What do you think of when you hear the name "Martin Luther?" Maybe you think of his accomplishments, such as his 95 theses and open rebellion against the Catholic church. Perhaps you think of Martin Luther King Jr. who shares his namesake because of the mark he (Martin Luther) made on religious history. Truly, Martin Luther has much to admire about his character even centuries after his death.
However, Martin Luther was not a perfect man and did not always stand for things that we would consider to be right in the modern age. During the Peasant Revolt 1524-1525, German peasants rebelled against their local authorities, fueled by Luther's preaching of equality. However, Martin Luther didn't support their cause and wasn't opposed to the social inequality that was present at the time (Drogin). Had this sort of event happened in a modern context, Luther would've lost way more followers than he did in his time and he would not have had the support to form a church of the same caliber as the still-thriving Lutheran church.
The truth is, many of the men and women we revere from history made mistakes that go against the values we have in the present. The founding fathers owned slaves, the explorers weren't exactly kind to the Native Americans, etc. The fact that they have become famous historical figures doesn't mean that anything wrong they did is any less wrong. However, anything wrong that they did doesn't discredit the good that they did. Martin Luther helped pave the way for religious freedom, even if he stuck to the status quo in some ways. If we can just remember that the heroes of history were from a different time, place, and culture than us, than we can allow them to still be heroes who helped change the world for the better.
Image Credit: https://www.biography.com/people/martin-luther-9389283, Public Domain
Hmm... While it is good to point out that our more celebrated people in history are exactly without fault, I do think his opinions and actions during the Peasant Revolt aren't something to be reviled, profusely at least. Having an opinion doesn't make you a monster, perhaps a hypocrite in this case, but I don't think he was able to see that. In his eyes, the Church was a bigger issue than the politics of the time.
ReplyDeleteI think that too often we put our moral standards onto people of the past without knowing the whole circumstances, or without understanding their culture. If we assume that by our moral standards, what they did were "mistakes" then we essentially put ourselves on a pedestal saying that our morals are the superlative in history. I think Martin Luther might be shocked at the way we dress, but our society wouldn't consider it a moral crime to wear a tank top. We should be careful about what we perceive as "mistakes"
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