Lutheran Saints #22: The Baltic Martyrs

April 11, 2023 Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

Hey, remember my Lutheran saints series? It’s been awhile, for which my apologies. But the long absence of this series is not due to neglect of the saints—far from it. In fact, I have taken a detour from writing up hagiographies for an eventual book of Lutheran saints to do the theological background work that I always knew I’d have to do as well.

This scholarly sidestep is not chiefly due to anticipated hostility from fellow Lutherans toward the very notion of a Lutheran sanctorale. If anything, I’d say my church community is positively longing for better acquaintance with its own saints. But there is certainly an ongoing sense that it is vaguely illegitimate. Good Lutherans that we are, we want solid theological arguments before plowing ahead…

Lutheran Saints #18: Robert Barnes

July 20, 2021 Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

It was February of 1526 and Robert Barnes was on trial.

This was not where he expected to be. Before the age of twenty he’d joined a house of Augustinian friars and showed such great promise that he was sent first to Louvain on the continent to earn a Doctorate of Divinity and then, on his return to England, was made prior of the Augustinian friary in Cambridge and earned yet another Doctorate of Divinity. Finding in the famous university town other like-minded humanists, Robert gathered around him an intellectually and spiritually reform-minded community that met for lively debate at the White Horse Inn.

In time, they felt they had to go public with their concerns, and Robert was the obvious choice. On Christmas Eve 1525 he delivered a firebrand sermon, skewering the luxurious lifestyle of the high-ranking clergy. In no time at all accusations of heresy were flying, there’d been a student demonstration, and Robert—with a handful of others—found himself dragged to London and imprisoned.

At the end of his three-day trial before Cardinal Wolsey, Robert was forced to read aloud a recantation in front of the huge crowd, the alternative being death at the stake. He had to kneel before the bishop and beg for absolution, which was denied him until he agreed to whatever penance the bishop chose to impose. He agreed and discovered the next day what it was to be.

At an even bigger and more lavish gathering of clergy, a bishop railed from the pulpit against Robert as well as Martin Luther, made the accused men ask again for forgiveness, and then had them carry the firewood for the ceremonial burning of heretical books. Only then were the offenders absolved, at which point the crowd was granted an indulgence for having witnessed the whole affair, and Robert was sent to Fleet Prison for another six months.

When his time was up, Robert was transferred to the Augustinian friary in London for house arrest. But he evidently had not learned his lesson from the whole sorry debacle. Immediately on arrival he got involved in the sale of Tyndale Bibles—translations of the Scriptures into English—and when rumor circulated that this time Robert really was going to be burned for his troubles, he hatched a plan. He left his clothes at the edge of the Thames with a suicide note appended but actually escaped to Antwerp with the help of German merchants…

Lutheran Saints #17: Henry Melchior Muhlenberg

October 13, 2020 Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

He was sure that God intended him for a life of missionary service in India. His theological studies at Göttingen and Halle, establishment of a school for poor children, oversight of a hospital—all of these were to prepare him for the trials of far-off Bengal and its people in need.

But when the call came, on his thirtieth birthday, it summoned him west, not east. German Lutherans had been migrating to the American colonies for decades, but they were like sheep without a shepherd. Would young Henry go and serve them?

He agreed—reluctantly. Three years, he said.

He stayed until his dying day…

Lutheran Saints #16: Argula von Grumbach

September 15, 2020 Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

Eighteen-year-old Arsacius Seehofer couldn’t contain his excitement when he arrived as a university tutor in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, after a stint studying in Wittenberg. For there he had learned that faith alone is sufficient for our justification! God imputes His own righteousness to us regardless of our works! God pours His Spirit into us, so we should not place our confidence in any good work of our own—yet certainly our Spirit-granted faith will produce good fruit! And since this is known only from Scripture, no one should trust any church official, not even a bishop, unless it is certain that his teaching comes from the word of God.

Those who had ears to hear knew what they were hearing. Arsacius was spouting Lutheran ideas, which had already been denounced by local preacher Georg Hauer two years prior. The ducal government was actively suppressing nascent Lutheranism by means of censorship, the seizure of Lutheran books, and the arrest of participants in private discussion groups on Reformation themes.

Therefore, no theologically intoxicated youth was going to be allowed to flout the law without consequences. In August of 1523, Arsacius’s rooms were searched and his possessions seized. On September 7, he was forced to recant before the entire university in words prepared for him: “Everything that I have read out from the writings of Philip Melanchthon in my lectures, and everything else which was spoken or written by me, and has just been read out by the notary of this university, is the most awful arch-heresy and knavery. I will never again adhere to or make use of any of it; but will betake myself, body and soul, to the Ettal monastery, not to leave the same without being commanded so to do by our gracious Lords, so that I have no desire to read or spread Lutheran ideas. May God almighty help me!”

No man came to Arsacius’s defense; it was much too dangerous.

But a woman did…

Lutheran Saints #15: Jón Vídalín

August 18, 2020 Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

Earthquake. Volcanic eruptions. Pestilence. Famine. It could have been the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, but actually it was just Iceland at the turn of the eighteenth century.

It’s not as though Iceland has a mild or pleasant climate to begin with, but in the late 1600s and early 1700s it was worse than usual, with the result that nine thousand Icelanders starved to death between 1695 and 1702. Winter fishing claimed many men’s lives annually as well, and the unusually rough weather only increased the death toll. A smallpox epidemic in 1707 killed off a third of the population. Deforestation meant not enough firewood to heat through the brutal winters, and poor sanitation made the long enforced stay indoors that much unhealthier.

As if that weren’t bad enough, what little wealth the island did have was concentrated in the hands of a few. Landowners set exorbitant rents that peasants could never pay, leading to spiralling debt. The Danish crown imposed a trade monopoly on behalf of one of its own companies and heavily penalized those who took their business elsewhere.

Into this harsh environment Jón Vídalín was born in 1666…

Slovak Novels in English #28: Only a Servant

July 7, 2020 Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

This is the second installment of novels by Kristína Royová, who, though late to be discovered by yours truly in her search for all Slovak novels in English, is probably the most-published Slovak author of all.

This short novel, first published in Slovak in 1903, concerns the lives of several families in a small village in Slovakia, which at this time was the northern outpost of the Hungarian half of the Austro-Hungarian empire. A stranger comes into town, bearing goodwill the same way Clint Eastwood would have borne a gun. Indeed, the opening line reads: “Just when farmer Ondrasik needed help most and had no idea where to find someone, there came to his house a man, uninvited and unexpected.” The helper is named Methodius, no mistake that: it’s the name of the first apostle to the Slavs, commemorated every year in July.

Methodius goes on by his kindly service and warm testimony to his faith in God to have a transformative effect on everyone around him. Naturally, there are some obstacles along the way. Given Royová’s socially-conscious objection to alcohol and its evil impact on peasant society, it’s no surprise that the proposal of one family to open a store selling booze is strongly opposed by Methodius and in time leads to catastrophe in the family. More positively, Methodius helps to facilitate loving relationships both within families and between young people seeking honorable marriage.

The heart of the story, however, is Methodius’s interactions with David, a Jew. In a post-Holocaust era, there is unsurprising discomfort with the prospect of Christian missions to the Jews…

Lutherans Saints #14: Maud Powlas

June 9, 2020 Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

Eleven-year-old Maud heard Jesus’ call to serve in Japan. For the next decade and a half she prayed and prepared for it, imagining herself walking through a rural village on the other side of the world, Bible in hand, telling “the boys and girls of Japan about Jesus their Savior.” Her sole wish was to evangelize, bringing hope of salvation to those who’d never heard the good news.

The other missionaries said no.

That was the rule “in the field”: decisions were made by a strict majority vote—democratic in nature, except for the not insignificant matter of excluding women—and the longer-term missionaries in Japan determined that what they needed was not more evangelism, but more works of mercy. Locals converts needed to see that service to the needy was part and parcel of the gospel. Besides that, the need was enormous: at the time, neither Japanese culture nor the Japanese state perceived any obligation to help the suffering. The Christians had their work cut out for them—and Maud, utterly unqualified for the task, was going to lead the way…

Lutheran Saints #13: Johann Friedrich Oberlin

May 26, 2020 Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

Johann Friedrich Oberlin is well-enough remembered to have an American college and a Japanese university named after him, not to mention countless streets in Alsace and a museum in his old home. But if any saint proves the point that no one can be a saint in isolation—that saintliness is a communal activity—it’s Oberlin. To remember this saint rightly is to bring back to remembrance the other less famous saints surrounding him as well.

It was not Oberlin but Jean-Georges Stuber who was a pioneer in the destitute parish of the Ban de la Roche, or “stone valley,” in a deep and isolated pocket of the Vosges mountains to the west of Strasbourg, France. Though these two pastors arrived more than a century after the Thirty Years’ War, the community still bore the scars of the devastating conflict and had never recovered. No road reached the village of Waldersbach or the other nearby hamlets, and no bridge crossed the fast-flowing Bruche River. The only schoolteacher was a man who had grown too old to look after his pigs anymore. The previous pastor hadn’t seen or used an actual Bible in more than twenty years. The soil was depleted, the yield of the farms was poor, and the people just barely managed not to starve.

Stuber took the post in the Ban de la Roche twice, serving a total of fourteen years, before he finally relented and accepted a more prestigious call to the St. Thomas Church in Strasbourg. He had laid the groundwork for the community’s renewal by finding a better schoolteacher, creating primers to instruct in reading, and preaching repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. But the Ban de la Roche was the last place anybody wanted to go; it was perceived more as a punishment than a parish. In the end, only one man was willing to take such a humiliating call as a worthy way to serve God: Johann Friedrich Oberlin…

Lutheran Saints #12: Albrecht Dürer

March 31, 2020 Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

It would have been gift enough to the world if Albrecht Dürer had only been an artist.

The third of eighteen children, he was apprenticed first to his goldsmith father and later to the most highly regarded painter in his hometown of Nuremberg. From both Albrecht learned a variety of skills, artistic and technical: silver point, engraving, pen, brush, gouache and watercolor, woodcuts. As a young man he toured throughout Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, learning ever more in his field. After a return home for an arranged marriage to a woman named Agnes Frey—not a happy union—he set off again to see the great centers of the Renaissance in Italy: Venice, Padua, Mantua, and Cremona. The journey south made such an impact on young Albrecht that his return is credited with the birth of the Renaissance in northern Europe. When opportunity arose he returned to Italy and stayed from 1505 to 1507.

Once settled back again home in Nuremberg, Albrecht became extraordinarily productive and by the time of his death had produced “more than six dozen paintings, more than a hundred engravings, about two hundred and fifty woodcuts, more than a thousand drawings, and three printed books on geometry, fortification and the theory of human proportions.” His good friend Pirckheimer composed a epitaph befitting the high regard in which the artist was held: Quicquid Alberti Dureri mortale fuit sub hoc conditur tumulo, “Whatever was mortal of Albrecht Dürer is covered by this tomb”…

Lutheran Saints #10: Eivind Berggrav

January 7, 2020 Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

How unlikely that an unbelieving student, who on principle declined to receive the Lord’s Supper for a decade, would go on to become bishop of Oslo and spend three years in solitary confinement as the cost of his public faith!

Eivind was a pastor’s son, and despite a reasonably happy upbringing in a country parish, doubts crept in and took over. The bitter factiousness of church and theology in the Norway of his youth certainly didn’t help. At his lowest point, Eivind even ripped out the page of his confirmation Bible that his mother had inscribed and burned in ceremonially. He turned to journalism, adding to it teaching, and in time, mysteriously, the wounds began to heal. Marriage to his gifted wife Kathrine helped, as did the fellowship of Christian students. Time spent reporting on World War I, on site in Germany, opened up to him the striking fact of soldiers’ faith. But it was only his father’s death in 1918 that brought about the of his confusion and pain. He knew, then, that he also had a call to serve in the ministry of the church, and he accepted it.

Eivind’s gifts for the work were immediate and enormous. He could talk to anyone, and would, whether villagers in rural Norway or prisoners at the Oslo penitentiary. Through à Nathan Söderblom he got involved in the nascent ecumenical movement and made friends across multiple national and confessional borders. He studied religious psychology and even spent time in Switzerland with Carl Jung before heading even farther north to serve as bishop of Hålogaland, the Arctic diocese populated by the Sámi and their reindeer. One of the most popular among his more than forty books was Land of Suspense, an account of his nine years there that honored both the culture and the faith of a people very different from the usual portrait of Norway.

In 1937 Eivind was summoned back south: he was appointed Bishop of Oslo and thereby the Primate of the Church of Norway. It was not an auspicious time…