On the Word, Wittenberg Beer, and Christian vs Islamic Expansion
"I can drive no man to heaven or beat him into it with a
club." So observed Luther on March 11th, 1522, in a sermon to
Wittenberg parishioners. Though his point was rather obvious, Luther felt compelled
to make it because in his absence from Wittenberg during the preceding ten
months, certain persons had grown impatient with the progress of reformation in
the city and had resorted to means of legal compulsion and/or violence to bring
about the changes in doctrine and worship they desired.
Luther had, in fact, made the same point in a sermon to the
same audience the preceding day. Having insisted in no uncertain terms upon the
necessity of faith in Christ for salvation, from which faith love for God and
others as well as pure worship necessarily springs, Luther emphasized in that
earlier sermon that such faith itself properly springs from the proclamation of
God's promises, not from the use of force: "I cannot, nor should I, force
anyone to have faith." Indeed, the use of force is ultimately, in Luther's
estimation, unnecessary and unfruitful for the successful expansion of God's
kingdom, because the divine word of promise -- first as it is encountered in
Scripture and then as it is proclaimed by God's ordained ministers -- accomplishes
that very task. "The Word created heaven and earth and all things; the Word
must do this thing [i.e., achieve the conversion of men], and not we poor
sinners." For our part "we should give free course to the Word and not add our
works" -- that is, our means of coercion -- "to it." "We should,"
that is, "preach the Word, but the results must be left solely to God's good
pleasure."
Luther discovered a perfect example of the Word's ability to
grow God's kingdom sans a baton or
baseball bat in his own experience of the preceding years. "I opposed
indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught,
preached, and wrote God's Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or
drank Wittenberg beer with my friends..., the Word so greatly weakened the papacy
that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing;
the Word did everything."
It's questionable whether Luther retained his position on
the exclusive prerogative of the Word to accomplish the growth of Christ's
kingdom in later years. Increasingly alarmed over time by the extreme efforts
of Anabaptists to implement their own version of a spiritual/civil kingdom by
force (which means, thankfully, they never possessed in sufficient measure),
Luther grew ever more tolerant of the use of reciprocal force to keep the
Anabaptists in line, civilly and (perhaps) religiously. One could, maybe, argue
that his position remained consistent, and that the force against the
Anabaptists he eventually endorsed was purely towards the end of political
restraint rather than religious uniformity.
Regardless, the willingness Luther showed even in the 1520s
to see civil offenders repressed by
military/legal means reminds us that his doctrine of the Word's power was
specifically a theological point
about how Christ's kingdom is sustained and increased, not a generic
endorsement of persuasion vis-à-vis coercion in every conceivable context. A strong hand
is sometimes required to keep wayward citizens -- or, for that matter, wayward
children -- in line. Only the Word, however, can produce genuine faith, hope, and
love directed towards God within a man, woman, or child.
Luther found a biblical example of the Word's exclusive
power to bring about renewal and reform in the Acts 17 account of Paul's
missionary work in Athens. "When Paul came to Athens, a mighty city, he found
in the temple many ancient altars, and he went from one to the other and looked
at them all, but he did not kick down a single one of them with his foot.
Rather he stood up in the middle of the market place and said they were nothing
but idolatrous things and begged the people to forsake them; yet he did not
destroy one of them by force. When the Word took hold of their hearts, they
forsook them of their own accord."
Luther might, had he wished, have found a further
illustration of his point in church history, from a consideration of how
Christianity spread in its earliest centuries. The first three centuries of
Christians spread the gospel exclusively by means of proclamation. Indeed, they
had little choice. Because their newfound religion was deemed illegal, they
were consistently marginalized from positions of political, social, or military
influence, and were at least occasionally made the victims of intense
persecution. They witnessed to the reality that God in Christ was reconciling
the world to himself with their lips and, on occasion, with their lives. By the
very nature of their situation, they were prevented from promoting Christ's
kingdom by establishing "Christian" nations or by commandeering the legislative
or judicial machinery of existing states. Significantly, it was the greatest
period of growth the Christian church has ever experienced, even in the absence
of the factor of Wittenberg beer.
The early expansion of Christianity stands in marked
contrast to the early expansion of Islam in this regard. From early on,
Mohammed and his followers employed whatever military means they could muster
to further the spread of their religion. Within a decade of Mohammed's death,
Muslims had spread from their base in the Arabian Peninsula to conquer Palestine.
Within little more than a century of Mohammed's death, Islam had conquered
Syria, Persia, Northern Africa, and much of the Iberian Peninsula. All of this,
of course, was by force, even if forced "conversions" as such grew thinner (being
less politically expedient) the farther Islam stretched from its geographical home
base. Such military accomplishments were remarkable, but not unprecedented
(think, for example, of Alexander the Great), and thus no sure sign of divine
favor. The rapid expansion of Christianity without
means of force (indeed, in the presence of much persecution), by way of
contrast, is remarkable, and arguably points to a providential kindness towards
the doctrine championed by the earliest Christians.
Christians have rather often been a bit slow to learn the
lesson that Luther, Scripture, and church history jointly teach us in this
regard. The temptation to trust in
force -- whether personal, financial, or political in kind -- for the expansion of
Christ's kingdom, even when force is not actually employed, is constant. It is
the flip-side of the temptation not to believe that God's Word can actually, in
God's perfect timing, bring sinners into his Kingdom, or bring that Kingdom to
its eschatological realization. One gauge of where our confidence for the
success of the gospel actually lies might be the optimism/pessimism we feel
over the outcome of political elections or particular pieces of government
legislation. There is, of course, every reason to participate in political
processes to bring about the best conceivable civil state for ourselves and our
neighbors, believing and unbelieving alike. There is, equally, every reason not
to get too worked up over either our successes or failures in such efforts; we
are, after all, heirs of a kingdom which will not be achieved by political
process, but will flourish through the proclamation of God's promise and the
power of that proclamation to generate true (that is, justified, sanctified,
and eventually glorified) citizens of the same.
Aaron Clay Denlinger is professor of church history and historical theology at Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Florida.