained, other issues such as infant baptism, communion in both kinds (the laity receiving both the bread and the wine) and justification by grace through faith are made accessible by Marty's skillful narration. He depicts Luther as a "man of extremes," bound up in contradictions. Marty wryly notes that Luther's biographer is doomed to qualify any statement about him with the phrase "at the same time." The theologian was tender, yet at the same time blustery and arrogant; he could be a superbly cogent thinker, yet near the end of his life he published a horrific attack on Jews that unthinkingly drew upon "traditional Christian rumors" and "whispered claims" about alleged Jewish atrocities. Even his beliefs seemed rife with contradiction: Christians were simultaneously justified and sinners; they were perfectly free but bound in service to all; God was both revealed and inscrutable. Marty is sensitive to Luther's deep, lifelong quest for theological assurance and his struggles with doubt. This is the best brief biography of Luther ever penned. (Feb. 2) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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Reviewed by Dr. Robert W. Kellemen (Taneytown, MD), July 03, 2005

What do you get when you unite the two Martins: eminent historian Martin Marty and eminent historical figure Martin Luther? An artful narrative told with brevity and eloquence. Martin Marty's "Martin Luther" offers the "lay reader" an accurate, readable introduction to Luther's stormy life. Though Marty is Lutheran, his writing is not a book about "Saint Luther." Marty excels when he distills Luther's life into his anfectungen: his spiritual depression, doubt, and "spiritual separation anxiety." Luther battled the inner terror of doubts about his acceptance before God. These inner battles propelled him to wage war against a system that he believed exacerbated such doubts. Being part of the Penguin Life series, one can't expect a treatise or a dissertation. Those wanting more depth would appreciate Oberman's "Luther: Man Between God and the Devil." Those wanting more "positives," might enjoy Bainton's classic "Here I Stand."

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