A Short Life of Martin Luther by Thomas Kaufmann

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Short Life of Martin Luther by Thomas Kaufmann Hans Wiersma A Short Life of Martin Luther. By Thomas Kaufmann. Translated by Peter D. S. Krey and James D. Bratt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016. 146 pp. Using concise prose, Thomas Kaufmann offers the kind of brief overview that an average reader might plow through in a weekend. Readers who do so may wonder if they didn't learn as much from Kaufmann as they would have learned from a regular-length Luther biography. German-language readers have had access to Kaufmann's original since 2000 and to a revised edition since 2009. Kaufmann's brief biography is at last available in English thanks to the immensely readable translation provided by Peter Krey and James Bratt. Compact, clear, and erudite Luther biographies in English are in fact in short supply. Until now, the best of this small genre included James Nestingen's Martin Luther: A Life (2003) and Martin Marty's Martin Luther (2004). The genre's top tier has now been expanded with the appearance of Kaufmann's work in English. Kaufmann's version of the Luther-bio-in-short pays considerable attention to the ways in which Luther has been interpreted and memorialized. Indeed, in a general way, Kaufmann covers some of the territory covered in Robert Kolb's excellent Martin Luther as Hero, Prophet, Teacher: Images of the Reformer, 1520–1620 (1999). Kaufmann's project seeks to distinguish between the historical Luther and the Luther of faith (for lack of a better term). For Kaufmann, Luther represents a man who (a) "was thoroughly stamped by historical ambience" and (b) "knew himself to be completely determined and carried along by the immediate working of God" (8). Complicating matters, however, is the fact that Luther was himself "a man of opposite extremes, and on many fronts" (1). With the foregoing theses in place, Kaufmann sets out to describe and analyze Luther's extremities under three main headings: "The Search for Martin Luther," "Living in the Reformation of God," and "A Theological Life." Kaufmann begins the "Search for Martin Luther" with the claim that "the best place to begin to understand Luther is with his self-perception" (9). Although such a claim is certainly not incontrovertible from a historian's point of view, it is a useful approach as Kaufmann undertakes it. Luther's frequent self-assessments are highlighted as [End Page 85] we learn that the reformer resisted the many attempts to make him into something more than he saw himself to be. In "Living in the Reformation of God," Kaufmann summarizes Luther's life chronologically and in the usual mode: the early years through his time in the monastery, his vocations as "Monk and Professor," his advancement as an "Exegete of the Righteousness of God," his public roles as prophet, reformer, and teacher, but also heretic, as well as a brief description of his diminishing health, which Kaufmann labels "Thorns." Perhaps due to the condensed nature of the genre or to the author's emphasis on things theological, Luther's marriage and family life receive short shrift here. Kaufmann's objective of illustrating Luther's many sides might have been further substantiated with more than two mentions of Luther's two decades living with a woman he only half-jokingly addressed as "Herr Käthe." Fully half of Kaufmann's text is devoted to describing "A Theological Life" (as the last chapter is titled). Luther's own "ambivalent judgments and wavering expectations about his own literary legacy offer another parallel to his dialectical judgments about himself and to the theology of Saint Paul, in which the 'foolish word of the cross' became the criterion for the truth in the world" (56). In light of this cross, Kaufmann implements a sub-contrario lens in his evaluations of Luther's callings as pastor and professor, "the double burden of his two vocations" (72). Luther becomes a preeminent theologian not as a result of glorified breakthroughs or romanticized tower experiences, but rather in the crucible of oratio, meditatio, and tentatio. Theologians are formed through the cross of office and its attendant facets, including Anfechtungen. To this end, Kaufmann quotes Luther...