Shema alexander biography of martin luther

Why let the nations say, “Where is their God?” Our God is in the heavens, and he does as he wishes. – Psalm 115:2-3

I’m told that after an earthquake in California a group of ministers met for a prayer breakfast. As they discussed impassable expressways and ruined buildings, they agreed that God had very little to do with the disaster. They concluded that since the earth is under the Curse from Creation, earthquakes and other natural disasters simply happen according to laws of nature. But even after they made that conclusion, one of the ministers closed in prayer, thanking God for the timing of the earthquake that came at five o’clock in the morning when there were fewer people out on the roads.

So did God have anything to do with that earthquake or didn’t He? How can a person conclude that God is not involved and then thank Him for His involvement? It can’t be both ways.

Hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes. Our earth is not immune to disasters. So how does God fit in? Intuitively, people know God is in charge. When tragedy strikes, people call out to Him. We know that when something is outside of our control, we need to call upon a higher power for help. But if people intuitively know that God is in charge, how do we explain the heart-wrenching suffering that accompanies such disasters?

Who Is Responsible?

There’s no doubt about it—natural disasters aren’t very good for God’s reputation. As a result, many Christians try to absolve Him of any and all responsibility for these horrific events. They want to “get Him off the hook” in order to help Him maintain His loving image. Some do this by saying that God is weak—He can’t really stop these disasters from happening, but He will work really hard to bring something good out of them. Others try to give the devil all the blame, saying God is not involved at all in any of the bad things that happen—He’s just a bystander.

Is God Weak?

Let’s begin with people who try to protect God’s repu

Table of contents :
Contents
Abbreviations
1. ‘Angel of the Lord’ or ‘Damned Heretic’: Martin Luther in the Trends of the Times
2. Set on His Way: Luther’s Life to 1519
3. The Formation of the Theologian: The Medieval Roots of Luther’s Thought
4. In Via Vittembergensi: Luther Develops His Hermeneutic
5. The Emergence of the Reformer: Luther’s Decisive Turn to Reform
6. Fast Bound in Satan’s Chains I Lay: Luther’s View of the Fallen Human Creature
7. Christ Jesus Holds the Field Victorious: Luther’s Understanding of the Person of Christ, the Atonement, and Justification
8. One Little Word Can Slay Him: God’s Power and Presence in the Oral, Written, and Sacramental Forms of His Word
9. Lambs Listening to their Shepherd: Christ’s Church and its Struggles
10. Faith Active in Love: Christian Living on the Foundation of God’s Calling and Command
Conclusion: Martin Luther, Confessor of the Faith and Pastor of God’s People
Bibliography
Index
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Index of Scripture passages

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C H R I S T I A N T H E O LO G Y I N C O N T E X T S E R I E S E D I TO R S

Timothy Gorringe Serene Jones Graham Ward

C H R I S T I A N T H E O LO G Y I N C O N T E X T Any inspection of recent theological monographs makes plain that it is still thought possible to understand a text independently of its context. Work in the sociology of knowledge and in cultural studies has, however, increasingly made obvious that such divorce is impossible. On the one hand, as Marx put it, ‘life determines consciousness’. All texts have to be understood in their life situation, related to questions of power, class, and modes of production. No texts exist in intellectual innocence. On the other hand, texts are also forms of cultural power, expressing and modifying the dominant ideologies through which

LTR 33 (2021): 46-64 The Nazification of Martin Luther* John P. Hellwege A T TIMES IT IS CHALLENGING TO BE A LUTHERAN who is also looking at the religious movements within the Third Reich. It sometimes seems like one is studying about two different men, both named Martin Luther. As a Lutheran, you hear about Luther as the champion of the Gospel, who emphasised God’s love for mankind in sending Jesus to be our saviour. You study a man who was at times crass, but clearly a theologian at heart. Then when you turn your attention to the National Socialist writings you find a Luther who was first and foremost a Germanic hero. This is a man who championed the German people and called for the extermination of the Jewish people. What is one to make of this? To be sure, it seems absurd to claim that Martin Luther was a National Socialist, based on simple chronology alone. Similarly, Luther’s own theological and political ideas are in no way reflected directly in National Socialist thought. He was a product of his own time and thought in totally different ways from Germans in the 1930s and 1940s. Nevertheless, the National Socialists actively promoted an image of Luther that fit their worldview.1 Heiko Oberman notes: “A survey of the literature on Luther during the Nazi era leaves the impression that the Reformation was the very birth hour of the brown-garbed nationalist movement itself; that Nazism was Luther’s gift to ‘his beloved Germans.’”2 Just how much Martin Luther was the forerunner of Nazism has been the subject of intense debate ever since the Second World War. The debate was first sparked by Peter Wiener in his work, Martin Luther, * An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Canadian Centre for Scholarship and the Christian Faith Conference: “500 Years of Reformation”, 25 March 2017, at Concordia University of Edmonton. 1 ALEXANDER VON BORMANN, “Luther im Nationalsozialismus: die Versöhnung von Wotan und Christus”, i