Amazing Grace: Reformation Day
Church today was a sea of red. It is Reformation Sunday and red is the traditional color. Of course, if you are not a Lutheran, Reformation Day may not mean quite as much. To the general public, Martin Luther is often depicted as a brooding, personally troubled man. The pictures of him show a square-jawed German with a grim mouth and a furrowed brow. Growing up in a Lutheran home, I was sure he had been a brave but angry man, nailing his 95 Thesis on the door of the church in Wittenberg and starting a religious revolution. Even his decision to enter the priesthood, a vow to St. Anne if she would deliver him from the fury of a sudden storm, seemed to be born of fire. Luther, who was not a simple monk, but a highly educated theologian, is a frequently misunderstood revolutionary. He profited from being the right man at the right moment. Luther’s ideas came at an economically and politically advantageous time. Because of this, he had promoters and protecto