Playmobil Martin Luther!

 

Well, who would have called this one? In anticipation of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017 the Playmobil company has created a little figure of Martin Luther, the founder of the movement. From time to time Playmobil does issue special figures, but they couldn't have anticipated the response to this one. All 34,000 of the first run sold out in days, the fastest selling special edition ever. Playmobil is now scrambling to produce more.

Martin Luther was a remarkable and complex person. He was a Roman Catholic priest whose deep anxiety about personal salvation led him to radical new conclusions about the grace of Christ. He wanted to remain a Catholic but ended up creating a "protest-ant" movement which led him out of the church and into a "married with children life."

 

He had an ugly side, becoming a terrible anti-Semite when the Jews wouldn't come around to his way of thinking. And he was convinced that he literally did battle with demons. Yet his translation of scripture for the German Bible was a blueprint for other vernacular translations. We wouldn't worship as Protestants without his thought and practice, and of course he wrote hymns, including A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.

Thoughts about Luther, or Playmobil, or anything else, dear readers?