Tonight I watched Luther with a friend, the recent major motion picture (now available on DVD) about the life of German Monk and founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther.

Praise first: The visual elements were fantastic. The scenery, atmospherics, locations, and costumes were excellent. The German countryside is gorgeous. It was also impressive to see how, well, "goofy" a lot of the formal attire looked then. Especially men. No man in power should ever wear a costume with ear-flaps and string if he wants to be taken seriously. (Perhaps that was the filmmakers' intent.)

The human-interest angle tended to be trite and almost insultingly obvious at times. In order to engage our interest, we are treated to makeup-filthy beggars (they look they've had a good bath, and then had too much makeup applied), especially a cute teenage beggar girl, carrying an even cuter handicapped little girl, complete with Tiny-Tim crutches. Really now. I'm surprised they also didn't throw in some explosions to keep the male interest.

Further into the film, however, there were some excellent performances which make the viewer smile and cheer -- such as Peter Ustinov's Fredrick the Wise.

But far as the story itself goes, here's what struck me...

The beginning wasn't very good; it seemed more focused on the filmmaker's theology, placed into Luther's mouth in a manner which often seemed contrived. And, sadly, overall, the film is nearly entirely bereft of Luther's core beliefs and realizations, which are important to understand why various things happen as they do. Without this, the viewer may often be left wondering how Martin arrived at a specific action or conviction, or fail to understand why people are responding to him so strongly.

After all, why would some minor point of theology revolutionize Europe?

It seems the film-makers want to depict Martin (and many peasants) as nearly on the verge of atheistic rage at the idea that God might judge people, suffering horrible psychic trauma (not to mention financial setback) under this cruel teaching. It is, we infer, a cynical manipulation of the Church to sell indulgences. (Hell should have received prominent placement in the credits, so large was its role.) Adding to this theme, the filmmakers also correctly depict Luther's own struggle with his own sins, feelings of unworthiness, and fear of God's judgement.

But the film-makers then show Luther changing, and saying our idea and image of God is wrong -- for thinking about him as being a God who might punish someone -- and that we should instead believe in a God of love. (And, apparently, a kind of love which precludes any judgement.)

In doing so, the film deceives its audience. Badly.

Martin Luther did not depict the answer to the problem of God's punishment as just believing in a different, less-judgemental kind of God. Nor was he critical of the idea that God might send people to hell, which is surely the impression the audience will receive.

Instead, Luther himself believed in hell throughout his life. For example, here is one of the 95 theses Luther nailed to the church door. Ask yourself if this sounds like a man who is trying to make people stop thinking about hell:

32. On the way to eternal damnation are they and their teachers, who believe that they are sure of their salvation through indulgences.

You see, the truth is quite the opposite: Luther believed indulgences sent people to hell, by denying them the opportunity to consider a much more powerful idea.

The actual key to understanding Luther's transformation was not belief in a God of love (without judgement) as the film implies. Instead, the true key, which the filmmakers completely hide from the viewer, is Martin's fight against the idea that it is possible to be "good enough", by our own actions, to earn God's favor.

As one biographer put it, referring to Luther's treatises on the book of Romans, and the Psalms:

He here shewed the distinction between the law and the gospel; he refuted the error then reigning in the schools and councils, which taught that men deserve the remission of their sins on account of their own works, and the dogma of the Pharisees, that men are in themselves just before God.

This doctrine, Luther argues repeatedly (here, for example) is a false idea and betrayal of Christ. If we could have been "good enough" to please God, by our own efforts, then Jesus would not have needed to die to save us. And as long as we are trusting in our own abilities, we cannot truly be trusting in God -- nor giving Him permission to change us.

For example, Luther wrote (emphasis added):

Faith is not what some people think it is. Their human dream is a delusion. Because they observe that faith is not followed by good works or a better life, they fall into error, even though they speak and hear much about faith. ``Faith is not enough,'' they say, ``You must do good works, you must be pious to be saved.''

They think that, when you hear the gospel, you start working, creating by your own strength a thankful heart which says, ``I believe.'' That is what they think true faith is. But, because this is a human idea, a dream, the heart never learns anything from it, so it does nothing and reform doesn't come from this `faith,' either.

So the problem with selling indulgences was not that it made the church money, or that it involved scaring people with hell. The core problem, to Luther, is that it was an extreme example of a false teaching common in the Roman Catholic church at the time: That we, by doing "good works" or obeying some "law", can make God happy with us, and also rightly consider ourselves "good people."

(And this is a common belief today as well: how often have I heard someone say they are a "good person" because they support the right ideas, or the correct political party, or gave at the office, etc. They are good, they believe, because, of what they did. No, Luther believed, this idea is utterly false cannot save us or change our lives.)

The biblical answer, which Luther discovered, and which changed his life, is that we are saved from judgement, and can become friends with God, by faith alone. And not mere faith in anything, but faith in Jesus's death on the cross, as being both necessary and sufficient to forgive our many sins, and open up lines of communication with God.

This explains both Luther's anger at indulgences -- which told people they were "good enough" if they merely gave some donation to the church -- and also explains how he resolved his own struggle to keep God's every law, and avoid sinning. His solution wasn't to simply stop believing God judges people, as the film implies. (That idea undoubtedly would have horrified him.) Instead, Luther discovered that the answer was to trust and believe that Jesus' death on the cross was sufficient to forgive him for his sins.

Yet this idea -- which is the Christian "gospel" itself -- and which is crucial to both to Luther's own personal transformation and the Protestant reformation he heralded -- is not even mentioned in the film. I only noticed one point in which the idea of "faith" made even a token appearance, and it was used deceptively: Martin says, "... we must have faith in God's love." No, actually -- we must have faith in Jesus's atoning death, sometimes also called "grace" (as in "Amazing Grace"). It's not enough to note God loves us. We must agree that we are morally wrong, that there is a moral problem separating us from God, and that Jesus's death can solve it for us.

So this is, in short, a movie about Martin Luther which utterly hides the core belief which motived his every conflict, kept him from recanting, made him and others willing to risk their very lives, and changed the faith, practice, and very society of Northern Europe.

What a remarkably subtle bit of censorship and revisionism.

Another incident which seems to have been manipulated is Luther's mention of the Greek Christians, who were not under papal authority.

In the film, Luther asks, regarding the belief that only those in the Roman Church are saved, whether the idea of salvation "becomes greater" by applying it to more people -- as though he though he believed doctrines which implied more were saved were inherantly better. The filmmakers are undoubtedly putting their own universalist beliefs into Luther's mouth.

Yet in real life, Luther's arguments were not based in universalism, but rather in an appeal to common belief and practice, noting the Greeks "believe as we do, baptise as we do, live as we do." They are to be considered Christians not because that makes us feel better about a scripture or would make it seem greater, but because they are Christians, by every important biblical test.

About 40 minutes in (after Luther's conversion and beliefs have been safely reworked), one gets the impression that the writers got tired of trying to create their own Martin Luther, and instead got lazy and started drawing on actual history. It is at this point that the film improves dramatically. Characters become less shallow. The plot gets more interesting. We stop seeing made-up incidents. The tension gets thicker. And the ending is especially rewarding: we see how the gospel, now translated in German so that the "common folk" can understand it, motivates wealthy people, who have everything to lose, to be willing to lose everything.

It's just a shame the audience itself never gets to hear the idea that motivated them to act in such a courageous manner. Ironicly, in doing so, the film is a bit like the Catholic church -- which it depicts as the enemy -- the Church being an organization which tried so very hard to prevent people from hearing and understanding the idea which changed Luther, and which I am giving you today.

There are a few other oddities in the movie, such as a scene where Luther gets upset about a suicide and single-handedly buries the body. He depicted as angry about the fact the person will not be buried, with a passion usually reserved for depictions of Jesus in the temple with a whip. I am given to understand this scene is wholly fictional -- perhaps another example of the writers hijacking the image of Martin Luther to promote their own ideas.

Luther did later mention that he thought suicide victims would be forgiven -- but that came after the reformation, and it was only, as best I know, mentioned mildly in his "Table Talks", not demonstrated through a dramatic incident, and not a core part of his complaint. Again, the film-makers have put the cart (believing suicide victims could be forgiven) ahead of the horse (forgiveness through faith) so that Luther appears here to be just going on his feelings, rather than reasoning from an idea he will only later discover by reading and studying the bible.

Finally, though the costumes and sets were wonderful, anachronisms abounded. Contrary to what we see, women and men didn't worship in church in mixed company. (Women on one side, men on the other.) I believe women would have had their heads covered. I also have trouble believing they handed out slips of paper, which must surely have been valuable, to each peasant, like movie tickets.

So, if you want to see an interesting and beautiful depictions of some of the events which occurred in Luther's later life, this is not a bad film. But you will hear very little about what actually motivated Luther, and what he taught, and absolutely nothing of the core idea which changed his life, and the world.

Update: Watching this film made me curious about Luther's life; as it disagreed so badly with my impressions. I wondered if I, though being raised in a Protestant church, had been so confused about the man. Upon reading further, I see how awful the film was. The sequencing is even worse than I'd thought: Luther visited Rome after becoming a teacher, not long before, as the film depicts.

Worse still, I now realize the depiction of Luther himself is completely bogus: Luther was not a skinny man, but rather prodigously large. The film depicts Luther young Luther as an ignorant, unlearned monk -- no, quite to the contrary, even as a child he was one of the brightest of his peers; quite the scholar -- not some ignorant teen running around spouting his feelings.

Sadly, the more I learn, the more I realize what a stupid, dishonest movie this was. Hollywood gave us the Luther they wanted him to be; there is almost nothing of the actual Martin Luther in this film.

The Thrivent Insurance company (formerly "Lutheran Brotherhood"), who sponsored this film, should demand a refund.