Martin Luther.

Martin Luther. By Martin Marty. New York: Penguin Group, 2004. xi and 199 pages. Cloth. $19.95.

The first time I read Martin Luther, I made the mistake of comparing it to the Luther filmstrip that I watched as a Confirmation student. I nodded along to the same dates, spiritual struggles, and courageous stances that summarize Luther's life. So I wondered: why another Luther biography? After all, the filmstrip I watched as a twelve-year-old described the same basic events as Martin Marty's new book. My second time through the book, however (it does well in a second reading), I noticed the list of other works in this Penguin Lives Series. Marty's biography stands alongside works on Crazy Horse, Elvis Presley, Joan of Arc, Mao Zedong, and Joseph Smith, to name a few. That list taught me that reading Luther to revisit a local hero will be disappointing; reading to meet a genuine Character will yield a reward.

Subtle decisions of style shape Martin Luther. First, though Marty knows his subject well, he succeeds in the Brechtian task of making Luther a stranger--someone with whom the audience might not feel comfortable. And just as Marty does not lionize Luther, he also refuses to indulge easy criticisms on Luther's life and teachings. More effectively, rather, Marty turns Luther's own law-and-gospel dialectic onto Luther's life, letting sin and salvation dwell together in this human heart. Even in biographical form Luther is sinner and saint: simultaneously guilty of his transgressions and justified by his faith in God's humbling love.

Fortunately, though, Marty does make use of one easy path: Luther's crude language, especially regarding God and sex. These vulgarisms succeed in lightening the mood and, as Luther intended, getting the story out of church and into a dirty world. In short, Marty has thrown Luther back onto the mean streets, exactly where he belongs.

Martin J. Lohrmann

Epiphany Lutheran Church

Toledo, Ohio