Martin Luther Lecture by Prof Cary

I listened to a lecture series on Martin Luther from the Teaching Company by Prof. Cary.  This turned out to be a nice experience.  I got the series because of something that I read or heard about Martin Luther that interested me in learning more about him.  Here's what I'd learned that I didn't know before.  First Luther was not just some unknown monk that suddenly became famous when he posted his 95 Theses.  He was a monk but he was also a Priest and was very well known and educated.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out that Luther showed great faith when he entered the monastery, he was giving up the life of being a lawyer and going against the wishes of his father, and then when he was convinced that the Catholic Church was wrong he left the monastery, the life he'd known and been living into the unknown on faith.  Anyway this made me want to learn a little more about Luther, and since we were going to be driving a lot over the holidays I got the Luther tapes.

First I was pleasantly surprised to find that this series was given by Prof. Cary.  I listened to a series by Prof. Cary "The History of Christian Theology" and liked it so much I got a second set called "Philosophy and Religion in the West" so I was excited that he'd done this set as well.  It's funny because I only realized who the lecturer was after starting to listening to it.

I really liked this set of tapes primarily for the reason that Prof. Cary seems to me to be a Christian believer.  He says that he's a Lutheran and he says that he realizes that there are some problems with what he believes and that he just accepts those problems as opposed to accepting the problems that come from believing in Calvinism.  I don't remember off the top of my head what the problems were but I like the way that he stated it.

He also talks about "traditions" and explains it very well.  He says that he can listen to a car engine and not hear anything wrong but a mechanic that has been taught the "traditions" of car mechanics can listen and tell that a spark plug, or something, is not working right.  No text has an inherent meaning to it in only has meaning with the traditions we bring to it.  That seems right to me.

Prof. Cary I feel is very insightful as to Luther.  He's hard on him when he should be hard on him, such as his treatment of the Jews, and his seemingly intransigence.  For example Prof. Cary thinks that the Reformation wouldn't have taken place if Luther had not decided the the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) was the anti-Christ.  Luther didn't say that a certain Pope was bad (Many people had said that including Erasmus.) but that the entire RCC was anti-Christ.  Prof. Cary admits that's a hard statement especially when it's obvious, as I feel, that the RCC is not the anti-Christ.

I liked these lectures and highly recommend them.