THE LUTHERAN REFORMATION By JERALD C. BRAUER, Ph.D. JAROSLA V PELIKAN, Ph.D. CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY LIBRARY - FT. WAYNE, I~ l £96I u0!1!~ pas!Aau SS6I lm!1"!.Id li.l!.!I 9oreworJ . • • The Lutheran churches of this country are committed to bring a ministry of Word and Sacraments to students enrolled in institutions of higher learning. An important aspect of this responsibility is the ministry of teaching, for these churches are well aware that students should grow in their appreciation of the Christian faith and heri­ tage as they progress in their understanding of secular knowledge. Church colleges have certain course requirements in the field of religion for gradu­ ation. In public institutions, however, it is possible for a student to complete his aca­ demic work without having taken a single course in religion. Elective credit courses in religion are being offered in, or in connection with, about one hundred publicly supported colleges and universities. And yet, such courses do not begin to fill the need. Consequently, the churches have been offering non-credit courses as an integral part of their campus ministries and programs. These courses are being given in stu­ dent centers and student chapels, and thousands of students are enrolled each year. The Lutheran Reformation has been produced as a syllabus by the Commission on College and University Work of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod and the Division of College and University Work of the National Lutheran Council. Obviously, it can be only an introQ.uction to a subject which has produced whole libraries of technical and popular titles. The authors are highly qualified for their task. Dr. Jerald C. Brauer is Dean of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan is Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Yale Divinity School. The annotated bibliography in this printing was prepared by Mr. Richard Lum:an, A.M., Instructor in Church History in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. It is hoped that those who use this syllabus will be stimulated to delve more deeply into the theological and historical literature of the sixteenth century reformation. REUBEN W. HAHN Commission on College and University Work Roy J. ENQUIST Division of College and University Work Chicago, Illinois July 1, 1963 CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE AGE CHAPTER II. LUTHER THE MAN CHAPTER III. LUTHER BECOMES THE REFORMER CHAPTER IV. THE BREAK CHAPTER V. THE REFORMATION BEC01HES A ~WVEMENT CHAPTER VI. PRESSURES FROM RIGHT AND LEFT CHAPTER VII. LUTHERANISM BECOMES A CHURCH CHAPTER VIII. LUTHER THE BIBLICAL THEOLOGIAN CHAPTER IX. Ll'THERANIS1Vr AND THE COM::\WN LIFE CHAPTER X. THE SETTLEMENT CHAPTER XI. THE ONE CHURCH CHAPTER XII. AN ASSESSMENT PAGE 44 BIBLIOGRAPHY I, fte 1ge Somebody has remarked that mankind comes into the and broke kings and emperors. He took England away from world as into a furnished room. Most of the basic things in King John and gave it back as a fief. both personal and social life are simply given, and one must The unity of life found its center in the Church as the work with them. One does not choose his parents, geograph­ guardian of revelation and as the proclaimer of reconcilia. icallocation, or the time when he shall live, and he is placed tion between all the tensions and conflicts in life. She was in the midst of a society already formed by long traditions the bearer of God's law as revealed in Scripture and tradi· and. usage. Here one has to live out his life and make his tion, and so she was the interpreter of God's law as revealed contributions, to be molded by his age, and to help mold it. in nature. All questions in law, in economics, in politics, or Because of the obvious fact that the age, or civilization, or in morality were to be decided according to God's law as in­ total cuhure is much greater than anyone individual, many terpreted by the Church. Thus it was difficult to find any scholars argue that either physical or intellectual environ­ genuine or legitimate independence for the state or secular ment, or both, determine history. The individual is of little affairs. The Roman Church was co-terminous with western importance. This view contends, for example, that there civilization and produced what some have chosen to call the would have been a reformation even had there never been greatest Christian civilization ever achieved. a Martin Luther. If not Luther, then somebody else would Nevertheless, even at the high water mark of this so-called have provided the impetus to break through Roman Cath­ Christian civilization, the thirteenth century, there were olic control. present many non-Christian forces and many conflicts or But historic actuality points to a figure-Martin Luther, tensions which could not be resolved by the law of God as and because of the work of this man and of others such as interpreted by the Church. In fact, many of the things Zwingli, Cranmer, and Calvin, there was a reformation of a which passed for the law of God were nothing but the divin­ certain kind. There might well have been a reformation izing of certain medieval customs. For example, in econom­ without Luther, but it certainly would not have been the ics, the Church was greatly concerned that justice be done kind of reformation which occurred under his leadership. for all classes of men-the princes and nobility, the rising It is this peculiar reformation which. has helped form west­ merchants, the guild masters, the journeymen, and the peas­ ern civilization. We are not interested in what might have ants or serfs. However, under the system of the so-called been but in what was and is. Thus we must take seriously just price, as much injustice was done to the lower classes, both the given conditions which determine the course of particularly the journeymen or apprentices in the guilds and history in any epoch and also the unique twists and turns the peasants on the land, as in any economic system where given to historical destiny by men operating creatively with no attention wag paid to the laws of God as directed by the some freedom. Church. The same could be asserted concerning both local Certainly Luther could be the reformer he was only he· and international politics. cause he was born and worked at a certain time in history. In addition to those inherent medieval conflicts that Rome The process of history does move in mysterious ways to cer· never conquered or transformed, there emerged at this time tain points of fulness when a crisis is reached and a new an entirely new set of disruptive forces which slowly de­ turn is taken. But no such turn is inevitable, though it is stroyed even the external facade of the so-called unified always a possibility. Divine Providence uses events, move· Christian western civilization. Irresistibly these forces moved ments, and forces to His own purposes. In order to under­ on to break the domination of the papacy over the totality stand the crisis of the late medieval period, let us look at of life. When Rome ·found she could not subdue or conquer the age in which the Reformation was born. them, she attempted to manipulate or outmaneuver them in During the papacy of Innocent III (1198·1216) the Ro­ diplomatic negotiations. But, at that very point in history man Church achieved a high degree of control over western when Rome needed her most persuasive powers in order to civilization. All of life was worked out under the overarch­ cope with such things as the rising national state, the changing ing view of life held by the Church. There was one socio­ economy, and hostile new ideas, she was caught in the trap religious body-the Christian body-with two supposedly of internal strife and cursed with a series of weak popes. equal sides, Church and state. But, of these two, the Church Through two great blunders, the papacy did more damage as the embodiment of spiritual power was superior over the to itself and to the Church than anything done by exte.rnal state as guardian of the temporal power. Innocent made forees. The first of these was the so-called Babylonian cap­ [ 5 ] tivity of the Church when the papacy moved away from superior over temporal powers, and he had 80 claimed for Rome and resided in Avignon (1309.1377), a territory un­ centuries; if the pope was not subject to the control of his der the domination of France. This was a terrible shock to fellow bishops but was lord over all of them, and he had 80 western Europe, and the papacy lost moral prestige through claimed for centuries; how then could the papacy be cor· this blunder. How was it possible for a pope to abandon rected or reformed by anybody? Was nothing of higher the eternal city, to leave behind the holy relics, the very authority in the Church? bones of the apostles Paul and Peter, to leave the most an­ An answer given by the universities and advanced both cient Christian churches? It seemed to cut the Church off by high prelates and princes, was that·general councils of from her very roots and to subject her in an ignominious the Church were higher than the pope and could, therefore, way to the greedy hands of an upstart monarch, Philip the solve the problem of two or three popes claiming ultimate Fair, of France. loyalty_ John Gerson (d.1429), Peter d'Ailly (d.1420), and It is remarkable that the papacy did not become a mere Nicholas of Clemanges (d.1429) were typical of those men tool of France, but somehow it managed to retain some de· called conciliarists because they stressed the rights and privi.