Sing Your Faith: Martin Luther’s Worship Reforms
A mighty fortress is our God,
Martin Luther, 1529
a bulwark never failing;
our helper he, amid the flood
of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
does seek to work us woe;
his craft and power are great,
and armed with cruel hate,
on earth is not his equal.
When I mention the name Martin Luther, what are your first thoughts? Often, people know that Martin Luther posted his ninety-five theses on the chapel door in Wittenberg (Saxony) on October 31, 1517. Many people also know Luther’s five Sola’s: Sola Gratia (By Grace Alone), Sola Fida (Through Faith Alone), Solus Christus (In Christ Alone), Sola Scriptura (According to Scripture Alone), and Soli Deo Gloria (For God’s Glory Alone). But did you know that Luther’s reform focused strongly on worship practices? Martin Luther advocated for the inclusion of vernacular worship (meaning to allow singing in the local language) as opposed to only allowing Latin to be sung in church, which was occurring in Catholic services. Through this emphasis, Luther encouraged more congregational singing, which was not happening as standard practice prior to 1517. We owe a debt of gratitude to Luther for his efforts in reforming sacred congregational singing, as it is a practice we still encourage today.
Martin Luther, an ordained Catholic priest, challenged the authority of the Catholic Church in the early- to mid-sixteenth century on many fronts. This article will focus on the area of his worship reform, in which Luther argued that Christians should be allowed, and encouraged, to sing their faith. The idea of singing one’s faith had fallen into disuse during the Middle Ages as Catholic services were offered only in Latin, the language of the Rome, and most people did not understand the Latin language. Since most of society was illiterate at that time, parishioners were unable to understand or participate in worship. Luther’s aim was to translate Latin hymns into German, and even compose his own hymns, so believers could sing their faith. Because the printing press had recently been invented, Luther was able to distribute his translations and compositions into the hands of other sympathetic reformers throughout Germany.
According to Luther, in order for people to be acceptive to this new idea in worship reform, he needed to utilize the popular style of the day, bar form. Herein lies a common misconception regarding Luther’s tunes. He did not utilize “bar tunes,” meaning songs sung in the local tavern. Rather, he utilized a style of music called “bar form,” in which there were three stanzas, with the first two stanzas using the same melody, and the third stanza using a different melody. This style was popular among the meistersingers and minnersingers of the day, and most people were familiar with the tunes from these folk singers. By utilizing this common form of music, Luther was, “ensuring that his song would be given a receptive hearing.”1
It is important to remember that Martin Luther did not set out to create the Protestant Reformation. Rather, he wanted to reform the practices utilized in the Catholic Church. To this end, Luther was the only reformer that wrote a mass in German, the Deutsche Messe, so the congregation could participate in worship. This was not well-received by Catholic clergy at the time, and Luther was continually hindered by inadequate theological expressions of only writing within the confines of the mass structure (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei). It was then that Luther sought capable poets that could effectively communicate correct theology in poetry. Luther encouraged poets to use, “only the simplest and the most common words” in their compositions, so that the most people would feel comfortable to participate.2 Luther would set the texts, written by himself and other poets, to common tunes utilized by the meistersingers. This utilization of numerous texts being set to one melody was popular in the folk tradition of his day, and continues in our hymn book today.
Luther reformed what was good within the old and continued to add new as he went.
One of the most important reform points that we can learn from Luther is this: he did not throw out all of the old in favor for the new. Instead, he reformed what was good within the old and continued to add new as he went. Luther sought to reform errancies within the Catholic church at the time, but he did not reject everything he had been taught about sacred song. Ultimately, Martin Luther wrote a handful of hymns, including Ein Feste Burg, or A Mighty Fortress is Our God, which is still in our hymnals today. We owe much to Luther’s bravery and determination in developing congregational singing in a hostile environment. May we never take for granted the privilege and joy we have in singing our faith.
- Robin A. Leaver, The Whole Church Sings: Congregational Singing in Luther’s Wittenberg (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017), 60.
2. Leaver, The Whole Church, 74.
This post was originally published on my home church’s website: https://www.councilroad.church/blog/2019/10/29/sing-your-faith-martin-luthers-worship-reform
