13 Luther’s function in an age of confessionalization robert kolb Like a storm wind, the words and images of Martin Luther swept across early sixteenth-century central Europe, decisively altering public life in German, Scandinavian, and Baltic lands, and even among peoples in Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland, where the Counter-Reformation later diminished his influence considerably. Luther’s enemies viewed the currents aroused by his writings and his popularity among common folk and intellectuals as demon- ically destructive; his supporters experienced them as divine intervention for a beleaguered society and a tyrannized church. the angel of the apocalypse, the german hercules – teacher and pastor Historical personages always take on a new life in the traditions that con- vey their personalities and thought to succeeding generations. Twentieth- century scholars sometimes complained that the images of Luther and the summaries of his theology which have helped shape Western culture and Christian thinking do not accurately reflect the “real” reformer, but such is always true. Intensifying this commonplace in Luther’s case is the fact that already during his lifetime his contemporaries experienced him as “larger than life.” None of his German contemporaries could remain neutral in regard to Luther. Few individuals have aroused so much and such many-faceted and strongly held passion and antagonism so quickly as did the monk- professor from Wittenberg when he penned and posted an invitation to debate the nature and impact of the practice of indulgences in late October 1517. His “Ninety-five Theses” that propelled him rapidly to center stage in German public life slowly came to command the attention of the papal court and launched yet another movement for ecclesiastical reform which, unlike earlier calls for change in the church, created a public persona through the use of the new public medium of the printing press. The cultural, social, political – to say nothing of religious, theological, and ecclesiastical – ripples 209 Cambridge Companions Online © Cambridge University Press, 2006 210 Robert Kolb from this academic exercise have made him the object of glorification and vilification for nearly a half millennium. Those who dismiss or diminish Luther’s influence have been rightly crit- icized for reading sources selectively or uncritically. Indeed, Luther yearned for a different church and society than the one he left in his wake. But his own theological appraisal of the mystery of continuing sin in believers’ lives indicated that no reform could create a utopia. A century after his advent Germans may have behaved in much the same old ways, but the ways in which public leaders and peasants alike thought about God and themselves had changed. Since about 1980 scholars have used the rubric “confessionalization” to analyze the effects of the disordering and reordering of public life that Luther initiated. Luther’s concept of the Word of God gave “confessional- ization” its name, his person and image helped shape the phenomenon, his ideas altered the paradigm for discussion and proclamation of the biblical message at the ideological heart of this “fundamental process in society, which ploughed up the public and private life of Europe in thorough- going fashion.” It redefined society not only theologically and ecclesiasti- cally but also in terms of political, social, economic, and cultural attitudes and structures.1 The definition of the church as an institution governed by its doctrinal pronouncements grew out of Luther’s concept that God’s Word should be proclaimed (confessed) boldly in order to define and govern the church. German society began to define itself in terms of the institution labeled a “confession” – a church defined by doctrinal statements – because Luther’s followers had attained political legality as adherents of the “Augsburg Confession,” a statement of faith composed for presentation to Emperor Charles V by Luther’s colleague Philip Melanchthon at the imperial diet in Augsburg in 1530. As those pledged to the theological and ecclesiastical program summarized in that document, princes and cities of the German empire won an inferior but tolerated position in the empire in 1555. This pro- gram was labeled a “confession” because its author, Melanchthon, Luther’s colleague in Wittenberg, shared his belief that God gave his people his Word in order that they might confess it publicly for the salvation of sin- ners. They believed that God’s Word not only describes God’s actions but actually serves as his instrument for accomplishing his will. One conse- quence of identifying Luther’s call for reform as a “confession” is the label historians now employ for the broad spectrum of aspects embraced by “the ploughing up of European public life” between 1520 and 1650. Without Luther there would have been no confessionalization; without his concept of God’s Word the phenomenon would have borne a different label. Cambridge Companions Online © Cambridge University Press, 2006 Luther in an age of confessionalization 211 luther in the judgment of his contemporaries Luther’s presence haunted the process of confessionalization from its dawning to its passing into the Enlightenment. Robert Scribner has iden- tified three motifs employed by Luther’s earliest publicists in print and portrait as his Reformation commenced: monk, teacher of the church, and man of the Bible or Word of God. Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531) is known as one of the Wittenberg profes- sor’s fiercest critics, but five years before the two fell into conflict over the Lord’s Supper Zwingli had labeled Luther a contemporary Elijah, the escha- tological prophet who was to proclaim the Word of the Lord in the last times. In 1520, three years after the Wittenberg monk and professor burst upon the larger stage of the European public discussion of critical ecclesiastical and social issues with his “Ninety-five Theses,” not only Zwingli was lion- izing Luther. Artists were depicting him as a saint, with nimbus and dove above his head, and as the humanists’ symbolic exemplar, the ancient Greek demigod Hercules. His students heralded him in hymns and sermons as the angel of Revelation 14:6 who was to bring the eternal gospel to earth. His Roman Catholic opponents vilified and demonized him as an offspring of Satan himself. By accident, through the publication of his Ninety-five Theses, the first modern media event, Luther had helped shape a new world of public discourse in print, for his protest against the abuses of pastoral care in the indulgence trade struck responsive chords among intellectuals and common folk alike. Intellectuals, particularly those involved in the movement for educa- tional reform dubbed “humanism” by nineteenth-century scholars, were longing for a new order in learning, public communication and discourse, and society itself. Luther’s critique of the old order, his focus on the study of the biblical texts in original languages, and his use of the ancient church fathers fired their imaginations. Humanists of his own generation finally distanced themselves from him, but the younger generation provided the shock troops for his Reformation. The common people were yearning with apocalyptic fervor for a prophet who could usher in the Kingdom of God in some form or other; whether they understood more or less of Luther’s insights, their hearts were fired by his bold stance against the old order and selected elements of his call for dependence on God’s grace and re- sponsible service to God and neighbor. The painter Hans Holbein hailed him as Hercules, in battle with theologians of the old faith; Albrecht Durer¨ placed great hopes in this “man gifted with the Holy Spirit.” Luther’s fellow Augustinian monk Michael Stiefel composed a thirty-two-stanza hymn Cambridge Companions Online © Cambridge University Press, 2006 212 Robert Kolb summarizing his teaching and associating him with the eschatological deliverance promised through the prophet Daniel’s visions and John’s angel with the gospel (Rev. 14:6). Other hymn-writers of the 1520s and 1530s associated him with the prophets and evangelists as well, echoing Zwingli’s initial appraisal and enthusiasm. Practically, these apocalyptic expectations translated themselves not only into popularity with the masses and widespread proclamation of his ideas from thousands of pulpits but also into policy decisions by ecclesiasti- cal and societal leaders. Through a variety of publications Luther’s proposals for reform of theology and of everyday life in church and society won adher- ence among preachers and political authorities. The printing press enabled this single intellectual to command the attention of peasants, prelates, and princes. Pastors repeated interpretations of texts they had read in his postils, the model sermons that constituted a continuing education program for the clergy of his day. They introduced his liturgy and had their people learning his hymns. They devoured his polemic against the old faith; they learned to preach and pray anew from his biblical comment in homiletical or academic form. They absorbed fundamental elements of his new paradigm for con- sidering the biblical message even as they fit his way of thinking into their own, in their specific parish situations. They advised municipal leaders and counselors of princes to follow Luther’s concepts of reform. As governments actualized those concepts, Luther and his colleagues at the University of Wittenberg – particularly Melanchthon, but also Johannes Bugenhagen, Justus Jonas, and others – became a living adjudicatory body, providing a substitute for the authority of bishops and councils in answering questions regarding the proper interpretation of the biblical message or on the best way to solve the problems raised by the implementation of reform. Under the primary authority of Scripture, Luther’s thought and judgment often served as a secondary authority for resolving questions of theology and church life. It was not always decisive to cite Luther, but a tract from his pen, or even better a memorandum or letter fresh from Wittenberg, carried an authority seldom if ever before accorded to a living theologian.