who taught me in graduate school always referred to Martin
Luther as “Friar Martin.” Far from being a heretic who deserved to be
burned at the stake, Luther was and remained a fellow Augustinian, a brother in faith,
who, unfortunately, was about 450 years ahead of his time.

In Martin Luther, Martin Marty, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago
and one of the most catholic non-Catholics I know, presents the story of one
of the most contentious and influential religious reformers in history.

Luther, as portrayed by Marty, is not an exercise in hagiography. He is presented
as a man of his time—both saintly and flawed. In speaking of Luther’s
positive and lingering contributions, Marty impressively lists several: the development
of human liberty, the free expression of conscience, the support of music, the development
of literary style, andLuther’s role in reshaping religious life.

Ultimately, though, Marty writes that Luther “makes most sense as a wrestler
with God, indeed as a God-obsessed seeker of certainty and assurance in a time of
social trauma and of personal anxiety, beginning with his own.”

Though his father advocated a career in law, in 1505 Luther, following a vow made
to St. Anne during a violent thunderstorm, became a monk. Certainty of belief would
not come from a life of asceticism and Church authority, however, but from the authority
of Scripture. Where and how this was discovered would be in Wittenberg as a teacher
of Scripture.

To make a long theological story short, in 1517 Luther had seen enough and protested,
nailing 95 Theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg. He objected to the lucrative
Church practice of selling indulgences