Luther and the Radicals

Harry Loewen

Description

In their zeal to tell the true story of sixteenth-century radicalism, some sympathizers of the Anabaptist movement have portrayed the once maligned individuals and groups as innocent, pious people who suffered cruel persecution at the hands of the wicked state-churchmen. Their side of the story is thus often as one-sided as was the story of the enemies of Anabaptism.

This book, written by a Mennonite scholar, seeks to understand the reasons for the clash between Luther and the radicals, a point often neglected when one or the other side is emphasized. The study keeps Luther, however, in a central position, exploring the issues which led to the Reformer’s attitude toward the radicals and analyzing the principles that were at stake in his struggle with the dissident groups.

Sujets

• Religión
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Date de parution: 30 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781554587360
• Langue: English

Extrait

LUTHER AND THE RADICALS
ANOTHER LOOK AT SOME ASPECTS OF THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN LUTHER AND THE RADICAL REFORMERS
by
HARRY LOEWEN
0-88920-008-4
(paper)
0-88920-009-2
(cloth)
1974
Wilfrid Laurier University
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
For Gertrude H. Harry, Charles and Jeffrey
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD
PREFACE
Chapter
I BACKGROUND FOR THE CONFLICT BETWEEN LUTHER AND THE RADICAL REFORMERS
Luther s Conversion
Luther s Early Writings
The Dissenters
Origin of the Dissident Groups
Reasons for Opposing the Reformer
II LUTHER AND THE WITTENBERG RADICALS
Moderation Versus Radicalism
Increasing Radicalism and Luther s Reaction
Order Restored
The Sacramental Controversy
III LUTHER S STRUGGLE WITH THE REVOLUTIONARY RADICALS
Luther and Authority Prior to 1525
Thomas M ntzer and Luther
M ntzer s Increasing Radicalism
Luther and the Peasants Revolt
IV LUTHER AND THE EVANGELICAL ANABAPTISTS
Origin and Spread of Anabaptism
Luther s Early Contact with Anabaptism
Anabaptism and Revolutionary Radicalism
Infant Versus Adult Baptism
State Church Versus Free Church
Dogma Versus Morals
V LUTHER AND THE REVOLUTIONARY ANABAPTISTS
The Anabaptist Kingdom in M nster
Luther s Attitude Toward the M nster Episode
Anabaptism and M nsterism
VI LUTHER S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE SPIRITUALISTS, ANTINOMIANS AND ANTITRINITARIANS
The Spiritualists: The Inner and the Outer Word
Luther and the Antinomians
Luther and the Antitrinitarians
VII LUTHER AND THE RADICALS ON TOLERANCE AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
Luther and Religious Liberty
The Radicals and Tolerance
VIII CONCLUSION
ABBREVIATIONS
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
FOREWORD
In this book Professor Loewen has presented us with a fresh treatment of the subject on which there is already considerable literature. Major contributors to the discussion have been Karl Holl, Karl Gerhard Steck, George H. Williams, John S. Oyer and others. A new book on the subject of Luther and the radicals will therefore need to justify its appearance. There is no question that Professor Loewen s book meets the test.
The publishing of this book can be justified on several grounds. First, the work is discriminating. Lutheran writers on the subject have had difficulty in carefully distinguishing the various groups of radicals from one another. This is especially true of the distinction between what Loewen calls evangelical Anabaptism and Thomas M ntzer. The author makes careful and well-grounded differentiations, finding five separate groups of radicals. Such discrimination introduces order and fairness into the discussion which has sometimes been lacking.
Secondly, the work is comprehensive, providing the reader with a fine overview of the responses of Luther to the radicals from his own writings. Loewen shows how, because of Luther s theology and especially his view of the two kingdoms, he was actually more tolerant of dissenters than other Protestants and Catholics. The author shows how Luther s attitude toward Anabaptists hardened after M nster, but that even then he was reluctant to agree to the death penalty for them.
Thirdly, the book is marked by a sympathetic view of Luther throughout. The author seeks to understand Luther s stance and the reasons for his actions. Such sympathy for Luther is, of course, not new in the literature. What is new is that the author is a Mennonite, writing from within a firm commitment to a historical tradition which is one of those discussed in this book. Moreover, as Professor Loewen implies in the preface, it is the one that least deserved Luther s hostility.
All this is not to say that Mennonite historians have been unsympathetic to Luther. It is to say that it has been a major concern of the author to seek to understand Luther without glossing over or excusing his sometimes violent words and actions. Professor Loewen is determined to show that Luther acted mainly from worthy motives, namely his convictions about the nature of the Gospel, and that his actions were consistent with his own experience of redemption.
Looking at Anabaptists from the direction of Wittenberg, they do not appear as harmless and innocent as Mennonite scholarship has sometimes insisted they were. Independently Loewen has arrived at views supported strongly by a book like Anabaptists and the Sword by James Stayer. He does this primarily by carefully reinterpreting the letter of Conrad Grebel to Thomas M ntzer.
The author expresses strong caution on making claims for Anabaptists as champions of religious liberty. I confess that at this point I have some reservations regarding Professor Loewen s conclusions. While it is true that Anabaptists shared in the basic intolerance of the time the fact remains that with the exception of M nster no Anabaptist ever exiled or dispossessed or executed another man because of his faith. True, they disagreed with everyone else and consigned men who believed other than they did to the wrath of God. However, when it came to dealing with deviance in their own midst they used brotherly exhortation and ban as methods of church discipline. It is important, however, to question the excessive claims sometimes made at this point.
In his new book the author has fully achieved his purpose. This, in his own words, is to remind scholars of Anabaptism that in their zeal to correct the image of the radical reformers they sometimes become one-sided and less than charitable toward the mainline reformers who in good faith could not tolerate what they considered alien views.
Walter Klaassen
PREFACE
The purpose of this study is to take another look at some aspects of Luther s struggle with the radical reformers of his time. The Reformer s struggle with the radicals may be likened to King Lear s confrontation with his daughters. At the height of his anguish Lear exclaims, I am a man more sinn d against than sinning (III, 2, 1. 60). King Lear in his haste, rashness and blindness had obviously sinned against his daughters, especially against Cordelia who loved her father dearly. Later, however, two of Lear s children turned with such malice against their father that their sins against the old man outweighed those of the king. Similarly Luther had in a sense provoked his spiritual children, the Protestant radicals of the sixteenth century, to turn against him, but in their radicalism they not only caused their spiritual father much grief but some of them went so far as to attempt to destroy him altogether. There were those children, the so-called evangelical Anabaptists, who, like Cordelia, suffered innocently at the hands of their father. But again as in Lear s case, the more radical children and certain issues blinded Luther s eyes to such an extent that it was almost impossible for him to differentiate properly between those of his children who merely wished to be honest with themselves and go their ways independent of their father, and those who sought to destroy him and that which he had so laboriously built up. Whether Luther in his struggle with the radicals was like Lear a man more sinn d against than sinning depends on the point of view one wishes to take, but the question will be kept alive throughout the study.
There was a time when the story of Anabaptism was either ignored by historians or else distorted because it was seen through the eyes of the mainline reformers, the enemies of the movement. This has changed. Most of the radicals of the sixteenth century have been rehabilitated by scholars sympathetic to the radical reformation. Anabaptism is now generally seen as a movement which complemented the emphases of the mainline reformers, stressing such issues as voluntarism in church membership, separation of church and state, non-violence, and religious liberty, principles largely neglected by Luther and Zwingli. However, in their zeal to tell the true story of sixteenth-century radicalism, some sympathizers of the movement have portrayed the once maligned individuals and groups as innocent, pious people who suffered cruel persecution at the hands of more or less wicked state-churchmen. Their side of the story is thus often as one-sided as was the story of the enemies of the Anabaptists. The study before us seeks to understand the reasons for the clash between Luther and the radicals, a point often neglected when one or the other side is emphasized. However, the study keeps Luther in a central position, exploring the issues which led to the Reformer s attitude toward the radicals and analyzing the principles that were at stake in his struggle with the various dissident individuals and groups.
The radicals included in this monograph are those men and groups who at first hailed Luther as a great reformer of the church but later dissented from him because they felt he did not go far enough in his reform drives. They include the Wittenberg radicals, the Zwickau prophets, Thomas M ntzer and the peasants, the Spiritualists, the Antinomians, and the revolutionary and peaceful Anabaptists. Luther s encounter with some of them was personal, violent and dramatic; with others it was indirect, impersonal and judicial. Whether Luther confronted the radicals personally or whether he pronounced judgment on certain dissident groups when asked about them, he always acted from conviction and after some deliberation. Luther s struggle with the radical reformers thus throws light on his views concerning God and man, sin and redemption, church and state, Scripture, the sacraments, and tolerance and religious liberty.
This study does not wish to give the impression that in the struggl