Robert Rosin
To appreciate fully Martin Lutherâs contributions to education, we must place him in the broadest historical context possible. Although centuries have passed, Martin Luther continues to capture public interest and make an impact on daily life. In 2003 a poll done by ZDF, the âSecond German Television Network,â ranked Luther second only to Konrad Adenauer among the most influential Germans of all time. Lutherâs place is all the more striking given that Karl Marx stood third, still high in memory not long after the Wende linking the East and the West. But Lutherâs strong showing is not confined to German culture. Scan the shelves of any decent liberal arts research library and there are likely to be found more books written about Luther than about any other figure in human history with the exception of Jesus Christ. Luther certainly would not mind finishing second on that list.
Luther cast a shadow across the years with, above all, his focus on the personal assurance of salvation by faith alone due to Godâs grace alone, his central message rooted ultimately in Scripture alone. But given that the sacred and secular were so intertwined in his era, and given that Luther struck hard at both the message and the authority of the institutional church embedded in that mix, he was bound also to affect a broad range of social issues during his lifetime. That influence has held over the years even as Luther sparked a variety of interpretations about both his reform movement and his wider connections in society.
Impassioned debate has long swirled around the Reformer. Already in his lifetime he was consigned to the depths of hell, and a few years later he was made nearly to walk on water â or fly through the heavens as the angel in Revelation 14 bearing the everlasting gospel. In another angle (not angel) more down to earth, Lutherâs take on natural law and his support for order and stability in society served a seventeenth century keen on building a legal foundation for developing nations. While his understanding of reason was highly nuanced, Lutherâs dramatic stand at Worms was hardly a seven-league stride toward rationalism. Yet the Enlightenment found the episode too good to let pass unused â misused! â in its effort to trump revelation with the human intellect. In fact, ratio evidens, the âclear reasonâ that Luther invoked before Emperor Charles at Worms, was explained in Lutherâs lines that followed: his was a conscience captive (that is, a mind shaped) by the Word of God. This was no double standard but rather a mind that âfilled in the blanksâ of daily life where Scripture did not speak. This mind was the product of a certain kind of education!
In the nineteenth century, some took Lutherâs law-gospel dialectic as a religious parallel to the Renaissance, soft-pedaling his theological elements while accenting the existential in tracking toward the modern age. For others, Lutherâs reform was a drag anchor, for in throwing off one kind of smothering authority â institutional church and pope â Luther opened the door for a different tyranny of dogma resting on the reading â his reading â of texts. Another interpretation did not concern itself with Lutherâs theology per se but objected to the fact that theology of any sort was taken at face value. So Luther was right for turning religion inward on the self, but he still treated God as a real entity. It would be left to later generations to expose religion for what it really was, namely, self-alienated psychology. Still others would try to seat those alienated ideas in a society that Luther allegedly betrayed, turning on the common people, though he still served a purpose in their march toward power.
A Luther Renaissance in the twentieth century revisited the Reformation as fundamentally a theological movement, though it did not ignore the wider cultural influence. Whether focusing on dialectical elements or on confessional accents or making the case for some tack said to have been overlooked â theosis â a balanced take on Lutherâs thought had to appreciate its broad impact in a complex world.
One might wonder what these wide-ranging interpretations have to do with Luther and education. In fact, whether they are on the mark or not, on another level they illustrate the sort of educated engagement with Lutherâs world of thought that Luther himself might approve. Rather than throttle investigation, Luther saw the gift of the intellect as one of the striking features of humankind as Godâs special creation. In a long view of Lutherâs impact on education, these varied interpretations were the product of educational forces Luther himself encouraged. In Lutherâs day, not only how people saw their relationship with God, but also how they understood their daily-life roles in Godâs creation all rested firmly on what they came to learn and believe. No wonder Luther had a keen interest in education. It was learning for life to come and for life now.
Luther was a great promoter of education. He was not a tactician or a detail man, leaving others to work on the nuts and bolts. But because of his outsized presence, when he spoke, people listened. He provided an immense service by arguing simply for the need for more than a cursory education, thinking through the purpose and goal as this all related not only to the Reformation cause but also to life in general. Along the way he tried to persuade and cajole those who took short views and shortchanged education. His was not a selfish concern, simply wanting better-prepared students for the university (though he probably would not have complained). Rather, Lutherâs interest had theological as well as practical roots. His Reformation grew out of what was going on in education in his day, and his Reformationâs expansion and continued success would depend on a strong educational foundation. As time passed, the Reformation realized the debt it owed and continued to incorporate larger educational trends and tools in its curricula. That all is worth a closer look.
Luther had not planned a career in academia. It was really thrust upon him. His climb up the educational ladder â Mansfeld, Magdeburg, Eisenach, Erfurt â was intended to prepare for a legal career that would benefit his family. When law studies gave way to the monastery, Luther convinced himself he could do his family even more good with his devotions and prayers. He would have preferred to learn simply to be a good monk and in serving God also to help save his soul. But others in authority saw potential, so he was soon back in the university, but now in theology, a student first but later appointed to Wittenbergâs faculty. Professors were supposed to contribute to the development of theological thought. They could not simply repeat the old arguments but were expected to add to the theological corpus in some way. The pressure was on. Newly minted instructors today can relate: the well is not yet deep enough, everything is all too new, and there are students waiting for something they can etch in stone when the ink on the lecture notes is not yet even dry. So Luther scrambled to help students even while helping himself. He used the best tools available to him from the scholarly world, reaching beyond the standard fare to glean insights from scholars known as humanists, an interesting bunch that paid more attention to the grammar and sense of the texts than the logic of how things might be.
As evangelical biblical theology came clear in Lutherâs own mind, he took those insights into the classroom, not simply because they filled the lecture hour, but moved by a personal, pastoral connection, Luther realized his students could also be searching for peace just like their professor. When higher-ups in the church condemned him for the Reformation uproar, Luther would have none of it. His superiors had made him a doctor of theology when he only wanted the monkâs cowl, not the doctorâs cap. He was only doing what was expected of a professor in making the results of his research â thrilling results as it turned out â known to his students and to the larger church. In a sense, then, the Reformation could be seen as the product of an education revolution â the revival of the liberal arts that fueled a theological revolution that would center on Wittenberg. (We will take up below how that change at Wittenberg came about.)
Luther did not come to Wittenberg intending to get involved in educational reform. But he found himself thrown into a university still in formation. Together with key allies â humanist Georg Spalatin, the chancellor/adviser who had the ear of Elector Frederick, who paid the bills â Luther helped transform this fledgling âacademic Siberiaâ into arguably the most influential school of its time. Luther did not do this as a professional pedagogue. He was first a preacher, holding forth with the message he uncovered in the Scriptures. But he understood that even while preachers want to raise up the level of their hearers, so educators also make a difference as they teach the Word. As Luther said, âIf I were to or had to give up the preaching office and what goes with it, I would rather have no other office than that of schoolmaster or a teacher of boys, for I know that next to preaching, this is the best and most necessary position.â It is a shrewd observation. Preaching is more than exhortation. A sermon also ought to teach people about the faith in some way or from some angle. Conversely, curriculum not only teaches but also preaches a larger message on how that academic community views its task. A curriculum marked by the old approach of logic and dialectic with Aristotleâs influence that had dominated now for several centuries shaped minds one way. As Luther discovered the gospel and did so not only without Aristotle but despite Aristotle, he urged that his unofficial approach be taken into the formal curriculum.
The correspondence and doc...
