Roland Bainton’s book in 1950 entitled Here I Stand: A life of Martin Luther was a great contribution to the literary world. His expository about the life of Martin Luther was superb and precise. His opinions and views about the events in the life of Martin Luther King was interesting and have a great relevance. From the work of Bainton the real Martin Luther King was unveiled but some information about Martin Luther was hanging. Here I Stand: A life of Martin Luther was definitely the biography of Martin Luther King, one of the most influential man of the world.
He was a great leader of religion who fought against the corruption in the religious sector. According to the book, Luther King had demanded for the authority for doctrine and practice be scriptures against the formation of pope and councils. This demand was the start of a Great Reformation for the world. Martin Luther King was also accused and eventually sentenced with excommunication and death. He was the man who started the Protestant faith.
Roland Bainton’s book he had explained how Martin Luther King influenced people by his goal to eradicate the cases of abuses in religion and to establish a great transformation. The book recalls the scenario during the sixteenth century and describes Martin Luther King as a great reformer in the religious world. Let me give some point of views on Bainton’s the literary piece. This have some inconsistencies and flaws. For me, this is not the best biography of Luther when we talk scholarly, some of the citations aren’t clear and not in the proper format.
Second, the author himself gave a biased view, which in favors Luther’s concepts and ideas, because he (Bainton) as a Protestant minister. But still I highly recommend Here I Stand book because Bainton was a prolific and superb writer, and he made a stunning, interesting image of the life of Martin Luther. Martin Luther’s personality and ideas were stated clearly and establish a well balance writing for the readers to understand very well. I can say that this would probably one the well reviewed and explained biography of Martin Luther because it has a lot of good arguments to learn from.
In Roland Bainton’s way of writing, he made the readers feel the conviction of a man towards transformation. In this biography, Bainton included quotes and speeches of Martin Luther for the readers to experience the life of Martin Luther together with his faith. The book focuses on Luther’s life as a monk and eventually became a transformer of Protestantism in the world. The struggle and sufferings of Luther for a religion that is fair and righteous is essential with his early days as a monk because he was the leader of a study about the Holy Scriptures.
His study became the basis of the re-discovery of the holy gospel – justified is a man which means he must be righteous by faith and beliefs alone to what Christ had suffered and given us. This had begun the revolution in religion because of the theology and Luther’s own way of living. According to his words, “by faith alone” became the gospel’s emphasis. He (Luther) is not against doing good but he argued that being good is not just enough for our souls to be saved but only faith does. And from the book, it was explained the fact about Luther’s theology about faith extensively and deliberately.
In addition to that, Bainton’s book also depicts on how Luther became the translator of the Bible, from Hebrew and Greek to German. And it was also stated in the Book that Luther wrote a lot of hymns and songs for the church. The biography of Luther has a lot of historical and theological perspective. On Bainton’s review of Martin Luther King’s life he exposed ho Luther developed his own theology and reformed the world’s religious beliefs and transformed the Bible to be read by the German people as well. Luther played a big influence in formation of the church.
He argued and elaborated that the system of sacraments was captive. He condemned the papacy because of taking hold and depriving the freedom of Christians to approach the creator by faith alone even without the unbiblical sacraments and priests. Martin Luther King only retained the sacrament of baptism and the last supper. He removed and changed the traditional views in the church like the hierarchy in the Christian world (Bainton). In Bainton’s book, Luther calls for a change and reformation by changing the beliefs and traditions.
It brought dramatic changes on how the society accepted the reformed religion that Luther introduced. Luther’s aim to transform the religion is not only to change how the societies have to live by faith with God but also with some political, social, economical and social issues in life of a man (Bainton). Here I Stand: A life of Martin Luther by Roland Bainton was a narrative of the legacy Martin Luther King left the world for a great transformation in the Christian world. Even if Luther was excommunicated by the emperor those times, he did not stop doing his will for Christianity.
He was a very active advisor for some theologians and pastors and even with the princes. Luther also published a lot of books and pamphlets that had great influence of the formation of Protestantism. Roland Bainton describes Luther as a good educator in his book. Martin Luther King builds schools everywhere and spread his faith. One of the great contributions of Martin Luther was the Shorter Catechism which he wrote to train young people in views for the importance of the doctrines of faith.
Yes, Martin Luther King was a controversial figure and will remain a controversial personality up to these days. His search for peace in the faith for God really changed the whole human race and had a great contribution in the world’s history. He was one of the bravest leaders of religion. Luther had challenged the Roman Empire dealing with the Christian church, destroyed the unending superstition, hatred and tyranny among Christians and had restored the liberty of Christians in spirit and in truth by worshiping God by faith.
I highly recommend Here I stand: A life of Martin Luther for the reason that it was a great biography of a great personality who wanted change and reformation. The book was a great portray of who is Martin Luther King and how he influenced the world by his works. He made his own history for the world to see and be inspired of.
References:
Bainton, Roland Herbert. Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1950. April 1995.