Youthful Conversions

This summer I spent some time in Europe following in the steps of two well known figures of European Christianity: Martin Luther and Jeanne d'Arc. These two may seem like polar opposites to many. He was a serious scholar, monk, priest, husband, father and student of theology.  She was a child of the rural countryside whose spirituality was based on heavenly visions that urged her on to do God's work in her beloved France. But they both underwent religious conversions in their youth that had a profound effect on their lives and those of millions of other Christians.


Joan/Jeanne was born in the very little town of Domremy-la-Pucelle in Lorraine probably on January 6,1412.  It was said that she was born on the feast of the Epiphany. Her parents were farmers, and her home is preserved next to the small church in the village in which Joan/Jeanne was baptized. Her times were those of turmoil. France and England were embroiled in the Hundred Years' War, and the land of her birth was being fought over by both forces.

At the age of thirteen Jeanne/Joan began to hear her "voices".  She identified them as St. Michael the Archangel, St. Margaret and St. Catherine of Alexandria whose statues were in the local church. These voices told Jeanne/Joan that she was to lead the French army against the English and make sure the prince, Charles of Valois, was crowned king.  When Joan was sixteen, her father had arranged for her to marry, but she had other ideas.  She had taken a vow of chastity, and somehow managed to get an audience with the prince and convinced him to let her lead his army as a divinely inspired act.  No one knows what she said to him, but he gave her command of the troops.  She led them to a great victory in Orleans. Unfortunately for her, she was later captured by

Jeanne D'Arc Domremey

the English; tried for heresy condemned to death.  It did not help that Jeanne/Joan opted to wear men's clothing while leading the troops and when speaking to the powerful...kind of like the "power suit" of the day. She paid dearly for that.

At the tender age of nineteen she was burned at the stake as a witch.  Her ashes were scattered in the Seine River in Rouen, the cathedral town of her trial. Joan was not canonized until 1920, but the people of France think of her as their special patron, protector and patriotic symbol.  You can find statues of her all over France.  From Paris to Orleans her triumphant figure sits tall astride a muscular steed gracing  many public squares;  in cathedrals and churches there are statues, murals and stain glass windows dedicated to her memory. She is the Maid of Orleans, the soul of France; I was told by one of our guides, himself an immigrant to France now married to a Frenchwoman and running a small tourist business that "If there was no Jeanne D'Arc, there would be no France, and if there was no France, there would be no democracy. And where would the world be without democracy?"  A bit over the top, and I am sure he has not read Thomas Paine or even de Tocqueville, but I got the drift.

Young Martin

Martin Luther had a more conventional childhood.  He was born November 10, 1483, some seventy years after Jeanne/Joan into a middle class family.  He was a brilliant student and went off to University in Erfurt at the age of nineteen in 1501; he earned a Master's degree in 1505 at the ripe old age of twenty-three. Martin was a very serious student, and he often complained about the beer drinking and skirt-chasing ways of his fellow undergrads. I think we might even consider him a bit of a serious party pooper and stickler. But he was brilliant and his father urged him to continue his studies to become a lawyer.  Unfortunately for Papa Luther, it was not to be.


Martin has his conversion experience during a severe thunderstorm in which he was nearly struck by lightening.  If he survived, he swore to St. Anne, he would become a monk.  And he kept true to his word. He entered the Augustinian Monastery in Erfurt continued his studies. His propensity for frequent daily confession drove his superiors to distraction, yet he was ordained to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church in 1507.  By 1512 he had earned two additional bachelor degrees and his doctorate in theology. He went on to teach in the university at Wittenburg, the town in which his Ninety-five Theses was written, displayed, and where he eventually lived out his life with the woman he called his "Kate", his wife, the former nun and beer maker, Katarina Von Bora with whom he had six children.  She definitely was the leaven in his life; balancing all things domestic and economic and basically keeping him on an even keel.

And despite time spent in exile, writs of excommunication, papal trials, writings on indulgences, translations of scripture, and Peasant Revolts, he dies at home at a considerable old age for his time, sixty-two. Luther laid the foundation for the Protestant Reformation and its profession of redemption "by faith alone". There is also unfortunately, the fact that in his later years, Luther's wrote scathingly of the Jews of Europe whom he thought would flock to convert once they read his translations of scripture into the German vernacular; they did not.

Looking back on my journey, which might have seemed disjointed to some, I realized that many of us can look back and rationalize the experience of these two Christian figures.  One tour guide suggested that Martin's entry into the monastery had more to do with the fact that his father wanted him to marry a newly widowed wealthy older women from their hometown. A psychiatrist I met on the plane suggested that Jeanne/Joan was bi-polar and suffered from delusions. Methinks these are modern practitioners  using modern diagnostics on folks long gone.  For the people of France, Jeanne/Joan is the personification of their nation, more than any Bourbon king, Napoleon or elected president. And for millions of Christians, Luther was the reformer who stood up and spoke truth to power. Others may disagree, but his theological work is still studied today.

Another thought on these two: We should not dismiss the fervor of youth who are willing to stand up for what they believe. So many of us have lost that spark  Looking at the lives of Jeanne/Joan and Martin should be a reminder to us all that it is often the young who have the clearer vision and the gift of leadership.