Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet

Written by Lyndal Roper

Narrated by Michael Page

On October 31, 1517 an unknown monk nailed a theological pamphlet to a church door in a small university town and set in motion a process that helped usher in the modern world. Within a few years Luther's ideas had spread like wildfire. His attempts to reform Christianity by returning it to its biblical roots split the Western Church, divided Europe, and polarized people's beliefs.
Yet Luther was a deeply flawed human being: a fervent believer tormented by spiritual doubts; a prolific writer whose translation of the Bible would shape the German language yet whose attacks on his opponents were vicious and foul-mouthed. Perhaps surprisingly, the man who helped create in the modern world was not modern himself: for him the devil was not a figure of speech but a real, physical presence.
Acclaimed historian Lyndal Roper explains how Luther's impact can only be understood against the background of the times. As a brilliant biographer, she gives us the flesh-and-blood figure, reveals the often contradictory psychological forces that drove Luther forward, and the dynamics they unleashed, which turned a small act of protest into a battle against the power of the Church.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highbridge Company
• Release date: Mar 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781681684123

Reviews for Martin Luther

[xieouyang · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I don’t need to add any comments, I think that two reviews here are well done and capture my thinking. Particularly the review by meandmybooks which is very well done.However, even though I wanted to learn about Luther and the origin of the reformarion, I really don’t care to know about Luther’s hemorrhoids, and other skatological issues the author covers.

[meandmybooks-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's a complete coincidence that I finished this on Reformation Day, as I'm neither Lutheran nor a huge Luther fan girl (and rather less a fan after reading this), but there it is. Luther was an authoritarian and a bully, and he could be a spiteful, crude, vicious hypocrite, spewing hate at Catholics, Jews, and fellow Evangelicals who failed to accept his doctrines as “gospel,” but there's no denying the lasting significance of the religious reform movement that he so powerfully and effectively put in motion. And it seems plausible that putting reform in motion required a passionate, stubborn, even a pig-headed man. Lyndal Roper's long research has produced a detailed, nuanced study of her complex and often contradictory subject. While I found his misogyny, social conservatism, and antisemitism repugnant, his religious insights and convictions, hard won and deeply considered, offered an emphasis that was sorely needed at the time. Roper only brushes on one of Luther's contributions which I value very highly indeed – his emphasis on hymns and congregational singing – but she spends more time on another that I think he “nails” – his insistence (in contrast and in conflict with Zwingli's followers) on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It seemed to me that Roper did a fine job of balancing her presentation, providing a rich but not overwhelming level of detail about Luther's family and cultural background, personal history, political context, and religious controversies, and not going overboard with ideas about his “psychological” motivations. I finished this with a far better appreciation of Luther's contributions to the Reformation, both positive and negative, and to the doctrines of Anglicanism, my branch of the church, than I began with, and enjoyed Roper's ability to create an engaging study of her prickly and combative subject.

[c.archer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

his is not a book for the casual reader or one who is not familiar with the Reformation or Germanic history.The author does a very good job of presenting Luther in a neutral light. His ability to attract a following and argue his theology are presented along side his intolerance of alternative opinions and beliefs. The inner turmoil that drove his struggling faith is clearly described,and his angst to be precise and accurate in belief and teaching is also palpable. These are the strong points of this book.For the lay person, the emphasis on theology is a bit challenging. I struggled to maintain interest in the background of the hierarchy and the constant battleground that was the state of things at the time of the Reformation. The characters, including Luther, were often portrayed as almost petty in their inability to listen to and attempt to relate to the interpretations of each other. I found myself incapable of caring about some of the intricate historic and theological details.The author did significant research and is quite complete in painting a picture of the life and times of Luther and his contemporaries. I found it almost too exhaustive for my personal interest, but would certainly recommend this book to serious students of both the historic and theological era of the Reformation.I thank the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this title.

[janientrelac · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

As a life long atheist I skipped a lot of the theology, but the theology is very well presented.Luther was a difficult man, angry, self centred. His most attractive quality was his acceptance of physicality, his reasonably happy marriage. And he had some very interesting views, a wife whose husband was impotent could take a second husband to give her children.His anti Semitism was painful to read about, I thought her was no worse than the average person of that time and place, but he was much, much worse.