New York Times Book Review a Mighty Fortress by Steven Ozment
Opinion
German Austerity'southward Lutheran Core
IF there'due south one nationality the remainder of the world thinks it readily and totally understands, it is the Germans. Combine their deep interest with Nazism and anti-Semitism and, voilà! — 2,000 years of gripping, complex history vanishes.
Since the beginning of the euro crisis, this reductionism, which tin be establish within Germany as much as outside it, has come in the course of sifting through the fatal legacy of the Weimar era, the years of promising democracy that began in the defeat and humiliation of World War I and ended with the Nazi takeover in 1933.
On the i hand, we're told, the 1920s legacy of destabilizing inflation explains Germany's staunch aversion to expansionary monetary and financial policies today; on the other hand, the Nazi taint on the interwar years seems to prove for some that, even in 2012, the intentions of democratic Germany tin can't exist trusted when it comes to Europe'south well-existence.
But rather than scour tarnished Weimar, we should read much deeper into Germany'southward incomparably rich history, and in detail the indelible marker left by Martin Luther and the "mighty fortress" he built with his strain of Protestantism. Even today Germany, though religiously various and politically secular, defines itself and its mission through the writings and actions of the 16th century reformer, who left a succinct definition of Lutheran society in his treatise "The Liberty of a Christian," which he summarized in two sentences: "A Christian is a perfectly costless Lord of all, subject to none, and a Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all."
Consider Luther'southward view on charity and the poor. He made the intendance of the poor an organized, civic obligation past proposing that a mutual chest exist put in every German town; rather than skimp along with the traditional practice of almsgiving to the needy and deserving native poor, Luther proposed that they receive grants, or loans, from the chest. Each recipient would pledge to repay the borrowed amount after a timely recovery and return to self-sufficiency, thereby taking responsibility for both his neighbors and himself. This was honey of one's neighbour through shared civic responsibility, what the Lutherans all the same call "faith bearing clemency."
How picayune has changed in 500 years. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, a born-and-baptized daughter of an East German Lutheran pastor, conspicuously believes the age-old moral virtues and remedies are the best medicine for the euro crisis. She has no desire to press a secular ideology, let alone an institutional religious faith, on her country, but her politics draws unmistakably from an austere and self-sacrificing, yet charitable and fair, Protestantism.
If Ms. Merkel refuses to support so-called euro bonds, information technology is non because it would exist like giving free money to the undeserving poor but considering information technology would non assist the redeemed poor take responsibleness for their ain houses and abound stiff for both themselves and their needy neighbors. He who receives, recovers and profits from society in a time of need has a moral responsibleness to pay guild back by acting in plough as a potent citizen who can help fill up the common chests and cede for his at present needy neighbors, who had once helped him. Such is the sacrificial Lutheran order.
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For this point of view Ms. Merkel has been derided as the "austerity queen," and worse. Just she is undeterred. She admits that austerity is the toughest route home only hastens to add together that it is also the surest and quickest way to recover the economy and gain full emancipation from the crisis. Luther would agree.
According to polls, and so do Ms. Merkel'due south swain Germans. They concur tight to their belief, born of staunch Lutheran teachings, that human being life cannot thrive in deadbeat towns and profligate lands. They know that money is a scarce article that has to exist systematically processed, recorded and safeguarded before being put out to new borrowers and petitioners.
And they take comfort in the fact that, unlike what they consider the disenchanted, spendthrift countries of Greece and Italy, those living in model German lands take obeyed the chancellor'due south austerity laws and other survival programs designed for a fair, shared recovery.
But if their Lutheran heritage of sacrificing for their neighbors makes Germans choose thrift, it also leads them to social engagement. In classic Lutheran teaching, the conservancy of the laic "past organized religion alone" does non curtail the need for constant charitable adept works, as ill-informed critics allege. Faith, rather, empowers the believer to act in the world past taking the worry out of his present and future religious life.
It is true that Lutheranism, every bit a organized religion, has declined in Germany in recent decades, as the forces of multiculturalism and secularism have washed over the state. And yet witness the warmth with which Germans of all backgrounds embraced their new president, Joachim Gauck, a onetime Lutheran pastor.
And it is true that Lutheranism is hardly the but social forcefulness live in Germany today. Notwithstanding it is of a piece with the country's ii millenniums of history, filled as it is with redemptive cocky-sacrifice and bootstrapping. In the quaternary century A.D., German warriors controlled virtually every senior armed forces post in the Roman army. Subsequently, Germans turned the wilds of northern Key Europe into a bountiful breadbasket — and, most recently, an industrial machine.
What's more than, Lutheranism survived both right-wing Nazism and left-wing Communism, both of which tried to supercede its values with their ain. If anything, its resilience comes to the fore when challenged past change.
With the steady advance of Islam into Europe over the concluding two decades and in the face of unrelenting economical pressure from their neighbors, it is no surprise that Germans of all backgrounds accept now again quietly found "a mighty fortress" for themselves in their own Judeo-Christian heritage.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/opinion/sunday/in-euro-crisis-germany-looks-to-martin-luther.html
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