Review by Booklist Review
Renowned historian of religion (and Lutheran minister) Marty, author of multivolume studies, here gives us a short, vivid biography. His portrait confirms Luther's stubborn integrity; he was serious about Scripture as the sole authority for Christian practice, and that led him to repudiate clerical hierarchy and priestly celibacy, and to declare the priesthood of all believers and the goodness of God's gift of the body. He was, however, humanly contradictory, a man of conservative outlook, Marty says, but also a person of radical expression. He identified and sympathized with the common people yet so feared disorder that he sided with the abusive barons during the Peasants' War of 1524-25 rather than possibly overturn secular authority, even when it flouted Christian morals. Of course, he had his further reasons: utopian firebrand Thomas Muntzer was inciting the peasants to murderous class warfare, which Luther couldn't tolerate. Anti-Semitic in old age, he disgusted even his right-hand man, Philip Melancthon. Warts and all, however, Luther remains intrinsically admirable, a bulwark of conscience as well as faith. --Ray Olson Copyright 2004 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
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) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
"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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A noted Lutheran historian turns to the founder of his faith, delivering a thoughtful portrait of a complex, controversial figure. "I will begin with Luther's birth and end his story at his death, largely leaving to others the accounts of his posthumous influence and its global consequences," writes Marty (Politics, Religion, and the Common Good, 2000, etc.). So he does, and if he goes lightly on the revolutions and wars that Luther (1483-1546) touched off with his radical reshaping of the church, Marty gives a careful accounting of the man. One constant in Luther's life seems to have been a rather dark view of humankind, and perhaps even of God: his parents were harsh disciplinarians; his schoolteachers assured him and his classmates that "Jesus the Son of God would judge them after their death," and "in school Luther lived in terror of the 'wolf,' the classmate charged to tattle weekly on the children and finger them as candidates for physical punishment"; the young Catholic monk Luther and his mentor, Vicar General Johannes von Staupitz, "inhabited a universe in which they thought a threatening God kept a suspicious eye on every human act." Whence, perhaps, Luther's keen interest in hellfire and damnation, and with the problem of Everyman's working out his own salvation--and without the vehicle of priestly indulgence, which allowed the well-off to "become complacent about their situation before God. They would feel that they could sin and not fear purgatorial punishment." Marty portrays Luther as both conservative and radical, as torn by doubts and pained by illness--yet resolute in his devotion to ecclesiastical reform and his belief that the personal search for salvation was far more important than the "papal and imperial threats" he faced over most of his theological career. Throughout, Marty does not shy from unpleasant questions, notably Luther's anti-Semitism; nor does he fail to point out inconsistencies and paradoxes in the Lutheran legacy. "Sin boldly," Luther proclaimed. The only flaw in this bold interpretation, and one by design, is that it is too short. A fine brief on a world-changing figure. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
