Luther needed to reconstruct his own story in the light of later events because the drastic implications of his personal struggle only gradually became clear. They developed into the rediscovery of good news which has come to be called the Protestant Reformation, but which called itself, to begin with, an ‘evangelical’ movement. That remains the official self-description of the Lutheran Churches, in a use of this word which has separate connotations for English-speakers with their own historical references to an anglophone Christian history.
