Martin Luther and Wendell Berry: To Separate, Serve, or Both? That is the Question.

***“What would I not give to get away from a cantankerous congregation and look into the friendly eyes of animals?” Thus Martin Luther facetiously dismissed Andreas Carlstadt’s increasing distaste for town life and aversion to scholarship and burdensome pastoral duties; all three resisted as distractions from quite times in which to cultivate the inner life. Luther viewed Carlstadt’s new radicalism about as favorably as he did the old monasticism. What Carlstadt meant as devotion to God and the pursuit of personal holiness Luther viewed as abandonment of responsibility and the dumbing down of the ministry of the Word.

“Be ye separate” and “Go ye into all the world” are not new commands, and neither is the church’s struggle to satisfy both. Wendell Berry’s spiritual retreat to Henry County Kentucky after his stint at Stanford has entered its fifth decade. I don’t expect him to give up the blue skies and the manure anytime soon. But must we view Berry’s half-century in the sticks as self-serving retreat from responsibility? Amazon rankings suggest the poet/farmer is providing a valued service to more than a few somebodys.

But surely retreat, especially as a lifestyle, can become a spiritual temptation. Perhaps one indicator of legitimate spiritual retreat is precisely its desire to “go ye” with renewed zeal at its conclusion. Dietrich Bonhoeffer labored mightily for the recovery of a rich regime of spiritual retreat in community and by oneself in prayer, Bible study, meditation and worship. But (good Lutheran that he was) Bonhoeffer recognized two unmistakable duties owed by the Christian and the Church to the world Christ died to save―witness and service. Retreat for the sake of pursuing or nurturing some navel-gazing personal holiness given the alien righteousness of Christ and a world in need of the gospel and love delegitimizes the whole sorry business. “Plunge into the tempest of living!” That was Bonhoeffer’s clarion call.

Can we read Paul’s litany of hardship, weakness, and opposition in 2 Corinthians without blushing at fanciful justifications for retreatest, escapest construals of the holy life? The Franciscans are to be commended for resistance to this kind of thing. From time to time our Savior separated himself from the clamoring crowds needing and demanding his help, and perhaps we must as well. Certainly Jesus needed the strength only time alone with the Father provided―for the cross!