KJCKorea
Journal Central

This paper explores the movie, <Luther> as dramatic text with drama- aesthetics. Drama-aesthetics enables us to understand the world and human beings with the whole-sensory-acceptance in the represented images, and this enables us to understand the life of Martin Luther and his theories using convergence thinking with many other hermeneutics(historical, theological, psychological) in the images. This paper especially examines the images of Luther and his contemporaries with two images of fear and mercy and investigates how Luther had overcome non-essences like fear with drama-aesthetics in <Luther>. In the view of drama-aesthetics, Luther was the human-actor who was an imitator of Jesus as the main character in the direction of God, who is the author and director in Theo-Drama. And he was good at playing the given role in the public sphere in anthropological and ethical perspective during the Protestant Reformation when the political, religious and socio-existential contexts are intertwined and interconnected. By investigating Luther’s life and theological issues in the movie, this article newly suggests the possibilities of flexible approaches and critics about history and characters in the historical document. And by using images and imagination in dramatic text, this study could expand the horizon of the theological discourses and suggest positive aspects of aesthetical-ethical life and faith to the Christians today.

Luther, drama-aesthetics, image, fear, mercy