02/09/2021
What Martin Luther Teaches Us About Covid
Epidemics, pandemics, plagues, and pestilence are nothing new, and have appeared repeatedly throughout history. When the Black Death (Bubonic Plague) appeared in Europe in the fourteenth century, twenty-five percent of the population was lost. In the fifteenth century there were at least four more outbreaks. Martin Luther lived through three of these. The plague first appeared in Wittenberg on August 2, 1527. By August 19, there were already eighteen deaths. The Elector urged Luther and other professors to flee to another town in order to escape the epidemic, but Luther refused to abandon his congregation and remained in Wittenberg. After months of first-hand experience with the epidemic, Luther took up his pen to respond to a fellow minister, Johann Hess, who had written to him in July, only weeks before the outbreak of the plague in Wittenberg, asking whether it was appropriate for members of the clergy to flee from such deadly plagues. Luther finally responded with a long letter, which has been preserved under the title “Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague”. Luther’s words are especially pertinent today, and offer wise counsel and a common-sense perspective, directly applicable to Covid-19.
Luther is writing to a Christian audience, and so he argues from a position of faith. After urging Christians to look after the needs of their neighbors, he addresses what he sees as a more serious problem for Christians: mistaking carelessness for faith, and tempting God through presumption.
“Others…are much too rash and reckless, tempting God and disregarding everything which might counteract death and the plague. They disdain the use of medicines; they do not avoid places and persons infected by the plague, but lightheartedly make sport of it and wish to prove how independent they are. They say that it is God’s punishment; if he wants to protect them he can do so without medicines or our carefulness. This is not trusting God but tempting him. God has created medicines and provided us with intelligence to guard and take good care of the body so that we can live in good health.
“If one makes no use of intelligence or medicine when he could do so without detriment to his neighbor, such a person injures his body and must beware lest he become a su***de in God’s eyes. By the same reasoning a person might forego eating and drinking, clothing and shelter, and boldly proclaim his faith that if God wanted to preserve him from starvation and cold, he could do so without food and clothing. Actually that would be su***de. It is even more shameful for a person to pay no heed to his own body and to fail to protect it against the plague the best he is able, and then to infect and poison others who might have remained alive if he had taken care of his body as he should have. He is thus responsible before God for his neighbor’s death and is a murderer many times over. Indeed, such people behave as though a house were burning in the city and nobody were trying to put the fire out. Instead they give leeway to the flames so that the whole city is consumed, saying that if God so willed, he could save the city without water to quench the fire.
“No, my dear friends, that is no good. Use medicine; take potions which can help you; fumigate house, yard, and street; shun persons and places wherever your neighbor does not need your presence or has recovered, and act like a man who wants to help put out the burning city. What else is the epidemic but a fire which instead of consuming wood and straw devours life and body? You ought to think this way: Very well, by God’s decree the enemy has sent us poison and deadly offal. Therefore I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine, and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely, as stated above. See, this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.”
Luther’s advice is especially relevant for us today. It should be remembered that his words were born out of his own first-hand experience with a deadly plague. He reminds us that personal responsibility is not a contradiction to faith. (In fact, some scholars believe that he penned his famous hymn of faith, “A Mighty Fortress is our God”, during this epidemic). Observing common-sense precautions such as social distancing and wearing of masks in public does not violate civil liberties or demonstrate a lack of faith, but on the contrary, a simple concern for the well-being of others.
