A World Ablaze

The Rise of Martin Luther and the Birth of the Reformation

By: Craig Harline

Narrated by: Bob Souer

Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

October 2017 marks 500 years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg and launched the Protestant Reformation. At least, that's what the legend says. But with a figure like Martin Luther, who looms so large in the historical imagination, it's hard to separate the legend from the life, or even sometimes to separate assorted legends from each other. Over the centuries, Luther the man has given way to Luther the icon, a polished bronze figure on a pedestal.

In A World Ablaze, Craig Harline introduces us to the flesh-and-blood Martin Luther. Harline tells the riveting story of the first crucial years of the accidental crusade that would make Luther a legendary figure. He didn't start out that way; Luther was a sometimes-cranky friar and professor who worried endlessly about the fate of his eternal soul. He sought answers in the Bible and the Church fathers, and what he found distressed him even more - the way many in the Church had come to understand salvation was profoundly wrong, thought Luther, putting millions of souls, not least his own, at risk of damnation. His ideas would pit him against numerous scholars, priests, bishops, princes, and the Pope, even as others adopted or adapted his cause, ultimately dividing the Church against itself. A World Ablaze is a tale not just of religious debate but of political intrigue, of shifting alliances and daring escapes, with Luther often narrowly avoiding capture, which might have led to execution. The conflict would eventually encompass the whole of Christendom and served as the crucible in which a new world was forged.

The Luther we find in this audiobook is not a statue to be admired but a complex figure - brilliant and volatile, fretful and self-righteous, curious and stubborn. Harline brings out the immediacy, uncertainty, and drama of his story, giving listeners a sense of what it felt like in the moment, when the ending was still very much in doubt. The result is a masterful recreation of a momentous turning point in the history of the world.

©2017 Oxford University Press (P)2018 Tantor

Good Account of Luther the Theologian

Things I didn't know about him and the regular practice of refutations posted for debate within the local theological community. Those refutations or hypothesis for study and debate were often framed in exaggerated form to provoke commentary and discussion to clarify the faith tenants as practiced in those times. He did not intend at that original posting for it to be broadcast beyond his local community. Didn't know of his 99 theses on theological issues. One had to wonder how the church could stray do far shield as to promote the concept of Indulgences as something Holy and spiritual regarding salvation.