What is it about?
In her former books, Lyndal Roper focused her attention on women and the body in early modern history. The body, in different expressions, plays a central role in Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet, where Roper attempts to show how the complex elements of physical and emotional disorders had a major effect on Luther’s teachings. According to Roper’s analysis, certain aspects of Luther’s theology were intrinsically related to Judaism. Perhaps it was this closeness that aroused his anti-Jewish attacks. Roper suggests that closeness is the result of a number of factors...
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Why is it important?
Roper explains: Whatever else Luther was, he was no killjoy. He saw sexuality as sinful but only in the way that all our actions are sinful, and this perspective freed him to be remarkably positive about the body and physical experience. Thus, Luther believed that having sex was positive and right in the eyes of God within the framework of marriage and family.
Perspectives
The emancipation of repressed bodily needs, which Luther declared, also made an impact on his anti-Jewish writings. A crescendo of anti-Jewish revulsion burst out in Luther’s late tracts, as Roper clearly demonstrates, making extensive use of Luther’s less recognized but no less toxic Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi (On the Ineffable Name and the Generations of Christ, 1543). Roper conclusively explains: Luther was not ‘modern, and unless we appreciate his thought in his own unfamiliar and often uncomfortable terms, we will not see what it might have to offer us today. Indeed, one should approach Luther and his world with this caveat in mind.
Dr. Nathan Ron
The University of Haifa
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet. By Lyndal Roper. New York: Random, 2018. xxiii + 592 pp. $20.00 paper., Church History, June 2020, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s000964072000092x.
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