A 21st-century reformation

Hamline professor’s research looks to redefine how we see history.

Sabrina Merritt, Reporter

Has much changed in 500 years? Deanna A. Thompson, a religion professor at Hamline, is examining how a particular movement in 1517 compares to the 2017 resistance movements, such as the Women’s March. Thompson, who has studied Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation for 20 years, presented her research to Hamline faculty and community last Tuesday afternoon.

Martin Luther posted his 95 qualms with the Catholic church, which led to the division of the church and the creation of Protestant faiths. Thompson’s work looks at this piece of history with a feminist lens.

After reading leading Reformation expert Andrew Pettegree’s work in November of 2016, Thompson could not help but see comparisons between Luther and the then president-elect Trump. Pettegree starts the title page of part one with the words “a singular man,” much to the dismay of Thompson. While she acknowledges she is not the first person to question Luther as a singular man who changed the course of history, she believes history is a more complicated story.

Thompson notes that Pettegree emphasizes the improbability of Luther causing such a revolution, but his enormous personality and use of the newest technology, the printing press, were definitely heavy factors. Despite there being few indicators in Luther’s early life that he would become a “singular man of history”, he was still able to overcome all of the improbabilities.

“It seemed Pettegree could have easily been talking about Donald Trump, the leader of the most improbable 21st century revolution,” Thompson says.  

The comparisons between the two men seem to be endless. The men were masters of promoting their ideas with the most prominent technology of their eras. Thompson jokes that Luther really was using the social media of his day. Both men were even known for their ways of belittling their enemies. It seems people can not get enough of Luther or Trump, but Thompson is more interested in telling the story of the many, not the story of the one.

In her talk, Thompson took time to address the people who aided the spread of Luther’s ideas. While women faced censorship and were expected to devote themselves to their domestic lives, many still took to the printing press and supported the Reformation. She describes the life of Argula von Grumbach, a woman who wrote several letters to Luther.

“[von Grumbach’s] role as a lay-theologian was not in service to Luther, but in service to other laypeople who wanted to know how the biblical stories and the growing reformation theologies applied to their lives,” says Thompson as she explains the involvement of others as so important in large movements.

Just as Thompson argues that Luther was not the only man to shape his era, Trump is not the only person taking the reigns of history. The Washington Post suggests that the 2017 Women’s March was possibly the largest single-day demonstration in history, with approximately 4 million Americans participating. Though Thompson recognizes that few things besides President Trump’s election could have caused such a large involvement, Trump is not a singular man. The participants of such marches will also impact the future.