Mark Edwards is not Lutheranism’s most prolific Luther scholar. He wrote two excellent books and then moved on to other things.
For the record, Edwards is currently on the faculty of the Harvard Divinity School. His bio from their website states:
“Education: PhD, Stanford University
Mark U. Edwards, Jr., became Professor of the History of Christianity at HDS in 1987, after teaching at Wellesley College and Purdue University. He was at HDS until July 1994, when he became the ninth president of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. In 2000 Edwards stepped down from the St. Olaf presidency and moved to New Hampshire. He returned to HDS in May 2003.
Edwards has written four books and numerous articles on Martin Luther and the German Reformation. The most recent book, entitled Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther (University of California Press, 1994; reprint, Fortress Press, 2005), deals with the West’s first “mass media campaign” and Luther’s pivotal role as both subject and object in the struggle for the hearts and minds of sixteenth-century Christians.”
Rather than the two books by Edwards on Luther as you suggested, he has actually written four. Since I only own three of them, I apparently need to obtain the other one.
He’s just a Luther scholar you like, because he focuses on Luther’s darker side. Quite rightly and appropriately, be it said.
What isn’t right or appropriate is for you to harp on these things with no attempt to be fair.
And you are not justified by the fact that Protestants do it on the other side. Two wrongs don’t make a right. As I said some posts ago, and have said before, you are ironically imitating Luther’s approach, though with less vehemence (also less interestingly). You are overemphasizing the side that you perceive as underemphasized.
This just produces an endless seesaw, not a fair and constructive picture.
You aren’t accomplishing anything with all this except to “annoy the pig.”
First of all, pigs don’t have fingers and so they are not well equipped to learn how to play music. I would like to know though who you think the ‘pig’ is here? And since we are on the subject of animals, Arthur Cushman McGiffert records Luther as having made the following comment in regards to his well-known and self-admitted ‘polemical style’:
“I cannot deny that I have been more vehement than is seemly. But since they knew then, they ought not to have stirred up the dog.” “Martin Luther”, pg. 153-4
Here we learn that Luther believed that his abuse of his opponents, calling them liars and agents of Satan and the like, SHOULD have caused them to cease their criticism of him.
Edwin, do you personally believe that people should have been so concerned about Luther’s attacks on them that they should have halted their criticisms?
As you might well imagine, I do not. In fact, I think that that kind of attitude is all the more deserving of increased criticism. It seems to me that Luther wanted to be the ‘big dog’ in charge and wanted everyone else to cower. Basically he wanted them to SHUT UP. As you know, the literature is full of comments about Luther’s ‘polemical style’.
You may choose to disagree Edwin, but given Luther’s treatment of his opponents, I don’t think Lutherans have a leg to stand on whatsoever in complaining about anybody’s ‘polemical style’ in their criticism of Luther. That seems to me to be extraordinarily hypocritical.
What I appreciate about Edwards is that he honestly represents the historical facts, revealing the real Luther in the process, and yet he still remains a faithful Lutheran. Obviously he has found some way to reconcile the historical Luther with his belief in Lutheranism and it’s foundations. He does not duck the tough issues but reports them in what appears to be an unbiased manner. I find that admirable.
You claim that this is not fair. I disagree. Is there or is there not room for differing opinions here Edwin?
What I think is not fair are the representations of Luther, including a lot here on CA, which are, well - ‘overly generous’. I would think that you would believe that it is important to understand the actual history of the early Reformation. I also don’t think that you would disagree that the popular history of Luther has been anything but ‘overly generous’. There really needs to be a ‘counterbalance’ that DOES move the needle back toward what is in truth, actually fair. The ‘counterbalance’ that I provide is made up of things that have been tremendously ‘under-reported’.
Those things which are ‘overly generous’ to Luther are, in reality, unfair to the Catholic Church because they are ‘overly ungenerous’ to the Church.
