Martin Luther, On “people To Whom Christ Is Just A Joke And A Laughing-stock”

Luther at Worms — “I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.”
Martin Luther before the imperial assembly of Charles V in 1521 — the famous but, in English, unfortunately named “Diet of Worms” — where he may or may not have uttered the precise words quoted above. Painting by Hermann Wislicenus (d. 1899).
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image.)

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I’ve been reading somewhat about Martin Luther of late — chiefly in two very readable and readily accessible biographies of him: Roland H. Bainton’s classic Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (1950) and Eric Metaxas, Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World (2017). I like this passage of counsel from his collected Tischreden or “Table Talk”:

Do not be disturbed by people to whom Christ is just a joke and a laughing-stock . . . they live on, certain of everything and untroubled by the devil. Why should he bother them? They already belong to him.

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We attended a showing of Bright Spark: The Reconciliation of Trevor Southey at the 2022 LDS Film Festival on Thursday night. It’s a sad film in several important ways, but, at the same time, it’s a compassionate and curiously beautiful one — not least, obviously, because it’s about art and artists, but not only for that reason. It focuses principally on Trevor Southey, as its subtitle indicates, but also devotes substantial time to his fellow-artist friends Neil Hadlock, Dennis Smith, and Gary Ernest Smith (whom we know and with whom we have traveled). My wife and I also found it especially fascinating and moving, perhaps, because we lived through some of it, at least as spectators. The aspirations of the “Art and Belief” movement (as it was first called) were still resonating — and powerfully resonated with us — when we arrived as students at Brigham Young University, I from California and she from Colorado. We were young and hopeful and optimistic then. Great “Mormon” art and literature were just around the corner. As the poet Wordsworth put it regarding his youthful enthusiasm for the French Revolution, before disillusionment crept in:

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven!

Perhaps because I’m old and cynical, I realize now that the pending Latter-day Saint Renaissance will require some considerable time to materialize. There are good things out there, yes, but not as many as I had hoped we would have by now. So I’m very sympathetic to the palpable disappointment of the four artists portrayed in the film. I still believe that great things are coming — the Restoration cries out for treatment in art that is worthy of its history and its doctrines — but a very great deal of work remains to be done.

And, by the way, tonight is the premiere, also at the Festival, of Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon. I hope to see you there.

Martin Luther, on “people to whom Christ is just a joke and a laughing-stock”