Martin Luther

Luther saw himself as an accidental leader who did not choose the role of Protestant Reformer. That was not part of job descriptions then and is not now. It is true that in many ways he was cast into that role by circumstances that were no part of his training as a member of a monastic community and that he did not seek.

Luther said of his most dramatic act, the assault on the papacy that helped split Western Christendom, that all he did was preach the Word of God. Then, he went on, while he and two friends, Philipp Melanchthon and Nicholas von Amsdorf, sat and drank beer in Wittenberg, God dealt the papacy a mighty blow. Those who are not convinced that they can call upon God to blast earthly powers still find many things of value to observe about leadership, even from such jaunty summaries (Bainton, 55).

First, Luther the leader had to persuade and therefore depended upon rhetoric. He saw himself opposing two coercive systems, rulers in each of which could take his life: the Holy Roman Empire, centered in territories that became Germany, and the Roman Catholic Church, headed by the pope. While he had the protection of a friendly prince, Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony, he could not call on armament or major funding for support. When in the 1520s he left the monastery and, seven years later, married an exnun, he was nearly penniless. His wife, Katherine von Bora, became an adept leader herself, raising living expenses as a housemother to boarding students, secretary and treasurer for the Luthers, plus farmer and brewer. Still, funds for her husband and for the priests who followed him into Evangelical (Protestant) ministry were few (Marius, 74).

Luther depended on words, written and spoken. His collected writings make up ...