Thursday, March 13, 2025

It is the 13th of March 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis. 

It is often the case in church history, and this show is no exception, that the church historians focus on the so-called “Professional Christians”—those who are paid to try and understand what is going on (or, in the words of Upton Sinclair, sometimes paid to not understand… but I digress). This is reasonable as the “professionals” are usually the ones writing, talking, and debating. Even the modest hymn writer is teaching through his or her lyrics and melody.

And so in a change of pace (of sorts) we head back in time to the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg during the Reformation to tell the story of a man integral to the Reformation, but in large part from the perspective of a layperson. How did the “average” person understand Luther and the Reformation? For that question, we meet Lazarus Spengler, born on this, the 13th of March in 1479. His dates, 1479 to 1534 straddle the initial reformation movement which began in… ack.. I always forget that year (… it’s 1517).

Lazarus was the ninth of twenty-two children to Agnes and Georg Spengler. Georg came from modest wealth and sat on the city council, he was also custodian of the city council Library, something his 9th son would especially enjoy. Being a “Free Imperial City” it enjoyed an independence from “princely politics” and didn’t even have its own Bishop. Young Lazarus would grow up in a city influenced by the nascent Humanism of the day and the local Augustinian monastery, which was led for a time by the reform-minded Johann von Staupitz (later Luther’s confessor and help during a time of spiritual depression).

Lazarus went off to the University of Leipzig, but when his father died in 1496, he was called home to help with the family. He would then marry himself and when his wife died put together an alliance of family and step-family to help raise his own family. With his father's connections, Lazarus became a council member in Nuremberg, and as a free Imperial City, they would be amongst the most influential and connected people.  Through these connections, Spengler began to see the corruption of the late medieval church. When Luther began to criticize the excesses, Spengler joined the movement, met both Luther and Melanchthon, and became one of the earliest and most vocal proponents of the Reformation. Perhaps most notable (and overlooked) is Spengler’s 1518 defense of Luther- the title is ridiculously long, so we will call it the “Defense and Christian Reply”. In it we have not only one of the earliest defenses of Luther and the Reformation from a layperson. It is not especially theologically erudite, but therein lies its use for historians. How did an educated but relatively average “layperson” see the movement?

For Spengler the Reformation made sense as he believed God had always called “moderns” whether Aquinas, Bonaventure, etc… to help reform the church. Furthermore, he argued that Luther was not in it for financial gain, which he believed made him more trustworthy than the church, which was making a good profit off its theology. Furthermore, Luther’s insistence on arguing from the Bible and his claim to act according to conscience was convincing to Spengler.

And this layperson's defense of Luther and the Reformation would lead to Spengler having the honor of being mentioned by name in the Pope’s excommunication of Luther in 1520. The council member was now forever linked to the Reformation. He would try his hand at hymnody, but his legacy is perhaps most tied to his drawing of Luther’s Rose- the famous black cross in a red heart inside of a white rose that Spengler helped design (Lazarus was friends with Albrecht Dürer in Nuremberg and had a little artistic talent). If you’ve ever read Luther’s explanation of the colors and symbolism it occurs in a letter to Spengler in response to the seal sent by him.

Spengler, as a council member and diplomat would be especially helpful in those early years of the Reformation - appearing at various Diets, including the all important Diet of Augsburg in 1530. He would die 4 years after that in 1534, Lazarus Spengler, lay reformer, born on this day in 1479, was 55 years old.

 

The Last word for today comes from Spengler- while not primarily a hymn writer does have a doozy worth hearing from- select stanzas from “All Mankind Fell in Adam’s Fall.”

All mankind fell in Adam's fall;

one common sin infects us all.

From one to all the curse descends,

and over all God's wrath impends.

 

But Christ, the second Adam, came

to bear our sin and woe and shame,

to be our life, our light, our way,

our only hope, our only stay.

 

As by one man all mankind fell

and, born in sin, was doomed to hell,

so by one Man, who took our place,

we all were justified by grace.

 

We thank you, Christ; new life is ours,

new light, new hope, new strength, new pow'rs.

This grace our ev'ry way attend

until we reach our journey's end.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 13th of March 2025 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who wonders if you named your kid Lazarus if it would feel weird shouting at them in the morning to get out of bed… he is  Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man embarrassed at the amount of times he has to break out his calculator to figure out how old someone was when they died based not on their dates… Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.