Time for a quote from Roland Bainton's Here I Stand - A Life of Martin Luther (p. 167)Into a society where the lesser breed were given to gambling, roistering and wenching..., at a time when the choicer sort were glorifying in the accomplishments of man, strode this Luther, entranced by the song of angels, stunned by the wrath of God, speechless before the wonder of creation, lyrical over the divine mercy, a man aflame with God.
For such a person there was no question which mattered save this: How do I stand before God? Luther would never shirk a mundane task such as exhorting the elector to repair the city wall to keep the peasant's pigs from rooting in the villager's gardens, but he was never supremely concerned about pigs, gardens, walls, cities, princes or any and all of the blessings and nuisances of this mortal life.
The ultimate problem was always God and man's relationship to God. For this reason political and social forms were to him a matter of comparative indifference. Whatever would foster the understanding, dissemination and practice of God's word should be encouraged, and whatever impeded must be opposed. This is why it is futile to inquire whether Luther was a democrat, aristocrat, autocrat, or anything else. Religion was for him the chief end of man, and all else peripheral.
No comments:
Post a Comment