Welcome to the first of our
Kessler Conversations entitled
"Christian Ethics
in Times of Plague.
My name is Bo Adams.
And I serve as the
director of Pitt's Theology
Library, the home of the
Richard C. Kessler Reformation
Collection.
One of the great traditions
of Pitt's Theology Library
is our annual Reformation Day
At Emory, which for the past 32
years has been an
occasion for us to gather
in the library for
fellowship, worship,
to learn about the
reformation, and to celebrate
this incredible rare book
collection, now North America's
premier collection of printed
books and manuscripts related
to the reforms of Martin
Luther and his colleagues,
as well as the responses
and ensuing debates
of the 16th century.
Clearly, the 33rd
year of this event
has to look a
little bit different
than it did for
the first 32 years,
yet another time that the
COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted
our lives.
However, despite my great
desire to see you all in person
and conduct our
regular Reformation Day
programming, where I get
the opportunity to show off
the incredible acquisitions
we've made this past year,
I'm excited for the
opportunity that this
brings to offer our
collection and our programming
to new people that we can
invite into our conversation.
We have a lot of
folks here who may not
be familiar with the
Kessler Collection,
and I want to send them
a special greeting.
The pandemic gives us an
opportunity to re-envision
how we can answer
the question that
stands in the very core
of the Kessler Collection.
And that is what
relevance and impact do
these 500-year-old
works and debates hold
for contemporary communities?
That's the question
that drives all
of our acquisitions,
our exhibitions,
and our programming.
Today's conversation
is a perfect example
of an attempt to answer
that question of relevance.
One cannot, of course, make
it very long through the day
without the interruptions of
the pandemic coming to mind,
whether that be in the form
of masks or social distancing
or just the general unease
and angst of this disease,
not to mention the suffering
and grief it has brought
to so many.
And so this fall,
we thought we'd
ask what relevance the
Kessler Collection might have
for all of us who are
facing disease, death,
and the challenge of pastoring
in such frightful times.
I'm thrilled to welcome today
as our expert on this topic
Professor Anna Johnson of
Garrett-Evangelical Theological
Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.
Dr. Johnson is a renowned
teacher and scholar
of the Reformation.
She's currently associate
professor of Reformation Church
History at Garrett.
A PhD graduate of Princeton
Theological Seminary,
she's the author of dozens
of books, essays, articles,
and reviews, including the 2017
monograph Beyond Indulgences--
Luther's Reform of Late
Medieval Piety, 1518 to 1520,
a book in which she draws
close attention to Luther's
early pastoral writings and
argues that it was practical
and pastoral concerns that
were foundational for Luther's
early theology and protest
against the excesses
of the Church.
Today, she joins us to
talk about Christian ethics
in the time of plague,
helping us understand
how Luther in the
early Reformation
responded to their own
situations of disease
and death, and how
that might help
us understand how we are to
live in these challenging times.
And so Professor
Johnson, thank you
so much for taking the time to
be with us, particularly as I
imagine you yourself
are quite busy trying
to figure out the challenges
of teaching during a pandemic.
Thank you.
I'm glad to be here.
So before we jump
right in, I just
want to give a little bit
of housekeeping on how
this conversation will proceed.
I'm going to ask a series of
questions to Professor Johnson
and we'll have a conversation
about this topic.
But as you come up with
your own questions,
particularly as we move
through the conversation,
I encourage you to ask them.
And you can do that
through the Q&A tab
that you see to the
right of your screen.
If you type your questions
there, we will get them.
And then as time
affords at the end,
I will ask some
of those questions
to Professor Johnson
for her response.
So with that aside, I want
to begin the conversation.
And I want to start with
a really broad question,
and that is simply why
do you study and teach
the reformation?
And I'm particularly
curious in the context
of a Christian seminary
in which you teach.
As you prepare the
next generations
of pastoral leaders, why do you
think it's important for them
to know about events and
figures from the 16th century?
Well, first of all, I
study the Reformation
because it's fascinating.
It's a time when
everything is changing.
And the shape of the new church
is completely up in the air.
Everybody's debating the
best way to do things.
And so you get this really
vigorous debate about how
things should be, what does
the ideal church look like,
and what does the ideal
society look like?
Because there are a lot
of societal implications
for the sorts of changes
that are being suggested.
For students, I think
there are a number of ways
that I think this could
be important for their
development, and
especially, I think,
as students who are going to
be public figures as pastors
and community leaders.
So one thing is just
to understand why
things are the way they are.
More recently, the late
medieval and Reformation periods
have been called the
early modern period.
And the reason for
that, even though it's
sort of a more generic name,
is that so much of what
happened during this time shaped
the modern world as we know it.
And so you get not only
the birth of Protestantism,
but also the birth of
modern Catholicism.
You also have the
birth of colonialism
and a new global economy that
still has a lot of echoes
today.
It's the birth of
Scientific Revolution,
the rise of
nationalism in Europe,
so all things that are really
hallmarks of the modern world
and they're all intertwined.
So to be able to,
I think, engage
this modern world and
all of its complexities,
I think you have to have
some understanding of how
all of those factors
created that world.
And I think, secondly,
despite the fact
that it's 400 to
500 years ago, there
are still a striking
number of similarities
to the world in the 16th
century and to our world.
I think of this
in terms of right
now where the North
American churches are,
I think there's a similar
sense of everything
being sort of
unsettled and changing
and sort of major
questions in terms
of what shape the Church should
take being just up in the air.
And I think that can be
overwhelming and maybe
even sometimes hopeless.
It's hard to know
how we even start
to figure out what steps
we take when there are so
many unknowns.
So one of the
advantages, I think,
of studying the
Reformation, then,
is that we get to see how
people who have gone before us
have tackled these
same sorts of questions
in different contexts,
but still, again,
with quite a lot
of similarities.
And I think we start to
realize maybe that this is just
part of being human and
part of being the Church,
which for me, anyway, reduces a
little bit of the anxiety of oh
no, we're facing something
no one's ever faced before
and we have to figure
it out all by ourselves.
I don't think that history gives
these prepackaged suggestions.
But we can see ways that
others have approached them
and then take some of
the sort of best ideas
based on the context
that they were
in and the context that
we're in and see if we
can find some wisdom in those.
And then finally,
I think for me,
and this does come out
especially in the pandemic,
it's been helpful just to take
courage from these people.
It's often amazing
and quite humbling
what people were willing to
sacrifice for their faith
and for their convictions.
And I think when we see those
convictions and sacrifices
close up, it can really put our
own concerns in perspective,
and maybe encourage us to take
a little bit of a longer view,
to pursue the things that
are more important in life
rather than the things that
tend to grab our attention
in the day-to-day.
That's wonderful.
Thank you so much
for sharing it.
I want to talk about
Luther in particular.
And I was really interested
in talking to you,
because at least as I understand
your work, you've, in a sense,
worked to kind of
rebrand Luther.
And what I mean by that is
for many of us, at least
for this librarian,
I think about Luther
as kind of this great
reformer of institutions,
as kind of an iconoclast
in some sense, who
saw abuses of the Church
and wanted to reform them
or to remove them.
But your work seems to focus
on Luther's early writings,
and particularly
his pastoral work.
And that presents a bit of
a different view of Luther.
You identify that
even when Luther
is decrying abuses
of the Church,
it's pastoral concerns that
are driving his reform.
So can you tell us a little
bit about Luther the pastor
and Luther as a
pastoral reformer
as we kind of turn our
eye to think about Luther
in the context of disease?
Yeah, so I started looking
at these pastoral works.
They're written in German.
And it was sort of a way
to get at the Reformation
from a different angle.
The tendency for historians
for centuries has been to study
the so-called great men--
and they are all men--
but the major thinkers and their
public acts and their writing.
And especially when
studying theologians,
this almost always means
reading their Latin writings,
because the big, complex,
and academic works
and the political
dealings happen in Latin.
But I became aware that Luther
wrote an enormous amount
in German.
And that this has a much
broader audience, obviously,
because literacy
rates for German
were higher than
they are for Latin.
So it was intriguing me to
think about what sort of impact
this would have had on people,
having this broader audience.
And I noticed that early
in his conflict with Rome,
he wrote a large number of
these pamphlets in German.
And they're explaining,
essentially, various aspects
of a life of faith,
and then connecting
that with this protest movement
or this burgeoning conflict
that he has with Rome.
So what really
emerged out there is
that I think his
primary concern is not
so much the sort of
big issues and even
the issue of papal
authority, but it's
the concern about whether
Christian faith is
genuine in each individual.
So genuine faith recognizes our
needs for-- our need for Grace.
And then it trusts God
to provide that grace.
He's fighting against an
understanding of faith
where faith is
just self-seeking,
so for pursuing faith in
order to get something
or to earn something.
That's not genuine, because
that's not trusting God
for everything that we need.
So in the famous example
of indulgences, which,
of course, is about the
authority of the Church
and theological
concepts and things,
he sees people trying
to basically get out
of having genuine
contrition for their sins
by buying indulgences.
And then furthermore, it's
entirely self-seeking,
because their aim is to get
out of-- literally to get out
of hell, either for themselves
or for their loved ones.
So he sees-- I think
the fundamental problem
that he sees there
is that it sets up
the relationship with God as one
of bargaining and appeasing God
and for our own self-interest,
rather than one that recognizes
our sin, understands the
magnitude of God's grace
that's given to us, and
then from there allows
us to trust and love God, and
also a recognition of that love
to turn and love our neighbors,
because God first loved us.
So Luther takes these
concerns to a number
of other Christian practices--
confession, prayer, Eucharist,
even celibacy and
marriage-- and shows
how late medieval piety
often encourages Christians
to do things to earn grace
rather than recognize grace
as a gift, and then let
that decide how one lives.
So ultimately, he
is against the pope,
because the pope is encouraging
this sort of piety that
sought to earn grace
rather than receive grace.
And then in doing that, the
pope is contradicting scripture
about our need for grace.
And so he's
misleading-- the pope
is misleading the sheep who
are in the pope's flock,
and leading them toward
inauthentic faith.
So the pastoral
reformer, pastoral Luther
is not any less fierce
than the reformer Luther.
He feels very, very
strongly about this
and uses all of the
colorful language
that Luther is
prone to use for it,
but because he feels so
passionately about it.
So looking at that as the
locus of his concerns.
Yeah, it's really interesting.
I mean, you mentioned the
beginning, one of the reasons
to study the Reformation
is it's so interesting.
And, of course, Luther
as the fiery writer
that he makes it a lot of
fun just to read the stuff,
even though if
you weren't deeply
interested in the content.
It's really interesting.
I really like that you brought
up the issue of language.
I think one of the things
that we often forget
is that the early
16th century was
a period of immense
technological and cultural
change.
And language was just
one part of that.
We, of course, know
that the printing press
was only a few decades
old at the time.
And so to see Luther
take advantage
of these technological
innovations
and cultural changes to
kind of reach a new audience
and to make a new point I think
is a really, really important
point to make.
Thinking about pastoral issues,
what-- for the common person,
if you will, at the time, what
were the major pastoral issues
of the 16th century
that someone would look
to a pastor or a figure
like Luther to help them
reckon with on a
day-to-day basis?
Well, I think this issue of
grace that I mention is--
it's a theological
issue, but it's also
a very practical issue.
And it's maybe one
where a Lutheran--
Lutherans think that
it's a Lutheran thing.
But really, everyone
in the 16th century
was concerned about grace--
how much did you need
of it, how to get it,
what effect that grace has.
And, of course, it's necessary
because everyone is sinful.
And so there's much more of
an emphasis on sin, and one,
I think, that's kind of
the flip side of grace,
but something that I think in
most North American societies,
we don't really pay that
much attention to anymore.
We don't talk about
quite as much.
I think questions
of ethics and moral
were also key, not only because
of the relationship with grace
and what sort of standing
that put you in with God
and what that did for
your eternal fate,
but also out of
concern for society,
and in a sort of ideal society
and how that functions.
So in order for that
society to function,
there need to be certain rules.
And the Church was involved
in helping create and sort
of monitor those rules.
And so pastoral
writings often advise
people on how to act
in certain situations
or how to encourage
the right disposition.
And a lot of-- actually,
a lot of reforms
that we might think of as
sort of devotional or reforms
about piety have an ethical
aspect to them as well.
And then, of course, there's
human experience and all
the meaning that we give it.
And humans then, as now, had the
whole range of life experience.
For 16th century
Christians in particular,
there's a lot of work on the
role and meaning of suffering,
because there was so much
more suffering than most of us
experience today.
So in the late Middle
Ages, suffering
was often considered either
to be a punishment for sin
or a good work that
could earn grace.
And Luther and
another Protestants
saw a logic of works
righteousness in that.
And instead, they
encourage Christians
to trust in God's goodness,
even in the midst of suffering,
and sort of to accept
the mystery there,
but to turn that around a
little bit from like a work
that we can achieve to something
that can help strengthen faith.
And I know you're
having Ron Rittgers
on in a couple of months.
And I'm sure he'll
talk more about that.
So that's just a little
bit of a preview.
That's a really important
issue for the 16th century,
and, I think, now.
That's right.
November 4, everybody
come back for Ron Rittgers
to talk about the
Reformation's suffering.
Thank you for that plug.
So I'm curious, as a historian
who studies this period
and someone who's kind
of leading what it seems
to be a kind of emerging
or growing field of Luther
and the Reformation
and pastoral care,
you've, obviously, probably
had a unique perspective
on the pandemic and what
we've all been going through
for the last few months.
So how do you
think about history
in the time of the coronavirus?
Yeah, I've been a
little bit surprised
at how personal it
has become for me,
and especially, I think,
by how much comfort I've
derived from the
knowledge of history
and knowing that in the
broad sweep of history,
pandemics and epidemics have
happened very regularly.
So for me, just realizing
that this is not actually
unprecedented, even though we
keep hearing news outlets say
that so often, realizing
this is actually more normal
than unprecedented has
remind me that first of all,
we're pretty fortunate in terms
of the comfort of our lives
and the amount of public
health that we have,
but also that our ancestors have
gotten through many pandemics,
and most of them with far
fewer resources than we have.
So I guess I have a profound
sense of human resilience,
and, I think, also the
sense that we're not alone
in this, that people who've
gone before us have experienced
this sort of thing
and made it through.
And I actually
realized the other day
that I've been not
only thinking this way,
but I've also actually been
sharing it with my family,
because the other night, one
of my sons was rollerblading
and hit a crack in the sidewalk,
scraped his knee pretty badly,
and was kind of upset about it.
But as he was
coming down, he said
"other people have
endured worse."
So apparently, I've been passing
this lesson on to my family.
And hopefully that
will be a good thing
and he won't need therapy for
that later on or whatever.
But in terms of
Luther specifically, I
think one thing that has really
struck with me through this
is his fierce trust in
God and his conviction
that no matter what happens,
God wins in the end.
I think people probably
know this maybe most clearly
from though the lyrics to "A
Mighty Fortress," and this sort
of just conviction that
it is all going to be OK,
no matter what happens.
And that's in part him
feeling like he was probably
going to be--
to be martyred for his
cause, and so sort of
being prepared for it.
But I think that's sort of--
that sort of clinging trust
is all over his pastoral works
as well.
And I think it's
the sort of thing
that you can hear many times
in many different ways,
but still get something
from it each time.
I do think that sort of
the ferocity of his faith,
the fierceness of his faith
can really help banish fear
and put each risk that we face
into a larger perspective.
Well, first of all, I
have to compliment you
on your 11-year-old
son to have that kind
of historical perspective.
The skinned knee is quite
impressive for an 11-year-old.
Thank you.
Also, I appreciate the
mention of "Mighty Fortress."
One of the centerpieces
of Reformation Day
is always a stunning
rendition of "Mighty Fortress"
at our chapel.
So many of us who come
to Reformation Day
probably have it going
in our head right now.
So thank you for that.
So Luther famously
wrote a pamphlet
that seems quite relevant,
entitled whether a Christian
should flee a plague.
And I commend it to all of you.
As I was telling
Anna earlier, it's
remarkable how on point it
is for our own situation.
So can you give us a
little bit of sense
of that particular work
and summarize for us
what Luther's
argument is in kind
of answering the question of
whether a Christian should
flee a plague?
Yeah, so this came--
he was written-- it was
written at the request
of a pastor in a different
town where the plague had hit.
And this seemed to be the main
question, whether one can flee.
So it's an ethical question.
By the time Luther
finished the work,
the plague had hit
Wittenberg as well.
So it had a little bit
more immediacy to it.
So the question is can
I flee an infected city
to preserve my own
life, even if it
means leaving behind
other people who do not
have the option of fleeing?
And I think we saw this
come up with the coronavirus
real early, especially
in New York City.
There was this question
about New Yorkers
who had country homes
fleeing to their country home
because they wanted to get
out of the city and the risk
of being infected.
And so just to be
clear, this question
of whether one can
flee is only a question
for somebody at a certain
social station on life
who has a country home.
But nonetheless, I think it is
an important ethical question.
And they didn't
really understand
the cause of the plague,
which was a bacterium.
They thought it was mostly
caused by poor air quality,
though they had some notion
that people who were infected
could transmit it.
So the question is not
primarily about the risk
of spreading the plague if
you flee the city, like it was
in the case of New
York, but instead
about one's duties
toward others,
and then how much of a risk
one is willing to take to be
able to live out those duties.
So there are some
people who said
no one should flee, because
they wouldn't fear death
if they really trusted God,
because God would decide
whether they live or
die, so it doesn't really
matter what they do.
So the argument
there is basically
that fleeing shows
a lack of faith.
Others saw no reason
to stay in the city
and endanger their lives, and
wondered if that was from--
that that was from
a lack of faith,
that they wanted to flee.
So Luther's response was to
focus pretty pragmatically
on the good and harm that might
come out of either decision.
And so what he said is if
people were responsible
for others, either as a
public official or a pastor
or if they had people
working for them,
they were obligated
to stay and make sure
that those other people that
they had responsibilities for
were cared for.
But anyone who didn't have
this sort of responsibility
was free to decide
whether to flee or not,
that there was no risk--
or no need to risk their lives
in order to prove their faith,
that that doesn't
really do any good.
So he focused the question
entirely on how best to one--
to love one's
neighbor in a plague,
and then just made that
the guiding principle.
He also addressed,
I think, some sort
of interesting
extreme forms of piety
around the plague that have some
resonances with the coronavirus
as well.
So he talks about some
rumors that people
have been exposing themselves
to the plague on purpose.
I think coronavirus parties.
Right?
In this case, though,
it wasn't because they
didn't believe in
the coronavirus
or didn't think that it
would hurt them or whatever,
but because it was a way to
show how strong their faith was.
Or, say, some
people might refuse
to take medication
because they say
well if God wants to heal
me, God will help me,
and medication or no medication.
So even though Luther thought
that Christians shouldn't
fear death, he also thought
that this was pretty careless,
and that this sort of
carelessness about the plague
was merely tempting God.
He says, well, by that logic,
we could just not eat or drink,
since God can preserve
life without us
taking food and water.
But it's sinful to deny taking
care of our bodies, right?
And then also in addition
to that sin of tempting God,
he thought that being
careless about the plague
was that much worse,
because it put
other people's lives in danger.
So again, it comes back to
this real ethical issue.
But I think that has
a lot of resonance.
Yeah, and, I mean, again, just
to re-emphasize the point,
how much of this is on par.
I mean, I was joking
with someone earlier,
there were clearly plague
deniers at the time of Luther,
just as we find today.
And this idea of not
trusting science or not
trusting medicine because
God is other I think
is a quite remarkable
comparison between then and now.
Can you give us a sense
of how Luther argues?
In these sense, what are
the authorities for him?
How does he ground his
argument in answering
this specific question?
In this particular case,
it's a pretty simple sort
of just starting with the
second great commandment of love
your neighbor as yourself.
So what does it mean to
love one's neighbor is
just is what promotes
their well-being the most?
So one needs to reckon
with the threat of death
in order to help somebody else.
And that threat of
death is a possibility.
But when doesn't-- one should
not open wide the door and let
death in.
So no, in this
particular piece, it's
really mostly
about this question
of how do I help my neighbor?
And what does it mean to
help my neighbor responsibly
in this very
particular situation?
And in the latter
part of the work,
he turns and he says I'm going
to add some brief instructions
on how one should care
and provide for the soul
at the time of death.
So he seems to kind of
broaden it out to a question
about facing death in general.
And I know that's a pretty
common topic of the period,
is kind of how do you
prepare oneself for death?
So can you tell us a little
bit of how Luther talks
about a fear of dying and
how he kind of pastors
people around that issue?
Yeah, so in this work,
he talks about it mostly
in these ethical terms,
so to warn people not
to let the fear
of death keep them
from caring for other people.
So it's a little
bit more distanced.
It's not actually in the
moment of death as much.
But there is, of course,
an element of faith to it,
because if someone
with a stronger faith
is facing this question, they're
less likely to capitulate
to the fear of death.
But it's mostly from the
standpoint of someone
who's currently healthy
and fears getting infected.
There's another piece he wrote
about eight years earlier,
where he--
kind of it's part of
this whole late medieval
genre of the art of dying.
And he's-- it focuses more on
the person on the death bed
and facing the fears and doubts
and anxieties of being in that
position.
And there, he's really
talking about how
to cling to God's
promises of grace in life
when all you can see in
front of you is death.
So in both cases--
he brings that out I think
a little bit in this work
as well on fleeing the
plague-- but in both cases,
he assumes that we have
a natural fear of death,
just assumes that whenever
we kind of come near death,
that fear is going to come up.
But also, it
assumes that we need
to be reminded that we really
don't have reason to fear it
and that we have to
sort of talk back
to that fear by hearing
the gospel of grace
and being reminded of God's
power to help shore up faith
in these sorts of situations.
And I presume, as you
mentioned earlier, death
was much more of a reality for
people living in this period
than it seems to be
for us, particularly
in a Western context,
where we're not--
the pandemic ushers in a
little bit of that angst,
but it certainly was
more real for them.
You also discussed earlier
that one of the common topics
was a question of the cause
for sickness and suffering.
Does Luther in this work
or elsewhere address kind
of why is this happening to us?
He does not-- let's
see, I have to think--
there are probably some
points where he assumes
that it's some sort of
judgment, because that's
one of the sort of standard
interpretations of this time
period.
It's not the main
emphasis, though.
So my caveat is it might
be in there somewhere.
I don't remember seeing
it the last time that I--
We won't ask you to
represent the entire Luther
corpus, though,
All right.
All right.
Yeah, I think he's much less--
I mean, he does use that
idea that sometimes,
and especially sort of
society-wide things,
are a punishment
from God for sin
or as an attempt to sort
of get people's attention
and listen to God more.
He's much less likely
to use that sort of lens
of interpretation when he's
talking to an individual who
is suffering.
So that's one way in which
I think he's very pastoral.
When speaking with
individuals who are suffering,
he does not seem to think that
it's useful for to explore
with them what sin they
might have committed
that makes God angry at them.
It's much more about
providing comfort and hope
and promise to the individual.
In general, though, I think
in this piece on the plague,
he does not assume to
know why it's happening,
but just assumes that there--
that it matters how we
respond to it, that that's
the real question, not to
figure out why it's happening,
but to figure out
what to do about it.
Right.
To kind of zoom out from
this work, if you kind of had
to summarize, what can we
as maybe pastoral leaders
or just as lay people who
are facing a pandemic,
what can we learn from Luther?
How do we kind of interpret what
he says to his audience in 1527
to an audience in 2020?
I think there are a lot of
things that people of faith
can learn from the work.
And again, I would
encourage people to read it,
because it is a fairly--
a fairly easy read.
Or it's not like most 16th
century works in a of ways.
And I think
different people will
be struck by different things.
So I guess I'll say
for myself that I
read the work many times.
And I tend to find something
new in it each time.
During this pandemic,
I think the emphasis
on shifting one's focus
from the fear of death
to concern for others has had
particular resonance for me.
I think particularly
early on in the pandemic,
when no one really knew what
this was going to look like
and there was just a sort of-- a
sort of cloud of what's coming,
I think it was helpful for me
to think about ways that I can
sort of get outside
of that own--
my own sort of fear
of death and keep it
from sort of sinking
its claws into me
and just holding me there.
And I think this emphasis
that Luther has about
think about your role
in larger society,
think about who needs you
and what good you can do
and how you can share the
love of God in larger society,
rather than sort
of just being stuck
in your own sphere of death.
And I think that's like--
there's sort of a
vicious cycle, and then
whatever the opposite
of a vicious cycle is.
So I think--
I think when we can
pull ourselves out
of the vicious cycle
of worrying about death
and worrying about what
might happen and start
looking toward others, I think
it really can reinvigorate
faith, because it reminds us of
the vocations that we each have
and the ways that those
vocations fit into larger
purposes of
Christian life, which
is so much bigger and more
enduring than physical death.
And so once I can see
beyond that fear of death,
then I think faith
gains more power.
So that's one aspect.
I think another
aspect of the work
that I keep thinking
about is a detail that
actually isn't in the text.
It's not something
Luther talks about,
but it's part of the background
of Luther's biography.
So Luther himself is dealing
with the plague in Wittenberg
at this time.
And he and his family
took in plague patients
into their house.
They live in the former
Augustinian Monastery.
And so they've got
a lot of space.
And he's this community leader.
So they take in plague
patients as needed.
And during that time,
his wife is pregnant.
And at that time, their
only child was not very old,
I think a year and a half or
two years, something like that.
And both his wife and his child
were infected with the plague.
And, in fact, the baby
that his wife was carrying
was never really
healthy and died
before she turned eight months
old, and quite possibly--
we don't know, of course--
but quite possibly because
of the fact that her mother
was exposed to the illness
during the pregnancy.
So to me, it's not
a situation where
Luther is standing on high
and telling everyone else what
to do from a safe distance.
But so back to this idea
of sort of gaining courage
from historical
figures and what they
were willing to risk
for their convictions--
I've have had to, as
I think through that
in the sort of mindset that the
pandemic has put many of us in,
I'm not sure that
I could say that I
would have had the courage
to take in COVID patients
if it came to it, if
it were necessary.
And I'm really
pretty sure that I
would have declined
that responsibility if I
were pregnant, just to not--
just to not take that risk.
So I think thinking about that
aspect of Luther's stories
for me put all the more mundane
risks of COVID in perspective,
and challenged me to think
about my own fear of death
and the strength of my faith.
So essentially, after
contemplating what Luther wrote
and what he was going through,
going to the grocery store
to get some food seemed like
much less of a big deal.
Right, I think
that's so important.
I mean, we think about these
great, towering figures,
or someone like Luther, that we
know only through his writings,
right.
You don't realize or you
don't think about the fact
that he was also a husband
and a father and dealing
with all of these things.
And he was a local
pastor who had these--
not obligations, but
this certain call
to take care of people.
So I appreciate you bringing
the biography there.
That's something I think I,
at least, often overlook.
I want to ask a question
as a librarian now.
So this is very much
a selfish question.
We are a library that collects
lots of old original printings
of Luther.
And we pride ourselves.
We're nearing 4,000
works from 1501 1570
related to the Reformation.
And that's a lot of stuff.
And it costs a lot of money.
And it's a lot of
work to collect.
So I'm curious, as a
scholar of this period,
can you help us
understand why it's
important to collect and to use
these original works as opposed
to--
we can all go to Google and find
this piece and read it online.
Why is it important for a
library to do what we do?
Yeah, good question.
I hope you have a good
answer, by the way.
Otherwise, we're in trouble.
I think I have a decent answer.
So original texts are essential
to historical research,
because every generation has
its own lens and its own set
of questions that it
brings to the text.
And so what each generation
of historians are doing
is going back to
the original text
with a different
set of questions.
So we need to have that sort
of broad set of original texts,
so that the interpretation
of people from 1950
is not the last word on things.
If everyone decided
that it wasn't
worth it to keep storing
all of these items in 1950
and we were just going to sort
of write the definitive volume
and chuck the rest
of the stuff, then we
don't get to go back
to those sources
and ask our own questions.
So the Kessler
Collection and libraries
like that are so
important because they
preserve a much wider range of
texts than edited volumes can.
As much time and
money and effort
as it takes to keep those--
keep those texts in
a rare book room,
it's a lot of money and time
and effort and expertise
also to create an edited volume.
So what we have in an
volume is a very small slice
of historical texts.
So it gives us, then, a
very limited perspective
from which to engage history.
So for example, this Luther text
that we've been talking about,
whether one can flee
from a deadly plague,
is in critical editions
of Luther's works,
because Luther was well known.
But the Kessler Collection
also has a piece
by Andreas Osiander, a
reformer, another 16th century
reformer from Nuremberg
by almost the same title,
so dealing again with this
question of whether one
may flee the deadly plague.
And it's written after Luther's,
so it can give some insights
into whether Luther influenced
his work if it's quite similar
or what sort of divergences
he takes from Luther
is it's quite different, or
just other ways that reformers
approach the plague,
maybe competing ideas
about what someone should do
in the case of the plague.
So I think getting that
broader view could--
really, it really
fleshes out, then,
what we know about this period
and the sorts of resources.
And then it changes the sorts
of questions we can ask as well.
If we know more about what a
broader range of people think,
not just sort of the
main, big figures,
then we can start
to put together
much more sort of history as
it was lived versus history
completely from
the top down, which
is what you get when you only
have those main characters.
I think the other thing for me,
so for me personally, archives
have been very
important for my work.
One of the ways that these
rare book collections really
can help us interpret history is
because it preserves the notes
that readers have written
on them, so mostly
marginal writings.
So we get some sense of
then how various readers
have engaged these texts.
And this was essential
for me, because some
of those marginal
comments actually
led me to my dissertation
topic, which then became
my book, Beyond Indulgences.
I was early in my
research and not
really sure where what
direction I wanted to go.
So I just sort of went to the
Princeton University rare book
room and took all
of the Luther texts
that I could find and
sat down and read them.
And it was really striking
to me that a lot of the works
that were sort of cited in
the textbooks about Luther
as being his main writings, they
had them and I could read them.
But from the looks of
it, nobody had ever
read them, because they had
very few marginal notes, right?
And then I get into these
vernacular pastoral texts,
and there's writing all
over the margins, notes
and Biblical cross references
and sort of main ideas.
And there's like a little
drawing, sort of dingbat
that they do about a hand
pointing to something that they
really want to highlight.
So you get the sense
of how important
these texts were to readers.
You can tell from
the handwriting
what era these readers were in.
So you get some sense
of the influence
that these texts actually
had in their own time.
And you can really--
you can really
see that these are
not coffee table books
that people got to put
out, to show that they
were on Luther's side.
These were books that people
engaged, and apparently got
something from.
So that made those sources
that much more important
to highlight in terms of telling
the story of the Reformation.
And like most
interesting discoveries,
I stumbled into it.
But I would not have been
able to stumble into it
if there weren't rare
book collections that
just had these things that
people can stumble into.
Yeah, I mean, there's
a kind of irony,
right, that Luther adopts
the form of the pamphlet
so that he can more widely
distribute some of his works.
But then those works are
more readily used by people
and therefore are more ephemeral
and therefore more difficult
to collect these days, right?
But finding the marginalia
on them I think certainly
gives you a different
perspective.
And you and I were talking
about that Osiander piece,
you mentioned, has marginalia
written all over it
from a very different period.
But it offers a very kind of
different perspective on how
the text was used and
read, I think in that case
in the 19th century.
So I think you've made the
case that libraries should
stick around and we should--
Great.
--collect this stuff.
I hope so.
Thank you for that.
Well, we could go on
for hours, of course.
I want to be conscious
of everyone's time.
And I want to get to
a couple of questions
that have come up in the Q&A.
And just to kind of group
them all maybe into one
question for us to
have time, can you
talk a little bit about
Luther as a pastor?
Or what would a pastor have
done in this particular period?
How hands on would he have been?
You mentioned taking
people into his homes.
Was he actively
pastoring a community?
So yeah, he was--
he preached very frequently.
That was sort of his
main pastoral task.
And it came out of the
role that he had in his--
within his
Augustinian community.
So he was often preaching
in the Augustinian Church.
But then for a while,
when Wittenberg
was without a pastor, then he
was one of the main pastors
there.
So he preached, I mean,
several times a week.
It was sort of crazy,
the workload that he had.
Sometimes he preached
in the castle church
if the electorate wanted
him to be preaching there.
And then he also did a series
of sermons at his own home,
so later in his own life when
it's no longer this monastery.
So his major activity, in a lot
of ways, was through preaching.
But he also, because he
was such a public figure,
he maintained a very
broad correspondence.
And a lot of that
correspondence was really
sort of pastoral questions,
theological and pastoral
questions.
But a lot of it--
I mean, it's fascinating to
read, just because he is--
he is so intimately engaged
with these individuals
and what they're going through
and how they are experiencing
this new theology.
There are a couple, I believe.
So Tappert has a volume
of Luther's letters.
I think it's called Spiritual
Counsel or something like that.
So if people want
to read that, that's
a great bedtime
table read, honestly.
So yeah, so and then in terms
of reforming various practices,
he's suggesting the
ways that things
should be changed so
that people experience
the faith in a particular way.
So I would list all of that
under pastoral as well.
So I have to ask this
question, because it
was asked by Scott Hendrix,
so you have to answer it.
He asked "could you
say a little bit more
about how Luther handled
the notion of the plague
as punishment?"
So, OK, so if you don't
know, Scott Hendrix
was my dissertation advisor.
So this is like my dissertation
exam all over again.
I'm having flashbacks.
Let's see-- I'm trying remember
what I said before about it.
And I'm just getting nervous,
because it's my dissertation
advisor.
You mentioned that
there was a general idea
that there was punishment,
that suffering was
the result of God's punishment.
And maybe in this work,
he doesn't particularly
address that, doesn't
seem to dwell on
that as an explanation.
Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, there is a
sense of punishment.
I think he's very
hesitant to name
exactly what the sin might be
or exactly what God's message is
through it.
But I think through any
sort of trial or temptation
or something, Luther feels
like that's an opportunity
to strengthen faith.
And so if we take it as sort
of maybe not punishment,
but chastisement, that
maybe we need to you know
focus a little bit more on--
or it's an opportunity
to exercise faith
by having that faith be
tested, and therefore--
and therefore calling on us
to sort of reignite this faith
that we have in God's goodness,
and sort of just putting one
foot in front of the other
while we figure out what to do.
I don't know what grade
I got on that answer.
I'm sure you did great.
So I'm going to--
I'm going to call
us at time here.
And first of all, thank
you, Professor Johnson,
for your conversation.
I certainly learned a lot.
And I think I'm sure everyone
else here did as well.
Let me just ask one little
tiny question at the end.
If you could offer one
resource to our community
here to learn more
about the reformation,
to learn more about
Luther, or to learn more
about his response
in this situation,
what book or website or
resource would you offer?
I'm not just saying
that because I know now
that Scott Hendrix
is on the line,
but there's a great series by
Oxford University Press called
Very Short Introductions.
What I love about them
is that they're small.
They're smaller
than a cell phone.
So I almost always have one
of them in my purse in case
I'm at the dentist and
have to wait forever,
I've got something
interesting to read.
But Scott Hendrix wrote that the
Oxford Very Short Introduction
for Luther.
So I think it's
called Martin Luther.
But a very concise and
helpful overview that just
sort of gets you
into Luther's way
of thinking and the world
view that he inhabited,
as well as a good sense of
the influence that he had.
And I'm not saying that so that
I bring up my earlier grade.
I agree with you.
It's a good work.
So that's Oxford University
Press, A Very Short
Introduction to Luther.
Thank you for that
recommendation.
So I want to thank you.
I want to thank
everybody for being here.
I want to remind
you that this is
the first of a series
of conversations
that we're doing this
fall on this very topic.
So in a month, we're going
to have Eric Heinrichs, who
is a historian of this period,
but focuses on medicine
and plague in this period.
So he can give us a little
more about the medical context
in which Luther is operating.
And then, as Professor
Johnson mentioned,
Ronald Rittgers will
be with us in November
to talk about the idea of
the reformation of suffering
and the ways in which in
the Reformation period,
figures approach
physical, emotional,
and spiritual suffering.
We hope you'll
join us for these.
You can register for all
of them at pitts.emory.edu/
kesslerconversations.
I hope you all have
a wonderful day.
And thank you for your time.
And I hope you stay
safe out there.
Thanks a lot, guys.
Thank you.
