Luther in English

Martin Luther was a prodigious writer; during his lifetime, more than 350 works came from his pen, including a translation of the Bible. But though more than 7,000,000 English-speaking Christians in North America call themselves Lutherans today, few have read Luther. The surprising reason: lack of translation.*

Just published is the first volume of a new 55-volume edition of Luther's works in flexible, modern English. Prepared jointly by St. Louis' Concordia Publishing House and Philadelphia's Muhlenberg Press, an arm of the United Lutheran Church in America, the new Luther will range the whole gamut of the reformer's work. Says Washington-born Theologian Helmut T. Lehmann, 41, who is in charge of the project: "We're not aiming this series at scholars. They can go to the original. This edition is intended for the searching layman, the pastor and the theological student." Nor need these readers anticipate heavy wading: "In many respects it is easier to understand Luther than much present day theological writing."

Dr. Lehmann is well borne out by the series' first published volume -No. 12, Luther's commentaries on selected Psalms. In his thoughts on the 23rd Psalm ("The Lord is my Shepherd"), Luther uses King David's great song as a commentary against what he considered a major evil of the Roman Catholic Church he knew:

"From these words we can also see clearly how shamefully we have been led astray under the papacy. It did not depict Christ in so friendly a fashion as did the dear Prophets, Apostles, and Christ Himself, but portrayed Him so horribly that we were more afraid of Him than of Moses . . . If that is not darkness, then I do not know what darkness is."

Martin Luther's commentary on Psalm 2:11 ("Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling") revealed the distance the father of the Reformation had come -and the end he hoped to attain. "As a young man I hated this verse for I did not hear with pleasure that God had to be feared . . . I did not know that fear had to be mixed with joy or hope . . . We who are Christians are not entirely fearful or entirely happy. Joy is joined with fear, hope with dread, laughter with tears, so that we may believe that we shall then at last be perfectly joyous, when we have put away this flesh . . . To fear God and to trust God is alone true religion."

* So far, there have been only the Weimar and Erlangen editions in German and Latin, the St. Louis edition in German, and the Philadelphia edition in English, which covers only a fraction of the material.

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