October 2017 marks five hundred years since Martin Luther nailed
his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg and launched the
Protestant Reformation. At least, that's what the legend says. But
with a figure like Martin Luther, who looms so large in the
historical imagination, it's hard to separate the legend from the
life, or even sometimes to separate assorted legends from each
other. Over the centuries, Luther the man has given way to Luther
the icon, a polished bronze figure on a pedestal. In A World
Ablaze, Craig Harline introduces us to the flesh-and-blood Martin
Luther. Harline tells the riveting story of the first crucial years
of the accidental crusade that would make Luther a legendary
figure. He didn't start out that way; Luther was a sometimes-cranky
friar and professor who worried endlessly about the fate of his
eternal soul. He sought answers in the Bible and the Church
fathers, and what he found distressed him even more - the way many
in the Church had come to understand salvation was profoundly
wrong, thought Luther, putting millions of souls, not least his
own, at risk of damnation. His ideas would pit him against numerous
scholars, priests, bishops, princes, and the Pope, even as others
adopted or adapted his cause, ultimately dividing the Church
against itself. A World Ablaze is a tale not just of religious
debate but of political intrigue, of shifting alliances and daring
escapes, with Luther often narrowly avoiding capture, which might
have led to execution. The conflict would eventually encompass the
whole of Christendom and served as the crucible in which a new
world was forged. The Luther we find in these pages is not a statue
to be admired but a complex figure - brilliant and volatile,
fretful and self-righteous, curious and stubborn. Harline brings
out the immediacy, uncertainty, and drama of his story, giving
readers a sense of what it felt like in the moment, when the ending
was still very much in doubt. The result is a masterful recreation
of a momentous turning point in the history of the world.
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