Luther and the Reformation of Public Discourse

LUTHER AND THE REFORMATION OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE Timothy J. Cable A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS August 2010 Committee: Edgar Landgraf, Advisor Geoffrey Howes ii ABSTRACT Edgar Landgraf, Advisor This thesis traces the link between Martin Luther and the Enlightenment by examining Luther's thought in the context of advances in communication technology. In response to traditional Luther studies, which have tended to be freighted with theological presuppositions and traditional modes of interpretation, I base my study on a close-reading of Luther's Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen (On the Freedom of a Christian) and use my reading of this text to argue that the advent of printing caused humans to change the way they see themselves, in that communication via print seems to call for a distinction between public role and private individual. To examine the political implications of this new concept of human identity, I compare Freiheit eines Christenmenschen to Immanuel Kant's “Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?” (“An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?”) and argue that the roots of the Enlightenment reach back as far as Luther. Finally, using Heinrich von Kleist's novella Michael Kohlhaas as a parable of what both Luther and the Enlightenment wrought, I examine the broader consequences of Luther's concept of public discourse and its relationship to Enlightenment thought. iii to my parents, Dawn and Bruce Cable iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would not have been up to the task of writing a thesis without the patient encouragement of my advisor, Dr. Edgar Landgraf. I am grateful for his unwavering interest in helping me complete this project and for convincing me to take it on in the first place. Dr. Geoffrey Howes, my other committee member, provided important direction at the outset of my project and continued to offer wisdom, moral support, and helpful feedback throughout the duration of my work. Dr. Theodore Rippey, in addition to having been a source of invaluable academic and personal advising throughout most of my university career, also led me to my thesis topic in his culture and civilization course. Though not directly involved with this thesis, other members of BGSU's German faculty in Bowling Green and Salzburg—Dr. Kristie Foell, Dr. Christina Guenther, Dr. Manfred Mittermayer, and Prof. Eva-Maria Stuppnik-Bazzanella—deserve acknowledgment for having helped me acquire the tools necessary to undertake this thesis. The following BGSU faculty members also provided much-appreciated instruction and guidance during my undergraduate and graduate studies at BGSU: Dr. William Albertini, Dr. Vibha Bhalla, Dr. Allan Emery, and Dr. Erin Labbie. I am especially grateful to my brother Matthew and sister-in-law Amber for having provided room, board, and friendship during the thesis-writing process. My grandmother, Julia Cable, has been a source of inspiration and has taught me that you cannot learn everything in school. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and colleagues who helped me in various ways while I worked on my thesis, including Kerry Anderson, Kayleigh Butcher, Kyle Farrell, Ken Fritjofson, Marion Greiner, and Dylan Martin. Thanks to Stephanie Gaskill and Mary Beth Broadwater for friendship and help with formatting. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 1. LUTHER AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE....................................................... 13 CHAPTER 2. PUBLIC DISCOURSE AND POLITICAL DISSENT.................................. 33 CONCLUSION: SIGNS AND AUTHORITY...................................................................... 45 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................................. 59 1 INTRODUCTION All who study Martin Luther encounter a nearly unnavigable mass of primary and secondary sources, or at least feel compelled to mention it in the introductions to their published studies. The author of a recent biography claims that “more books have been written about Martin Luther than about anyone other than Jesus,” and another scholar refers to Luther as “the man about whom more has been written than any other Western mortal of the modern era.”1 This is no surprise considering the significance ascribed to this man, not to mention the amount of time that has elapsed since the sixteenth century. The result of this superabundance of material is that scholars now tend to produce sketches of the subject that make reference to as many sources as possible without focusing on any one text. Many studies pepper sweeping commentary with page number citations from the Weimarer Ausgabe of his works, but with minimal in-depth interaction with the texts themselves. In particular, scholars writing during the past thirty years seem to rest on some unwritten consensus when approaching his writings that allows them to avoid detailed interpretation. The lack of recent detailed analysis of Luther's works can also be attributed to the fact that the scholars who choose Luther as their subject are rarely from the humanities—Luther scholarship is carried out almost exclusively by theologians who are by no means impartial. In his 1999 biography of Luther, Richard Marius discusses the history of partisanship in Luther scholarship: For centuries devout scholars, evangelical and Catholic, studied Luther to extol or condemn him. Evangelicals made him a colossus and hero who cleansed the gospel and gave light and freedom to the soul. Catholics portrayed him as 1 Paul Robinson, Martin Luther: A Life Reformed (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2010), ix; Neil Leroux, Luther's Rhetoric (St. Louis: Concordia Academic Press, 2002), 11. 2 demon-possessed, a sex-crazed monk of furious temper, a liar and fraud willing to tumble down the great and beautiful edifice of Catholic Christianity for no better motives than lust and pride.2 Marius goes on to note that, while Luther scholarship is not as partisan as it used to be, there are still not enough disinterested voices;3 eleven years after Marius's observation, this is arguably still the case. The majority of English-language scholarly books on Luther are published by Fortress press, the official publishing house of the Lutheran church in the United States, and most scholarly articles, regardless of language, are published in theology and religious studies journals.4 While these sources should not be dismissed wholesale by scholars from other fields, they nonetheless prove to be problematic for the disinterested researcher, because their arguments are usually framed by theological presuppositions. The following passage from a recent collection of essays published by Fortress press demonstrates this problem: “The conviction that all human beings by nature are free, that freedom of the spirit is humanity's very essence, first dawned in Christianity through its faith that in Christ all are redeemed and accepted as God's children.”5 Secular scholarship on Luther is often problematic, too. Traditionally, it has tended to mythologize its subject and has elevated the significance of Luther the character over social and historical context. This kind of treatment of the subject can also be found in portrayals of Luther in popular culture. In the 2003 film Luther, the eponymous hero, played by Joseph Fiennes, defiantly delivers his famous lines before the Diet of Worms—“Here I stand. I cannot do 2 Marius, Martin Luther: The Christian Between God and Death, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1999), xi. 3 Ibid., xii. 4 This is evident if one examines the extensive bibliography of international Luther scholarship that the Luther- Gesellschaft, a Wittenberg-based religious organization, publishes every year in its Lutherjahrbuch. 5 Peter Hodgson, “Luther and Freedom,” in The Global Luther, ed. Christine Helmer (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), 33. 3 otherwise”—and the Reformation is portrayed as a product of his genius, idealism, and boldness. While this mythologized depiction of Luther can be expected from Hollywood, it seems less at home in scholarly discourse. In a series of articles originally published in the 1970s and 80s, Heiko Oberman discusses the role such caricatures play in Luther scholarship: The image of Luther the heroic and fearless reformer, the confident advance guard of the “transformation,” evokes not only his performance at the Imperial Diet of Worms (April 1521) and his public refusal to denounce his writing. There is no doubt that “Luther before the Emperor at Worms” became a symbol of reforming courage to confess and defend one's faith that reached many of those who could not read. The reforming “deed” made a deep impression on the people, preparing them for the reforming Word. Even people of letters—right up to our own time—have read Luther's works in the / light of this act.6 Oberman sees Luther's mythologized act of refusing to denounce his ideas as an event outside of discourse that has nonetheless influenced how Luther is understood. To go against this tendency, Oberman proposes separating Luther's “reforming Word” from his “reforming deed” in order to achieve a more scholarly perspective on the Reformation.7 In overemphasizing the importance of “Luther the man,” however, Oberman's approach in countering mythologization often amounts to attempting to reach an understanding of

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