Thoughts on the political philosophy of Martin Luther and his writing style? by Ruth Achilla

Umberto Eco, in the preface to the American edition of his book, Travels in hyper reality, said he liked to teach to expound still imperfect ideas and hear the students’ reaction. He called it a “difficult game” because it didn’t always work that you were reassured when you met agreement or had doubts when faced with dissent. Then he says something I found truly profound;
“Sometimes you have to follow the opposite course; Distrust agreement and find in dissent the conformation of your own intuitions.”

That for me epitomizes the nature of Luther’s political philosophy. Martin Luther, for all intents and purposes, was a man who spent pretty much all his life swimming up the proverbial stream. He was a monk who married a nun and then spent the rest of the tie causing all manner of mayhem in the Catholic Church.

I think it’s difficult not to like Luther. He is the kind of rebel you root for and hope his cause is furthered. It seems like he got tired of all the theory and rhetoric of the Catholic Church and decided to come up with a better plan.

His philosophy is based on the idea of dual membership, as ‘O’ Donovan and O’Donovan puts it. The idea is that every Christian is subject to the temporal law and sword, that this is something within the will of God. He talks about Romans 13 that goes on at length about being subject to governing authority and 1Peter 2:13-14 which pretty much reiterates Romans. He says that it is God’s will that temporal authority be used to punish wickedness and protect righteousness.

Luther believes that temporal laws exists or at least needs to exist because of how few Christians there actually are. He talks about true believers having the holy spirit who makes them good; convicts them of sin and righteousness so to speak. He supports this with 1Timothy 1:9; “The law is not laid down not for the first but for the lawless.”

In the same breath, this renegade teaches the Christians to be followers of the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. He clearly demonstrates the fact that Christians should be in the world but not of it – salt and light. He agrees entirely with Christ in Mathew 22:21 when He says, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”
He goes on and on about different things; church and state, conduct of believers and the like. Not unlike Eco, he was expounding on his still imperfect ideas and learning through experimentation. Regardless of how much I like the guy though, we don’t see eye to eye on every count. I don’t think one should pick and choose the parts of the Bible to believe in just because some contradict your beliefs. His dislike of the book of James, because in it James talks about faith without works being dead, is one of the things I disagree with Luther on.

There is a song by Maroon 5 titled ‘Moves like Jagger’ and it surprisingly got me thinking about Martin Luther. The song title and the lines of the song pretty much give you the impression that, Adam Levine, the guy singing it, is cool or awesome of whatever such word you’d use to describe him because he associates himself with Mick Jagger. Everyone knows Mick Jagger and the Rolling stones and how profound their music is and so by drawing a comparison between himself and Mick, he is saying to everyone, “I am that good!”

I think of Luther and the greatest compliment I can give him is; he has the moves like the apostle Paul. In a lot of ways, they are like the same person. Paul, formerly Saul, became this ‘rebel’ after seeing the light on the road to Damascus and started a remarked journey fighting the very institution he had once so fervently represented. Through his letters, he helped the churches see for themselves how remarkable the gifts of salvation were and how they should live know the inheritance they had.

Luther, the Paul of the reformation, pretty much followed in his footsteps. He taught faith where the Catholic Church taught the law, the spoke up for what he believed even though doing that was dangerous and he made a major difference with his writings.
So, what are my thoughts on Luther’s political philosophy and writing style? He was radical and passionate and driven: A true game changer with moves like Paul.