Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet

Lyndal Roper. New York: Random House, 2017. 576 pages. (Hardback).

Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet” was written to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Luther’s famous act of nailing his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. I started the book eagerly, excited to read more about the man who led the charge against Catholic teachings and practices in 1517. It didn’t take me long to slow down like a child’s toy that has been wound up and set on the floor to run itself out. There is a lot of book here — 576 pages, to be exact — and every page is packed with information.

I had never read this kind of detail about Luther’s life and found it fascinating to trace the development of the ideas that brought about the split with the Catholic Church that eventually resulted in Protestantism. While it is not lively and entertaining in the manner of a Terri Blackstock novel, the subject and the writing style were enough to keep me reading, if a bit slower than in the beginning.

My guess is that devotees of Luther and/or Church history will love the book; the rest of us will like it. We will all profit from learning about the struggle for truth that impacted the world.

Reviewed by Martine Bates Fairbanks, Ed.D.