LET me sum up. First of all, I have to repeat my thesis: I do not believe myself, nor have I wanted to give the impression, that Luther and Lutheranism are the sole source of our present-day troubles. Economic, political, geographical, and many other causes have to be taken into account if we want to explain the destructive present-day mentality of the Germans, which is above all other causes to blame for the misery in which the modern world finds itself twice within a third of a century.
I did not mean for one minute either to deny that there are things that are good and laudable in Luther—that he pronounced and taught some very fine things which, if they had become the ethical standard of modern Europe, might have brought us peace and prosperity instead of war and misery. All I maintain is that Luther and his doctrines are one of the causes why Europe could follow such a fatal road—that Luther, the man and his teaching, had many disastrous sides, as well as good ones. This negative aspect of Lutheranism is not only generally ignored, but is just the very aspect which as influenced German ethics and standards.
Luther, who is generally shown as a demigod, was nothing of the kind, and his influence was anything but godly. An evil and dangerous legend has been spun round the man and his work. “It is most mysterious how complete the victory of the Luther-legend has been.”
Luther himself led a most immoral life, and destroyed the moral standards of his time. The result of Luther’s teachings and his life during his own time was “general moral and religious chaos”. With his denial of reason he produced a complete “decay of intellectual life”. Nietzsche, as so often, describes Luther best when he calls him “a barbarian of the intellect”.
“In the times immediately succeeding the Reformation, matters I do consider spiritual and religious forces as more important in the history of mankind than all other factors taken together.
Here are, to my mind, two possibilities only. Either the Western civilised countries attempt to have a Christian belief as their religious background or they have not. So far, Europe has never been Christian in the sense in which I understand it. There are two explanations of the problem: either, as a great contemporary thinker—and friend of mine—Oscar Levy, says: “Christianity has been tried (for two thousand years) and found wanting, that is just our trouble.” In this case we have to look for some new standards of value, a new ethical code. Or we say with G. K. Chesterton: “Christianity has never been tried yet”—in which case we have to try really and truly to live up to Christian standards and give Christianity a chance.
On the whole, the second proposition is the one which finds, perhaps, most followers in Western countries. Is there any chance that we can ever give Christianity a fair run? I think there is. The answer is given by the late Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Gore: “Let there be fewer Christians but better Christians”.
Translated into practice that means two things: first, let us all try to lead a Christian life—not in convenient slices and with hypocrisy. Either we take the whole, or we frankly admit that we are no Christians. This total Christianity implies that in every action, every thought, every word, we try to live a truly Christian life. Christianity will, in this case, be the one and only guiding force of our lives. There is no compromise and no arguing.
The second, equally important, condition is that we do not accept the sham-Christianity of other individuals or other nations. We are prepared to have fewer Christians, but we want better ones. The mere paying of lip-service by others that they are Christians, or call themselves Christians, will no longer be sufficient for this first stage to produce a Christian Europe. We do not believe others, we investigate for ourselves. We do not want words, but deeds. We do not want promises, but proof.
These, I venture to say, are truly Christian conditions. If we follow them it will have two results: First, that in our own community we will find out how very few real Christians there are. But the small nucleus will and must be sufficient to grow slowly and steadily. If it does not, Christianity will never come. But more, if we truly investigate, we will find out—as I have done myself—that there is no truly Christian element inside Germany, that the spirit of Luther’s perversions has overshadowed even the fundamentals of a religion which never—before Luther—was liked by the Germans or came natural to them. Then, indeed, we shall be faced by the great and perhaps impossible task not of producing a German re-education, but a German—the first of its kind—reformation. Reformations are not made by order. They do not merely depend on good-will and many other outward conditions, but on time and spirit. We cannot but try. To face the problem is the first step to its solution, however.
In the meantime, let us by all means carry on with all the laudable plans and enterprises to change ourselves, and to re-educate Germany—to produce new history books, a new League of Nations, new schools, new teachers. All these worldly problems will be difficult enough—and it is well worth while attempting them.
But let us not forget—and this is the main argument I am trying to put forward—that the spiritual forces are deep-rooted, that the spirit of Luther and a German God will dominate the German mind for many generations to come, that spiritual forces are stronger than political and economical.
People nowadays like to be “constructive”. I have often been accused of not being constructive and of being a pessimist. But I do think that it is better to face facts, however grim, and to admit that a solution may be difficult if not impossible, than to ignore the unpleasant data and to build on sand—with the result that the whole house collapses again in another twenty-five years.
I think if we see the truth, if we really visualise the existing dangers, if we face the present facts, if we understand their historical origins, connections and influences, if we begin to appreciate the gigantic power spiritual forces have, the evil effect Luther and Lutheranism had on Germany and on Europe—then we have already advanced a great step, then we have—perhaps—already done more than the appeasers and dreamers, idealists and sentimentalists will ever achieve. My purpose in the preceding pages was not to construct but to explain, not to teach but to make people think, not to solve problems but to fact them.
We schoolmasters are really quite humble folk. Unlike the members of other professions—such as journalists and politicians, statesmen and (perhaps) the clergy—we do not attempt to produce a new world by means of a plan, by a simple theoretical solution, whether it is Peace Pledge Union or League of Nations and that admittedly not always—to develop our pupils’ own faculties of thought. We merely try to prepare them, and not to hand out a ready-made ideal world.
Politicians and members of other professions, such as I mentioned just now, will find my thesis thoroughly unsatisfactory because I have failed to produce the much-demanded “solution”—which in the case of books means good sale, in the case of elections plenty of votes. But if I have succeeded in explaining things without producing a bias, in making people think and face a few facts—then I shall be more than satisfied, for then I shall feel that I have wasted neither the reader’s time nor mine. Then, moreover, I shall know that I have done my small and unimportant share in what is the duty of every schoolmaster, nay, of every responsible citizen: I have, within the limits of my ability (and time!) uttered a warning of very real dangers, in order that those who are at present my pupils—and their children—may be able to live in a more honest, more peaceful, more Christian, better world.
Bibliographical Note
Many readers might have liked to see here a list of “books for further reading”, but as Professor Lucien Febure said in his “Luther—a Destiny”, published in London in 1930, “the bibliography of Luther is an ocean”. Even in 1905 Boehmer had stated that it comprised some 2,000 volumes, not counting articles, brochures, etc., and “since then the flood has risen tremendously. How can one escape drowning?” Professor Febure gives an admirable short bibliography in his book just mentioned, and to this the reader is confidently referred.
In the references given, E refers to the Erlangen edition of Luther’s works, W to the Weimar edition. The first figure indicates the volume, the second the page.