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Thomas Müntzer — strange, sinister, and curiously akin

Thomas Müntzer — strange, sinister, and curiously akin

Last updated on: March 12, 2022 at 11:36 am by Dan Peterson

Thomas Müntzer — strange, sinister, and curiously akin 2022-03-12T11:36:26-07:00 Dan Peterson

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Zeitgenössisches Porträt des Thomas Müntzer / Contemporary portrait of Thomas Müntzer
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

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An article of mine has appeared in Meridian Magazine. Perhaps a few of you, if you have absolutely nothing better to do, might find it interesting:

“Divine Emotions: A Contradiction to Aristotle’s Best Thinking on God”

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Two new items went up yesterday on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:

Come, Follow Me — Old Testament Study and Teaching Helps Lesson 12, March 14–20: Genesis 42–50 — “God Meant It unto Good”

A generous contribution from Jonn Claybaugh

Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me Old Testament Lesson 12 “God Meant It unto Good”: Genesis 42–50

The Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Old Testament Lesson 12, “God Meant It unto Good,” on Genesis 42–50, featured the husband-and-wife team of Neal Rappleye and Jasmin Rappleye. This roundtable, shorn of commercial and other distractions, has been drawn from the 6 February 2022 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show. The complete show is archived for your listening pleasure and edification at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-February-6-2022/. The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard each and every week on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.

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As I’ve mentioned here previously, I’ve been reading a bit in recent weeks on Martin Luther, the single most important figure in the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. In particular, I’m just about finished with Roland Bainton’s classic 1950 biography Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther.

This morning, I read a chapter that was devoted, in significant part, to Thomas Müntzer (ca. 1489-1525). A reformer, but also a revolutionary who sought to establish a theocracy and a “pure” society through the use of violence, Müntzer remains a focus of controversy and debate. (He was in his day, as well. He was eventually executed.). I myself find him both interesting and repulsive. Anyway, here are some passages in today’s reading that I thought might be worth sharing and in which some of you will find echoes of familiar things:

Those who rely on the letter, said he, are the scribes against whom Christ inveighed. Scripture as a mere book is but paper and ink. “Bible, Babel, bubble!” he cried. Behind this virulence was a religious concern. Müntzer had not been troubled like Luther as to how to get right with God, but as to whether there is any God to get right with. The Scripture as a mere written record did not reassure him because he observed that it is convincing only to the convinced. The Turks are acquainted with the Bible but remain completely alienated. The men who wrote the Bible had no Bible at the time when they wrote. Whence, then, did they derive their assurance? The only answer can be that God spoke to them directly, and so must he speak to us if we are so much as to understand the Bible. Müntzer held, with the Catholic Church, that the Bible is inadequate without a divinely inspired interpreter, but that interpreter is not the Church nor the pope but the prophet, the new Elijah, the new Daniel, to whom is given the key of David to open the book sealed with seven seals.

Müntzer was readily able to find support for his view of the spirit in the Scripture itself, where it is said that “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (II Cor. 3:6). . . . The real menace of Müntzer in Luther’s eyes was that he destroyed the uniqueness of Christian revelation in the past by his elevation of revelation in the present. Luther for himself had had absolutely no experience of any contemporary revelation, and in times of despondency the advice to rely upon the spirit was for him a counsel of despair, since within he could find only utter blackness.

In such moments he must have assurance in tangible form in a written record of the stupendous act of God in Christ. Luther freely avowed his weakness and his need of historic revelation. Therefore he would not listen to Müntzer though “he had swallowed the Holy Ghost, feathers and all.” At this point lies much of the difference not only between Müntzer and Luther, but between modern liberal Protestantism and the religion of the founders.

Had Müntzer drawn no practical consequences from his view, Luther would have been less outraged, but Müntzer proceeded to use the gift of the Spirit as a basis for the formation of a church. He is the progenitor of the Protestant theocracies, based not as in Judaism primarily on blood and soil, nor as in Catholicism on sacramentalism, but rather on inward experience of the infusion of the Spirit. (261-262)

In a sermon rather unwisely preached at Weimar before Frederick the Wise, the Prince-Elector of Saxony, and Frederick’s brother, Duke John, Müntzer attempted to enlist them in his cause:

He took his text from Daniel’s interpretation of the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar and began by saying that the Church was an undefiled virgin until corrupted by the scribes who murder the Spirit and assert that God no longer reveals himself as of old.

But God does disclose himself in the inner word in the abyss of the soul. The man who has not received the living witness of God knows really nothing about God, though he may have swallowed 100,000 Bibles. God comes in dreams to his beloved as he did to the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. He comes especially in affliction. That is why Brother Easychair [Martin Luther] rejects him. God pours out his spirit upon all flesh, and now the Spirit reveals to the elect a mighty and irresistible reformation to come. (263-264)

Realizing that his sermon had not been well received — Frederick the Wise had, after all, emerged as Luther’s benefactor and protector — Müntzer escaped the town by night and fled from Saxony.

***

Finally, you’ll probably want to join a really strong support group before you open these horrifying links that I’ve drawn from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File©. You have been warned:

“How Women in England Link Arms to Serve Those ‘on the Margins of Society’”

“Learn 16 simple ways to be a better humanitarian”

“How JustServe and an FDA-Approved Stake Center Led to Thousands of Meals for Kids”

“Church Delivers Truckload of Food to NYC Food Bank: Elder Quentin L. Cook presents donation to feed more than 300 families”

“Donation of 2,000 mobility devices set to change lives in South Africa: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints donated 900 wheelchairs and 1,200 mobility aids in partnership with the Western Cape Department of Health.”

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Christopher Hitchens Memorial "How Religion Poisons Everything" File

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