I did actually see the Luther movie last month, not long after I wrote about my interest in it, and I really enjoyed it. I've been meaning to write about it ever since, but things have been so crazy that I didn't have time.

It turns out that I wasn't quite accurate before when I called Luther a "big budget production." In fact, it was never released in most theaters (in Tucson, it's playing only in a single "art house" theater), and it seems to me that the sets and the supporting acting betrayed the modest resources that were available to director Eric Till. Still, I will take first-rate lead actors over a lavish production any day; and Luther certainly delivers the goods with Joseph Fiennes (of Shakespeare in Love) as the reformer, the great Sir Peter Ustinov as his political patron Frederick the Wise, Bruno Ganz as his spiritual mentor Father Johann von Staupitz, and Alfred Molina as the dastardly indulgence-seller John Tetzel.

Although their reviews are generally positive, several Christian movie critics raised legitimate concerns about the movie's historical accuracy, particularly regarding those aspects of Luther's life that the movie leaves out. Luther was a man whose flaws were obvious to all, particularly in his coarse language and the overheated killer instinct of his rhetoric. This is actually something that I (somewhat perversely) have always appreciated about Luther, because he is an illustration that great men of God are not dewy-eyed saints but "men of like passions" as the rest of us. Although the movie did briefly acknowledge some of these character flaws, I have to admit that I found Fiennes' portrayal to be a bit dewy-eyed at times. But to be fair, no movie can fully render the complexities of a human life, and I do not fault Fiennes for emphasizing Luther's idealism, his compassion, and his driving desire to understand and communicate God's truth.

In any movie based on fact, there is a fine line between being overly simplistic, and being sufficiently nuanced but confusing the audience. Within the limitations of the medium, the movie does a pretty decent job of portraying the complexity of Luther's times. In particular, the movie successfully resists the temptation of becoming an anti-Catholic rant. Although there was one troubling scene where Luther plays an audience for laughs while denouncing certain Catholic doctrines (although I disagree with those same doctrines, I personally have developed a severe reaction to the use of ridicule as a debating trick, thanks to the antics of certain people), the overall sense of the movie is that the abuses against which Luther was primarily reacting were caused by greedy men who ran the Catholic church, and were not intrinsic to the Church itself (precisely the correct view, in my opinion). There are several sympathetic Catholic characters, including a cardinal who laments that a more spiritually-minded Pope would have embraced the best of Luther's reforms and avoided schism. I particularly enjoyed Ganz's Father Johann, who teaches Luther early on the importance of personally relying upon Christ (I was very moved by the scenes of Luther responding to his spiritual torments with the prayer, "I am Yours, save me!"), and who sends him off to a university with the expectation that he will "change the world." Later on, Father Johann confronts Luther with the chaos that his preaching has caused, and accuses him of tearing the Church apart. Luther responds dramatically, "Did you think that changing the world would come without a cost?", and the audience is obviously meant to agree with him. Yet I found myself sympathizing with Father Johann's pain.

It's funny that I should say that, of course, because I am in fact a Protestant (which is to say that I do not accept all of the teachings of the Catholic Church), and it is thanks to Martin Luther that I have the right to believe the way I do. Of course, Luther's tremendous historical significance does not come from his crusade against greed and corruption in church leadership, but because of his theological ideas, and particularly because he fought for the right to believe differently from what is taught by authority figures. Although Luther's own attitudes on the subject were surely far from modern (just as Thomas Jefferson owned slaves as he wrote the Declaration of Independence, so Luther and other Reformers persecuted dissenters in their midst, even as they fought for their own freedom of conscience), Luther deserves much credit for bringing about our modern value of "Religious Liberty," and this is what makes his story something that everyone (not just Lutherans or other Christians) ought to know about.

How then should we look at the tearing apart of Christian unity that Luther brought, or the 150 years of horrific warfare that resulted? Could unity have been preserved if Luther had been a more diplomatic man, or if Pope Leo X had been a more able and conscientious leader? Of course, we will never know, and it is a tantalizing possibility to think about, but I highly suspect that the answer is "no." Men before Luther (who lived from 1483-1546) had tried to bring needed theological diversity to the Church, especially John Wyclif (1328-1384) in England and Jan Hus (1369-1415) in Bohemia, but they were thwarted by violent persecution from the Catholic leadership. Apparently, the world (or at least the spiritual leadership) was not yet ready for Religious Liberty, and probably nothing but force would have ever been sufficient to drive that needed reform. Luther's theological reforms were very similar to these predecessors, but he succeeded where they failed because he was able to tap into massive popular discontent over completely different issues (primarily the greed and general misconduct of the Catholic leadership). This is a great irony, as Religious Liberty is Luther's most important legacy to the modern world, yet it was not foremost in the minds of those who made his success possible. This brings up one of the great themes I got out of the movie: Revolutions may begin with idealism, but they soon become all about politics, and before long they become very very messy.

A depressing thought, but part of the world we live in. Luther does an excellent job of showing both the idealism that drove Luther to his actions, and the terrible mayhem and suffering that were the consequence. Yet, despite my sympathy for Father Johann, Luther did strike an important blow for the fundamental human right of believing according to one's own conscience, even in opposition to temporal or spiritual authorities. Of course, this is a right that is routinely denied to billions of people, even today, in many parts of the world. Those of us who live in free countries must do everything we can to continue to further this cause. 

Posted by Matt on 11/17/2003 02:48:00 PM