Five Hundred Years of Luther

Rational thought is a gift from God. Having an opinion and sharing it is one thing, but opinions should be based on knowledge and understanding, as well as powerful faith and love. Martin Luther left behind a great spiritual heritage, which is still valuable today. The call he first gave in 1524 is now more relevant than ever: ‘Let us finally use our minds!’

Text by Professor Rudy Van Moere

On October 31st, it will be exactly five hundred years since theology professor Martin Luther nailed 95 statements to the door of the Wittenberg chapel. In these statements he criticised the terrible conditions and methods of the Roman Catholic church. Luther’s contributions to Western thought are too numerous to fully catalogue. In this theological reflection, I will discuss three dimensions of his faith. These will help us—as Adventists and other Christians—to deepen our own faith: faith and strength; faith and understanding; faith and love.

Powerful Faith

Luther broke free of a closed belief system, ruled by an authoritative church. He was inspired to claim that Scripture and personal conscience deserved priority. In 1521, at the Diet of Worms, he refused to withdraw his statements for the emperor. He said: ‘Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.’

Luther dismissed a fundamentalist faith

In the dictionary, ‘clear reason’ means that arguments in defence of the mind are self-evident, and require no further proof. With his insistence on religious freedom—a freedom he later unfortunately denied to others—Luther proved just how powerful his faithfulness was.

Faith and Love Motivate Translation

The liberating power that Luther experienced through his study of the Bible prompted him to translate the entire text into everyday German. He chose words that housewives, street children, and regular people would have used in the market square. This meant that they could read and judge for themselves whether the words preachers spoke from the pulpit were correct. Luther preached and taught that people are free to love. The love of Christ urged him to do so.

As a man of his time, Luther was also trapped in a specific point of view. In particular, some of his statements about (and initiatives against) the Jews would make a modern Christian balk. It is hard to deny that he was anti-Semitic, and his actions against Jews, Baptists, and peasants are inexcusable. Still, we cannot lose sight of his good deeds.

Luther Believed With His Mind

As a believer, Luther put himself at the mercy of both the Bible and the rational mind. Like Jesus, Luther he emphasised reason and understanding. Jesus relied on logic, common sense, and understanding more than once. After the multiplication of loaves and fishes, he asked his students: ‘Do not you understand it yet?’ (Mark 8:17). He was frustrated because the facts were so obvious. To the people on the road to Emmaus he said: ‘Do you have so little intelligence, and are you so slow of understanding?’ (Luke 24:25). Paul and Peter also emphasise the use of the mind (see 1 Corinthians 14:20 and 1 Peter 1:13).

Luther saw reason as a gift from God. He felt that a believer who accepted Jesus Christ, and let himself be illuminated by the Holy Spirit, could understand the scriptures fully and correctly. To this he added, passionately, that this gift of reason does not release the believer from a thorough, responsible study of the Bible. Luther dismissed fundamentalist faith in a way that caused many problems, in his own time and beyond. Of course, even scientists like Galileo and Kepler experienced the labelling of their insights as ‘errors’ by the authorities of their age.

Adventism and Luther’s ‘Clear Reason’

The question now is whether all twenty million members of our world church can enjoy unlimited freedom of conscience and religion—a movement for which our church has always stood at the forefront. One often has the impression that decisions and opinions are actually imposed from above. Anyone who considers themselves a faithful and loyal member of the church (as I do), but dares to criticise their own religion, often risks censure. Should Adventists, who claim to have taken on the mantel of the reformers, accept what is said or proscribed across the pond?

What is wrong with believers studying the Bible critically, through scientific methods? Should members of the priesthood of believers not have a say in matters of faith? Of course they should, but this does not mean that they always read scripture with the same care and understanding, or that they can adequately explain their understanding to others. After all, in Luther’s wake Bible readers must recognise that there is a great distance between the world of the Bible and our society. This distance a matter of language (so Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek), but also of history, geography, society, culture, and religion. Such differences require a thorough, knowledgeable study, and a sound, believing mind. Liberated from the Catholic Church and her priests, Luther called out in 1524: ‘Let us finally use our minds!’

Loyal Adventists must not be voiceless, letting other people decide what they should believe

Because of fundamentalist tendencies within our own church, new theological developments are often met with immediate hostility. In response to the question ‘how do you know that?’, we often hear a personal testimony or doctrine in return, or a suggestion that we should believe naively, like children. But don’t children, with their endless Why-questions, have a deep hunger for wisdom and knowledge? Why should we be afraid? Should we not test all things (1 Thessalonians 5:21)?

Alternative Facts

Social media conveys a vast number of comments, statements, speeches, and videos of pastors and preachers that give viewers unfiltered or incorrect information: so-called ‘alternate facts’. This even extends to popular figures like the zoologist Walter Veith. In a 2012 speech he talked suspiciously about Jews and ‘their yellow star of David’, and downplayed the Holocaust.

Unimaginable! He tried to rationalise his statements by explaining the so-called ‘secret plans’ concocted by Jesuits and Freemasons to set up the Jewish state of Israel. Though his lecture pretends to be Christian, his ‘alternative facts’ come from a place anti-Semitism, and from anti-Semitic sources. Fortunately, Veith’s words have been condemned in no uncertain terms by the church leadership in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Personal Experience

Fifty years ago I began studying theology in France, and in those fifty years I have seen our church grow steadily more conservative. During my studies at Collonges-sous-Salève the church emphasised careful thought, reading, and research. I am also extremely grateful to the Theological Seminary (later Academy) at Oud Zandbergen, in Huis ter Heide. There I enjoyed Dutch academic freedom thanks to the rectors Pieter Sol, Reinder Bruinsma, and Gerard Mandemaker. As a pastor, I have also been blessed to experience this freedom under many union presidents: from Karel van Oossanen to Wim Altink in the Netherlands, and in Belgium from Henri Van Der Veken to Jeroen Tuinstra. I am grateful to them from the very bottom of my heart. As a believer, I mean to continue exercise that freedom thoughtfully and respectfully, and in a responsible, pastoral way.

Reasons to Be Thankful for Luther

Luther helped us to see that the Bible teaches us God’s love is for everyone. It is the good news of grace, that does good things in the world. At the level of our faith Luther taught us to free ourselves from every coercive or dictatorial church authority. Loyal Adventists must not be voiceless, letting other people decide what they should believe.

Luther encouraged us to read the Bible as a whole, and ‘with reason’. If you are a strong believer, you will not be prone to fundamentalist tendencies that prescribe a ‘literal reading and understanding’. As a strong believer you will stand for a free conscience, in our society as well as in the church. Luther wanted to make us authentic disciples of Jesus, but his more objectionable perspectives—including those against Jesus’ own people, the Jews—should be firmly and vigorously contested.
We are thankful to Luther for translating the Bible for regular people, and to the national Bible Societies that have followed in his example. In the end, Luther died in the belief that ‘it will not last much longer before God takes hold of the situation. Then comes the new heaven and the new earth.’

Rudy Van Moere is emeritus professor of Old Testament and Biblical Hebrew at the Protestant Theology department in Brussels. He is also a retired pastor with the Adventist church.

This article was based on a talk given by the author during a vespers service on 4 March 2017, in the Witte Kerkje in Huis ter Heide.