I haven’t read it but from the descriptions I’m reading it sounds like a make-a-point biography. Obviously I can’t speak to what’s in a book I’ve never read, but I find it hard to believe Luther was a “humble man” with an “adamantine faith” who “just wanted to start a theological debate.” From the little I know about him, he seems more like a severely depressed man with huge doubts and a massive ego that wanted everyone to agree with him and wouldn’t tolerate dissent in either his superiors or subordinates.
As far as his influence, that can’t really be denied, but at the same time he always seemed to me more like the spark in the powder keg rather than a force unto himself. The political and religious and technological forces were already in place and it was inevitable that eventually this was all going to blow. I’m not saying he wasn’t charismatic or convincing, just that he didn’t start from nothing and build it all up himself.
As far as Protestantism’s role in creating America as we know it, that again can’t be denied, but also can be overplayed since there were huge cultural factors and even natural factors like the climate and resources available. Would a Catholic British population have laid the same foundations? Probably not. But would a Protestant French population done so either? No. Heck, even the small differences is socio-economic class and motivation of the founders and the natural differences in climate of the Northern and Southern colonies ended up creating radically different and mutually exclusive cultures within the single nation.
So it’s not so simple as “Martin Luther taught us to be free and stand up to power.” First of all, Martin Luther wasn’t all that tolerant of people standing up to him or trying to be free from his political allies, and secondly, Martin Luther was a German ex-monk turned religious demagogue and the colonists were British religious outcasts, second-sons, would-be adventurers, treasure-hunters, and “middle-class” pilgrims. They weren’t even close to the same type of people with not even close to the same kind of motivations.
