by Eric Metaxas
Copyright (c) 2017.
Audiobook
Martin Luther’s life is controversial any way you cut it. Fundamentalists (with whom Metaxas is sympathetic) like to claim Luther as one of their own because of his insistence on Scriptural primacy. (They like to call it Scriptural authority, but such concepts were not present within Luther’s writings.)
Liberals like to claim him because he broke free from institutional chains to usher in the freedom which founded to modern world. Unfortunately, liberals have to grapple with the later Luther who was a grouchy anti-Semite. (His earlier writings actually leaned pro-Jew.)
Twentieth-century Nazis claimed Luther because of this anti-Semitism. Hitler used Luther in the name of a German nationalism to communicate lies of Aryan supremacy.
In truth, Luther is none of these. Martin Luther is a late-medieval monk who rebelled against Roman authority. This book tells his story well. His rebellion led to the founding of Western freedom. As Metaxas chronicles, his 95 Theses directly brought about the modern world. Where other Christian reformers – such as John Huss – failed, Luther succeeded, due in no small part to the technological advancement of Gutenberg’s printing press. Protestantism’s success laid a foundation for the American Revolution, which laid a foundation for the spread of democracy around the world. All from nailing a document to a wall for scholarly debate.