pat loughery

I watched the movie Luther yesterday and today. I didn’t expect it to be as moving as it was, from many different angles.

As the articles on IMDB and Hollywood Jesus will tell you, it’s a biography of Martin Luther, the young theologian-monk from Germany who initiated the process of church revolution and the socio-political upheaval that split the world and the church.

The early part of the movie focuses on the corruption of power within the church that Luther rejected, and then on the circumstances surrounding Luther’s excommunication and the resulting political upheaval that the German hierarchy and peasantry fought through. It continues by seeing Luther’s decision to translate the New Testament into the peoples’ language and the impact that reading the Scriptures has on its readers and its proclaimers.

The movie deemphasizes Luther’s realization that salvation is by grace through faith. It perhaps overemphasizes the devil’s torment of Luther and his reactions to it. It presents a moving tribute to the personal courage and faith that Luther embodied.

I’m also impacted by the extent to which this story continues to inform the Christian followers today. I frequently hear the world “catholic” spoken as if it were a curse, or at least an unholy word. I grew up Catholic, and although there are portions of the theology of that tradition that I disagree with, it helped to shaped who I am today. I didn’t grow up hearing a focus on indulgences, purgatory, Mary-worship, anti-Protestant religious bias, or many things that are assumed by protestant people who are zealous to defend their own stream of faith by denegrating others.

I’d like to reread the story of Martin Luther and watch the movie again. I would imagine that for those raised in the Lutheran church tradition, this movie would be a powerful image.