Grislis, Egil

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Martin Luther and Spirituality

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 19Issue 1 Martin Luther and Spirituality Article 15-1-1993Martin Luther and SpiritualityEgil GrislisFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Foreword is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationGrislis, Egil (1993) "Martin Luther and Spirituality," Consensus: Vol. 19 : Iss. 1 , Article 1.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol19/iss1/1ForewordSpirituality is necessarily describing a multicolored andtruly rich range of religious experience and state. While theterm itself has become popular in Protestant usage rather re-cently, it is readily understood as referring to devotional life,to faith, and to a life in love with God.Professor Robert A. Kelly has succeeded in showing thatLuther’s spirituality is not ivory-towered and weltfremd, butchallenging and modern. Authentic Gospel is always powerfuland impacts on real life. A remarkable fusion of deep devo-tional and theological insights, this account projects an unfor-gettable portrait of Luther’s faith, indeed, a faith for all times.My own brief survey suggests that culture invariably bothfacilitates and restricts our religious understanding. Hence indifferent historical circumstances—and periods—good Luther-ans have celebrated divergent aspects of Luther’s faith. I havesingled out three such overarching, and at times overlapping,perspectives: piety, faith, and spirituality. While piety has of-ten been recognized as expressing Luther’s heroically devoutpersonality, and faith as a very foundation of Luther’s theol-ogy, spirituality may be both the deepest and the broadest ofall categories. Spirituality includes not only Luther’s positiveinsights, but also the dark side of Luther’s life, notably his deepsense of hatred.Luther’s followers have sought to be partakers of the best inLuther. Consequently, Luther’s spirituality has also reverber-ated through the Canadian Lutheran church scene. ProfessorBryan V. Hillis with loving care and wisdom has offered asprecise a portrait of Canadian Lutheran spirituality as can bedrawn at this time. I believe, however, that the thoughtfulconnection between Luther’s spirituality and that of his fol-lowers is at the same time an implicit challenge for us to doeven better than we have done.8 ConsensusProfessor Joseph Wawrykow has provided a remarkably lu-cid, accurate, and nourishing exposition of St. Thomas’ under-standing of the Lord’s Supper. It is a statement absolutelyvalid in its own right, and yet so helpfully prepared for aLutheran readership. In the spirit of learned ecumenism, avery solid bridge of authentic understanding has been built.In conclusion, his briefer comments on Luther are of similarquality and force.Of all the possible concerns within Luther’s wider range ofspirituality. Professor John W. Kleiner has dealt with the mostdifficult topic (which, however, in this day and age does needto be faced). Namely, Luther was not only able to err, butat times he did so with great bravado. The topic, of course,is Luther and the Jews. Professor Kleiner has made a verygood case that Luther’s dreadfully negative views had beeninfluenced also by socio-economic considerations, and not onlyby mistaken theological convictions. Here we must see thatthere are limits even to Luther’s depth; but in the end solaScriptura and not Luther’s word must remain decisive for apositive spirituality.Egil Grislis

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Martin Luther and Spirituality

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