{"id":29281,"date":"2017-09-01T05:45:36","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T09:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=29281"},"modified":"2017-08-31T07:15:40","modified_gmt":"2017-08-31T11:15:40","slug":"my-book-on-luther-is-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/09\/my-book-on-luther-is-back\/","title":{"rendered":"My Book on Luther is Back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Luther<\/a><\/p>\n

About 12 years ago, I wrote a little book on Martin Luther. \u00a0I was asked to do so as part of a series of brief biographies of important leaders. \u00a0The series wasn\u2019t in wide release, so that volume has been kind of hard to come by. \u00a0But browsing on Amazon, I see that the book has come back.<\/p>\n

A Place to Stand: \u00a0The Word of God in the Life of Martin Luther<\/a>\u00a0follows the prescribed format of listing character traits and leadership principles, in addition to telling his life story. \u00a0But the main idea of the book develops a point I found in John Carroll\u2019s The Wreck of Western Culture: \u00a0Humanism Revisited<\/a>. \u00a0He discusses and applies the statement by Archimedes, the Greek mathematician and physicist who formulated the workings of the lever:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cGive me a place to stand and I\u2019ll move the world.\u201d (quoted<\/a> in Pappus\u2019 \u00a0\u03a3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03b3\u03c9\u03b3\u03ae 8.1060: \u0394\u03cc\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u1fb7 \u03c3\u03c4\u1ff6 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u1f70\u03bd \u03b3\u1fb6\u03bd \u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03c9)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Theoretically, there are no limits to how much weight a person could move with a simple lever. \u00a0With a lever long enough and a place to stand, a person could indeed move the world. \u00a0But, of course, there is no place to stand. \u00a0We cannot stand outside the world in order to move it.<\/p>\n

This speaks to more than levers. \u00a0How can a person change the culture when we are so immersed in the culture? \u00a0How can we change ourselves? \u00a0We ARE ourselves. \u00a0We have no place to stand.<\/p>\n

But at the Diet of Worms, when\u00a0Luther had to account for himself, he invoked not culture, not himself, but the Word of God. \u00a0\u201cHere I stand.\u201d \u00a0Luther had a place to stand. \u00a0And he did<\/em> move the world.<\/p>\n

The book discusses Luther\u2019s impact on the church, but also on the world\u2013on education, the family, the economy, social mobility, government, the arts, etc., etc.\u2013not as in so many Reformation anniversary books today, which downplay Luther\u2019s theology in favor of his cultural influence. \u00a0Rather, I try to show how these cultural influences grew out of his theology. \u00a0Specifically, on the impact of the Word of God.<\/p>\n

So you might like to read the book, if only as an activity for the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation.<\/p>\n