[1] Evener\u2019s revised University of Chicago dissertation explores relationships between selfhood, suffering, and the knowledge of truth in the early Reformation writings of Martin Luther, Andreas Karlstadt, and Thomas Muntzer. \u00a0Through meticulous textual work, this account also carefully attends to ways that each author drew differently on earlier traditions of Christian mysticism.\u00a0\u00a0 Evener notes that the mystics stressed the importance of individuals realizing their own insufficiency before God. They also posited that spiritual growth, and the knowledge of truth required a willingness to accept the suffering that God sent into their lives. The book proceeds to chapters on Luther, Karlstadt, and Muntzer before moving to a constructive summary of the exploration.\u00a0 It then chronicles each of the reformer\u2019s reactions to the Peasant\u2019s War.<\/p>\n
[2] Evener shows the various ways that the mystics argued that it is only after despairing one\u2019s ability to know and love God, that one begins to empty oneself in a way that allows God to fill an individual and allows that person to become an individual before God. Because of the nature of the Journal of Lutheran Ethics<\/em>, my review of this book focuses primarily on Evener\u2019s treatment of Luther. Even though I do not discuss them in detail, the book\u2019s nuanced treatments of both Karlstadt and Muntzer are important reading for historical theologians and those interested in the varying shapes of the reformers\u2019 social ethics. This volume also helps put Luther\u2019s theological anthropology of the self in relation to suffering and truth in comparative perspective to the other options circulating during the Reformation.<\/p>\n [3] Karlstadt and Muntzer began as Luther\u2019s allies, but eventually developed their own accounts of anthropology, especially the relationship between self-emptying and divine pedagogy. Evener shows how each reformer\u2019s anthropology shaped their differing visions for church life and reform, as well as their relation to secular authorities. \u00a0This is explicitly a work of history, so Evener does not explore what his work might mean for how confessionally faithful Lutherans might approach suffering in their own lives in the present day, an important question for ethicists. However, the book does detail how each reformer developed a program of social ethics. In addition, the final chapter treats each reformer\u2019s response to the Peasant\u2019s War.<\/p>\n [4] Luther\u2019s mystical influences came from his readings of German mystic Johannes Tauler and the so-called German Theology<\/em>. Evener provides a nuanced discussion of Luther\u2019s reception of these texts. \u00a0Through careful textual work Evener shows that the Wittenberg reformers had access to Eckhart\u2019s teachings through later mystics via the German Theology <\/em>and the writings of Henry Suso.<\/p>\n [5] Evener argues that Luther drew on mystical thinking and helped move its insights from the monastery into the lives of everyday Christians.\u00a0 The reformers drew on mystics especially in arguing that \u00a0Christians need to \u00a0accept their own \u201cnothingness before God in order to be born into true faith and to become instruments for God\u2019s work in the world.\u201d (p. 7)\u00a0 \u00a0Evener notes that Tauler took a critical stance toward asceticism and emphasized, instead, that the work of emptying the self is the work of the Holy Spirit, not a human work, something that dovetailed well with Luther\u2019s theology.<\/p>\n [6] The book points out that Luther\u2019s account of God\u2019s formation of the self draws from multiple sources, including: the mystics, Luther\u2019s readings of Scripture, and his critique of Catholic practices of formation. \u00a0Luther rejected the efficacy of what he called \u201cself-chosen suffering\u201d, that is, the suffering that Christians undertook on their own in an attempt to form holier selves. Such suffering was often connected with monastic vows or acts of penance. Luther also rejected the notion that one Christian could draw on the merits of another\u2019s suffering. Instead, Christians would be formed into faith by the suffering that God allowed them to undergo after they began to trust the Word. Hence, for Luther, true suffering happened in the course of the life of faith, one did not need to seek it out. God would use the Christians\u2019 trust in God\u2019s promises during these times of suffering to grow their faith through the Holy Spirit. It was trust rather than yielding that would become key to Luther\u2019s anthropology, a departure from Eckhardt.<\/p>\n [7] Evener\u2019s theological sensitivity and careful textual work make this book convincing. The book leaves key terms in the original language along with its translations, which will make it helpful for specialists. Historians will appreciate the book\u2019s careful comparison of the differences in the theological anthropologies of the various reformers, even as they began from similar starting points. \u00a0This book is also important for ethicists and pastoral theologians, given the light it sheds on how early Protestant Reformers understood the nature, purpose, and cause of suffering.\u00a0 Evener\u2019s work gives us tools to think about the role of suffering in our present-day lives in light of past Christian traditions.\u00a0 \u00a0Some might find Luther inattentive to suffering caused by what contemporary theology calls social or structural sin. I wonder how Luther would respond to our current thinking about multiple sources of suffering, including the suffering that results from unjust systems and structures, social sin and natural causes, rather than primarily seeing it as sent by God.\u00a0 How should ethicists in the Lutheran tradition think about suffering today, when it is more common to think about suffering in terms of social systems and structures, than it is to think about how God might form individual Christians through the suffering in their own lives? How do we address both?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [1] Evener\u2019s revised University of Chicago dissertation explores relationships between selfhood, suffering, and the knowledge of truth in the early Reformation writings of Martin Luther, Andreas Karlstadt, and Thomas Muntzer. \u00a0Through meticulous textual work, this account also carefully attends to ways that each author drew differently on earlier traditions of Christian mysticism.\u00a0\u00a0 Evener notes that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-martin-luther"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n