Nazi’s National Reich Church Anything But Christian

Oh, one last thing that I forgot to add last night. Julius Streicher was the son of a Roman Catholic school teacher and followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming the same thing before the start of WWI. Where did he learn his hatred of Jews?

Hatred produces hatred. Irrationality produces irrationality.

I can think of some examples of that. Can you? No, I don’t expect so.

“Shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness ... avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife.” (2 Timothy 2:16, 23)

No difference in approach at all, you hate Luther for his anti-semitism, I hate his anti-semitism. You use the words of Nazis to indict Luther I don't, because I trust them like Communists.

It seems to me that you are still trying to rehabilitate Martin Luther by shifting the argument to me or others. This reminds me of the reaction of one who becomes angry when caught in a net of his own making. You decry AS in Luther and and yet don't in anyone else of the period or since absolving Germany in #46.

I think Matthew 25 applies very well to anyone else of that period, and any period. This still seems to me to be an apology trying to rehabilitate Martin Luther. History records many Nazi leaders as nominal Catholics, factual. Are they Catholic, not in any sense of the word. Did the Lutheran church in its history or proclamations doctrine or operating rules ever condone or practice AS? No they didn't. Did the Catholic church? Yes they did as shown by links to non-Nazi sources.

Denial; did you read Salic's posted link to the history of the Lutheran churches during the Holocaust ? Given the preceding is true, where would these nominal Catholics most likely have heard AS sentiments in their youth, in their social group, at church or at Martin Luther study?

Both and all; Germans, both the one part Catholic and two parts Lutheran, were infected with a hatred of the Jews from multiple sources, as it was all the plan of the adversary to eradicate the Jewish people so that God's Word would fail. As for 'faux', the only thing 'faux' is your outrage at AS. Too selective to be believable. That you and the Nazis share a hate of the Reformation doesn't make you a Nazi.

It seems to me your apology to me was contrived to still accuse me if something rather than focus on the thread, where Martin Luther was shown to be a source for the Nazi's persecution of the Jews, leading to the murder of 6 million Jews. For the comparison between Mo and Luther it doesn't surprise me at all you see no difference between them, your hate has blinded you to the fact that one believed in Christ for his salvation, the other didn't.

It seems to me you keep using the word "hate" when I tell the truth. It seems to me you try to twist my words into another form. It seems all of this is an effort to rehabilitate Martin Luther, whom I do think fell from grace. Mohammed and Smith were used as examples of men who founded religious movements where the followers have a difficult time acknowledging their crimes lest it make their religion illegitimate. Blueprint for the Holocaust: another piece of hyperbole! From the post #48, a chronology of AS behavior by the 'Catholic' church. A cursory reading leading to the 16th century will show that Luther couldn't 'blueprinted' anything (been first author) as AS had been practiced in almost every way by the Catholic church. Arson of synagogues, looting, damning sermons, murder were practiced and condoned by many you now call saints.

Let's go through Luther's recommendations point by point with the actions the Nazis implemented. Perhaps you need more evidence and are unaware of what happened in Germany. With all that in mind, thank you for letting me get that info out to any lurkers out there. The difference between an honest broker and one who uses fake outrage to condemn his religious enemies. Churchmen have sinned through the millenia and continue today. I sin, I am responsible for what I do and don't do. Despite your efforts otherwise, the Nazis are responsible for their sins as well.

It seems to me you are still attacking me with this comment by implying you are an honest broker but I am not. Both Luther, the Nazis, the generation of Germans, and many others are responsible for the sins and crimes of the Holocaust. Luther's book was used by the Nazis, who were the principal architects for the adversary. Who do you say inspired Luther ?

Oh, one last thing that I forgot to add last night. Julius Streicher was the son of a Roman Catholic

True, as was Martin Luther, and both strayed outside the Catholic Church and became consumed with a poisonous hatred of the Jews.

Meant to ping you to post 62 where I mentioned your id (SIC) in reference to your link.

However, Luther’s opposition to Judaism and Hitler’s opposition to Jews are two different things.

True, however they both advocated the same outcome for the Jews, camps and then a death sentence, albeit Hitler had technological advances while Luther, at least at one time, offered Jews some kind of life if they converted to his religious movement. He might even have spared Jewish Catholics (until the Thirty Years War), while Hitler eventually included anyone with Jewish grandparents in the camps if death. Was Hitler more wicked than Luther ? yes; was Luther used as a source and justification for the Nazi program ? Yes; were others culpable ? Yes; the pope at that time concluded an agreement with the Nazis to preserve the Gentile Catholics, albeit he may have thought he would spare Jewish Catholics but abandoned the Jews, as did the whole world; he missed a great opportunity to stand up for the Gospel as a witness to the nations.

In the end, the adversary's plan was thwarted; the Jews survived and re stablished the state of Israel in the land of Israel, a most unplanned event by all the haters of Jewry. It still rankles them to this day and they may not know why.

It seems to me that you are still trying to rehabilitate Martin Luther

Luther is dead, he has already been rehab'ed by God. I only point out the he isn't responsible for the sins of others 400 yrs later, despite your claim backed up by a Nazi propagandist.

Denial; did you read Salic's posted link to the history of the Lutheran churches during the Holocaust ?

I did read it, it didn't say what he said it did and have already addressed that to him.

where Martin Luther was shown to be a source for the Nazi's persecution of the Jews,

By you, a known Luther and Reformation hater backed up by a Nazi. As the article was about the National Reich Church, your bias was noted.

It seems to me you keep using the word "hate" when I tell the truth.

Half of a truth, is a lie. Your stated reason is Luther's published AS. Yet you ignore systemic AS from your own org that actually had secular power to carry out its AS program. The only logical reason is that while you decry AS in Luther you don't in general or particular if planned and carried out by Catholics. So it can't be AS you hate, it must be Luther. Further blaming him for the religious wars that followed would extend that 'hate' to the Reformation. By ignoring your own org's participation in the same 'crime' or 'monstrous' activity show you can accept AS as long as the right people do it. A trait of the far left BTW.

Perhaps you need more evidence and are unaware of what happened in Germany.

Since Luther never planned nor led a pogrom against Jews, perhaps a better 'blueprint' may be found in an early church organization that did. Catholicism's pogrom against Jews predates Luther's birth by almost 1000 years. Luther had been a Catholic, the Nazis CINOs, the Catholic church by the time of Hitler had practiced AS for over 1400 years. And Luther was the original? Not credible.

implying you are an honest broker but I am not.

I am not implying that at all, I am stating it as a fact. To wit, you ignore Catholic systematic AS, you ignore the at least early religious upbringing of notable Nazis (not Lutheran), ignore the in time AS practiced by the Catholic church during Hitler's rise, use a Nazi propagandist as a witness against a dead man. Despite these facts, Luther had the blueprint? Again not credible.

Luther, at least at one time, offered Jews some kind of life if they converted to his religious movement. He might even have spared Jewish Catholics (until the Thirty Years War),

Weak history, Luther was dead for 72 years prior to that war. Here is more history:

Despite earlier murder, expulsion of Jews and seizure of their property which would naturally come about when a people is demonized, let’s just go with identifiable Nazi symbology.

442 The synagogue in Constantinople is turned into a church

681 The Synod of Toledo orders the burning of the Talmud and other books

c. 830 Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, writes anti-Jewish pamphlets in which he refers to Jews as "sons of darkness"

c. 937 Pope Leo VII encourages his newly appointed archbishop of Mainz to expel all Jews who refuse to be baptized

1078 The Synod of Gerona decrees that Jews must pay the same taxes as Christians to support the church

1096 Massacres of Jews takes place in the First Crusade, destroying entire Jewish communities in Mainz, Speyer, Worms, Cologne and other cities. The Jewish chronicler reports: "The enemies stripped them naked and dragged them off, granting quarter to none, save those few who accepted baptism. The number of the slain was eight hundred in these two days." The chronicler Guibert de Nogent reports that the Rouen Crusaders said: "We desire to go and fight God's enemies in the East; but we have before our eyes certain Jews, a race more inimical to God than any other"

1182 Jews are expelled from France, all their property is confiscated, and Christians' debts to them are cancelled with the payment of one-fifth of their value to the treasury

1215 The Fourth Lateran Council decrees that Jews are to wear distinctive clothing, and on the three days before Easter they are not to go out in public

1227 The Council of Narbonne orders Jews to wear a round patch

1234 The Council of Arles orders Jews to wear a round patch

1246 The Council of Béziers orders Jews to wear a round patch

1254 The Council of Albi orders Jews to wear a round patch

1260

The Council of Arles orders Jews to wear a round patch, but not when traveling

1267 The Synod of Vienna decrees that Christians cannot attend Jewish ceremonies, and Jews cannot dispute with simple Christian people about the Catholic religion

1267 The Synod of Breslau decrees compulsory ghettos for Jews

1279 The Synod of Ofen decrees that Christians cannot sell or rent real estate to Jews

1284 The Council of Nîmes orders Jews to wear a round patch

1289 The Council of Vienna orders Jews to wear a round patch 1294 Jews in France are restricted to special quarters of the cities

1294 Jews are expelled from Bern

1298 The Jews of Röttingen, charged with profaning the Host, are massacred and burned down to the last one

1320 The "Shepherds' Crusade." A Christian chronicler records: "The shepherds laid siege to all the Jews who had come from all sides to take refuge... the Jews defended themselves heroically... but their resistance served no purpose, for the shepherds slaughtered a great number of the besieged Jews by smoke and by fire... The Jews, realizing that they would not escape alive, preferred to kill themselves... They chose one of their number (and) this man put some five hundred of them to death, with their consent. He then descended from the castle tower with the few Jewish children who still remained alive... They killed him by quartering. They spared the children, whom they made Catholics by baptism"

1326 The Council of Avignon orders Jews to wear a round patch, but not when traveling

1350 Jews are expelled from many parts of Germany

1367 Jews are expelled from Hungary

1368 The Council of Vabres orders Jews to wear a round patch

1381 Jews are expelled from Strasbourg

1394 The expulsion of Jews from France, begun in 1306, is completed with an edict promulgated on the Jewish Day of Atonement

1420 Jews are expelled from Mainz by the archbishop

1421 Jews are expelled from Austria

1424 Jews are expelled from Fribourg and Zurich

c. 1425 Pope Martin V denounces anti-Jewish preaching and forbids the forced baptism of Jewish children under the age of twelve

1426 Jews are expelled from Cologne

1432 Jews are expelled from Saxony

1434 The Council of Basel decrees that Jews cannot obtain academic degrees 1438 Jews are expelled from Mainz by the town councilors

1439 Jews are expelled from Augsburg

1453 Jews are expelled from Wurzburg

1454 Jews are expelled from Breslau

1456 Pope Callistus III bans all social communication between Christians and Jews

1462 Jews are expelled from Mainz following a conflict between two candidates for the archepiscopal seat

1467 Jews are expelled from Tlemcen

1471 Jews are expelled from Mainz by the archbishop

1475 The entire Jewish community in Trent, northern Italy, is put to death on the allegation that it had murdered a boy for religious purposes

1485 Jews are expelled from Warsaw and Cracow

1492 After forcing many Jews to be baptized and then referring to them as Marranos (swine), and after an Inquisition in which some 700 Marranos were burnt at the stake for showing signs of "Jewish" taint, Spain expels all Jews from the country

1497 Jews are expelled from Portugal

1519 Jews are expelled from Regensburg

1543 JATL Published.

1100 years! Of abuse and degradation, but Luther is to blame because he wrote Jews and their Lies.

1546 Luther dies.

1553 Cardinal Carafa instigates a public burning of copies of the Talmud and other Jewish religious works in a square in Rome

1555-1559 Pope Paul IV restricts Jews to ghettos and decrees that they are to wear distinctive headgear

1566-1572 Pope St. Pius V expels Jews from the Papal States, allowing some to remain in Rome's ghettos and in Ancona for commercial reasons

1592-1605 Pope Clement VIII includes a ban on all Jewish books in the expanded Index of Forbidden Books

1826 Pope Leo XII decrees that Jews are to be confined to ghettos and their property is to be confiscated

1858 Edgardo Mortara, 6-year old son of a Jewish family in Bologna, is abducted by the papal police and brought to Rome. He had been secretly baptized five years earlier by a domestic servant who thought he was about to die. The parents try to get the boy back, and there is a universal outcry, but Pope Pius IX rejects all petitions submitted to him

1904 In an interview with Zionist leader Theodor Hertzl, Pope St. Pius X says: "I know, it is disagreeable to see the Turks in possession of our Holy Places. We simply have to put up with it. But to sanction the Jewish wish to occupy these sites, that we cannot do... The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people... If you go to Palestine and your people settle there, you will find us clergy and churches ready to baptize you all"

1919 Newly independent Poland passes a law making Sunday a compulsory day of rest in Poland. The law is intended to force Jews to observe the Christian sabbath in addition to their own

1921 Speaking for Pope Benedict XV, a Vatican spokesman informed representatives of the Zionist Movement htat they did not wish to assist "the Jewish race, which is permeated with a revolutionary and rebellious spirit" to gain control over the Holy Land

1925 At a conference of Catholic academicians in Innsbruck, Austria, Bishop Sigismund Waitz calls the Jews an "alien people" who had corrupted England, France, Italy, and especially America

1933 In a series of Advent sermons, Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich defends the Old Testament against Nazi attacks but emphasizes that it is not his intention to defend contemporary Jewry, saying that a distinction has to be drawn between Jews living before and after the crucifixion of Jesus

1933 In a pastoral letter on January 23, Bishop Johannes Maria Gföllner of Linz, Austria, declares that while the radical anti-Semitism preached by Nazism is completely incompatible with Christianity, it is the right and duty of Christians to fight and break the harmful influences of Jewry in all areas of modern cultural life. The Austrian episcopate condemns the letter in December for causing racial hatred and conflict

1933-1939 The general consensus among the Catholic papers in Poland is that Jewish influence should be reduced in all areas of life, that the Polish and Jewish communities should be separated as much as possible, and that the most desirable option is mass emigration of the Jews from Poland. St. Maximilian Kolbe is an active promoter of antisemitic literature

1935-1936 The Polish Catholic Church gives full support to a government policy encouraging Jewish emigration from Poland

1936 Cardinal August Hlond, the primate of Poland, issues a pastoral letter, stating: "I warn you against that ethical attitude that is fundamentally and uncompromisingly anti-Jewish. It is contradictory to Catholic ethics. It is permissible to love your nation more than others, but it is not permissible to hate anyone. Not even the Jews... You should close yourselves to the harmful influence of Jewry... But you may not attack Jews, beat them, hurt them, slander them. In a Jew you should also respect and love a human being and your neighbor"

1937 Austrian bishop Alois Hudal publishes a book defending Nazi racial ideology, supporting laws preventing a flood of Jewish immigrants, and criticizing the "Jewish" press for playing off Austrians against Germans. His book receives the support of Archbishop (later Cardinal) Theodor Innitzer of Vienna

1938 In a speech before Belgian pilgrims, Pope Pius XI denounces antisemitism and says: "Spiritually we are all Semites." His comments are reported in various newspapers but not in the Vatican's L'Osservatore Romano

1939 Josef Tiso, a Catholic priest with a doctorate in theology, became president of independent Slovakia. An extremist hater of Jews, he allied Slovakia with Nazi Germany and, with strong objections from the Vatican, deported most Slovakian Jews to their deaths in the camps. He declared: "It is a Christian action to expel the Jews, because it is for the good of the people, which is thus getting rid of its pests." Monsignor Tiso was executed after the war as a war criminal

1939 WWII begins.

2014 af_Vet_1981 declares Luther had the ‘blueprint’ for the Holocaust. A Nazi Propogandist is his source.

1100 years before Luther, 400 years after Luther, the Catholic church nominally the church of Nazi leadership, but Luther is to blame. Expulsion, looting, book burning the requirement to wear a patch, ghettos all practiced by Catholics. Yet Luther is to blame for the Holocaust!

Right, take your Nazi, I’ll take the history.

True, as was Martin Luther, and both strayed outside the Catholic Church and became consumed with a poisonous hatred of the Jews.

So all the Popes, Archbishops Bishops etc in the above list were 'strays' from the Catholic church. LOLOLOL you are pathetic.

You really don’t seem to understand that what exists in the minds of the followers of a religion does not have to match the written teachings of that religion.

Luther’s influence upon the region was enormous in their feelings towards Jews. Of course anti-Semitism existed well before then, but his writings greatly influenced his followers. Those attitudes were passed on for generations. This helped create a fertile ground for the Nazi movement.

Didn’t you ever wonder why the vast majority of Christian Germans bought into Hitler immediately and wholeheartedly?

but his writings greatly influenced his followers.

Really, Luther's followers? Luther's 'followers' wrote the Book of Concord 34 years after Martin Luther had died. The Bible and this book form the basis for Confessional Lutheranism. Nowhere in the BoC is there affirmation of anti-semitism. Nowhere is the JATL referenced. Pastors affirm that they will abide in accordance with that teaching.

Alongside, there is the Bible where Paul famously tells us that there "is no Jew nor Greek" Gal 3:28-29. No support for AS there either. Are there ASemites in the Lutheran church, no doubt? Are there as many today as back then when it was fresh? To have carried the JATL for 400 years with fervor means they would have paid ZERO attention to his other works and they were the ones taught.

See post 67 for a historical look at AS in Europe. It has only taken short periods of time off. It was practiced before Luther and up to the war, and I don't blame taught AS for the sins of the Nazis. They bear those alone.

Didn’t you ever wonder why the vast majority of Christian Germans

Jobs, pride and racial hatred.

racial hatred

Nationalism

Weak history, Luther was dead for 72 years prior to that war. Here is more history:

Regarding the Jews, Luther made the same mistake Mohammed made. He was certain that the Jews would support him and even become Lutherans. He had shaken the Church to its core, withstood excommunication and stood up to the Holy Roman Emperor. He thought he was so special that the Jews would convert.

His early letters in the 1520s regarding the Jews are extremely positive. He said, for instance, that the Jews were the only ones who properly saw the ills of the Church. It’s no wonder that they rejected the Pope and never became Catholics.

However, he was not even rebuffed – he was ignored. The Jews in Germany were not interested in becoming Protestants or getting drawn into the vortex of forces warring in Europe. Furthermore, a much more radical element within Protestantism arose, the Anabaptists. They said the problem with Luther was that he was not Protestant enough!

This type of dynamic happens in all revolutions: the next generation is more radical, making the previous generation look moderate. Eventually, the revolution runs its course and the radicals are seen for what they are. The Anabaptists believed that one had to be baptized again as an adult. Some became absolute pacifists. It’s from them that the Amish, Mennonites, Quakers, Shakers and Puritans evolved. To them, Luther was little more than a wayward Catholic disguised as a Protestant.

Luther was not a man who took criticism very well – especially from people whom he felt he was owed a debt of gratitude. Consequently, he unleashed a particularly vituperative verbal assault against his Protestant enemies. In the blindness of his fury, he unleashed it on the Jews as well, saying things that made their way directly into anti-Semitic Nazi hate-literature. Some articles in Julius Streicher’s Der Sturmer — the leading Nazi propaganda paper — were verbatim quotations from Luther.

In effect, he transferred a great deal of the anti-Semitism in the Roman Catholic Church into the Protestant Church. Originally, the latter attempted at least to say it would do away with the bigotry of the former. In one of Luther’s early writing he freed the Jews, so to speak, from the accusation of deicide, which in the 1500s was an enormous act, not matched by the Vatican until 1963. Nevertheless, by the end of his life he had reverted to terrible anti-Semitism – which he spared no opportunity to express and verbalize.

The Jews suffered terribly even though the Thirty Years War was a war ostensibly only between Catholics and Protestants. It led to chaos and anarchy. Armed bands marched around looting and killing without any force to stop them. By the end of the war, the Jews much preferred to be in areas under Roman Catholic control, which more or less protected them. In Protestant areas the Jews were left to the wrath of the mob.

Never said or implied that AS wasn't in the general population of Europe. That said, we here of FR are always told of the age of the Catholic church. Well that 'age' was full of the incidents detailed. What Jews allegedly said during the Thirty Years War is really irrelevant to those Jews that suffered under the hands of the Ccatholic church for the millenium + before hand.

Special 'marks', expulsions, loss of property, burning of synagogues, book burnings, death; all common results between the exercise of Catholic secular power and the Nazis.

Some articles in Julius Streicher’s Der Sturmer — the leading Nazi propaganda paper — were verbatim quotations from Luther.

For those not paying attention, Streicher, a CINO, was a Nazi propagandist. But according to some, just a stray. Pulling verbatim quotes from a condemned piece of literature takes no effort, in the 30s-40s, or today.

Will you point to a date and place where the Lutheran Church condemned Luther's treatise called "The Jews and Their Lies" which the Nazis incorporated in their propaganda ?
Most members of the Nazi Party, however, were Christians. Composed mostly by members of the Lutheran Evangelical tradition, members of the apostate Nazi inspired Positive Christianity sect and some of the Catholic faith tradition respectively. Since approximately there were two "of Luther" for every Catholic this seems feasible.
The prevailing scholarly view since the Second World War is that the treatise exercised a major and persistent influence on Germany's attitude toward its Jewish citizens in the centuries between the Reformation and the Holocaust.[22] Four hundred years after it was written, the Nazis displayed On the Jews and Their Lies during Nuremberg rallies, and the city of Nuremberg presented a first edition to Julius Streicher, editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer, the newspaper describing it as the most radically antisemitic tract ever published.[23]

The Lutheran Church has its founding upon the acceptance of the Book of Concord in 1580. The Bible and the BoC form the basis of the Lutheran denomination. As the BoC was adopted after the death of Luther, and contains NONE of his AS semitic writings, there is no need for the Lutheran church to condemn it, the Lutheran Church had no part in it. By its exclusion, it stands condemned. However, contemporaries of Luther spoke unfavorably of it and recommended the seven actions described not be implemented. And they weren't; so much for his 'followers' taking his AS advice. They wouldn't take it while he was alive, yet some would have us believe they would 400 yrs later.

I might ask the same of you vis a vis the Catholic church's condemnation of its 1500 year+ history of AS. Have they finally stopped or as shown through their history, have paused for a few years only to be resumed with a change in the leadership of the papacy?

While I don't believe in paying for the sin of another, the LCMS due to continued questions re JATL passed a resolution condemning it here: www.lucasjs.com/aohe.../LCMS-on-Luthers-anti-Semetic-Statements.doc

WELS here: http://www.wels.net/news-events/forward-in-christ/october-2013/luther-and-anti-semitism?page=0,1

Historically, the lack of inclusion of the treatise in the BoC demonstrates that 34 years after Luther's death the Lutheran church had condemned it.

Re: your links, Wiki, impressive. And yet even in your reference you'll note that while proposed, Luther had no power to implement them. From the link in #48, seven years AFTER Luther's death, Catholic decreed AS for 24 of the 53 years until 1605. Expulsions, confinement to ghettoes, distinctive clothing, book burnings, book bans, all under the the guidance of Catholic leadership. Three Popes and a Cardinal directing. Were they under Luther's spell? Were they 'strays' from the faith? Just executing 'Luther's blueprint'? Or following their own detestable practice?

Your reference to a Nazi is again noted, I'm sure he loved the Reformation as much as you. No doubt he has credibility in your eyes for that alone.

One of your links did not work. The other attempts to defend Luther, concluding "The Jews and Their Lies" did not "represent Luther at his best" as if he just had a bad day and gave a poor sermon. I see no apology, no remorse, and no repentance.

LUTHER AND ANTI-SEMITISM

Luther also wrote about Jews in sympathetic ways and rebuked European Christians for their treatment of Jews. Here's one example: "The fury of some Christians (if they are to be called Christians) is damnable. They imagine that they are doing God a service when they persecute the Jew most hatefully, think everything evil of them, and insult them. . . . Whereas, according to the example of this psalm (14:7) and that of Paul (Romans 9:1), a man ought to be most heartily sorry for them and continually pray for them. . . . They ought to attract them by all manner of gentleness, patience, pleading and care" (What Luther Says: An Anthology, Vol. 2, 683).

Luther's attitude is more accurately characterized as anti-Judaism rather than anti-Semitism. His opposition was not racial or ethnic, but theological. He was targeting people who persistently and vigorously rejected the truth of salvation through faith alone in Jesus the Messiah and Savior of the world. Luther wrote harshly against the Roman pope and his theological supporters for the same reason. Like everyone else, Luther was a child of his times. It's difficult for people today to put themselves into his historical context, yet it's unfair to judge him according to our standards of civility. Luther's language sounds cruel, but his opponents often used similar language, and literary style of the era included harsh ridicule, name calling, and deliberate excess.

Ultimately we must conclude that the treatise in question doesn't represent Luther at his best. We cannot endorse or excuse what he wrote. From a historical viewpoint, it should not surprise us that he sometimes shared unacceptable attitudes of his day. What is amazing is how often he rose above his times and advocated magnificent and eternal truth, most of all the full and free gospel of forgiveness.

Contributing editor Forrest Bivens, professor at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Mequon, Wisconsin, is a member at Victory of the Lamb, Franklin.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

There is no need for an apology for a 'Lutheran' denomination for Luther's AS. They post date those writings, and were never part of the Lutheran Confessions. It is lefties that feel the need to apologize for the sins of their fathers.

I see no apology, no remorse, and no repentance.

No need to apologize, 'Lutherans' didn't write JTAL. Remorse? For what? For something in which you are not complicit? Repentance? You really are a dope. "Lutherans' didn't write JTAL, didn't espouse it views, had no sin to repent of.

Your two-faced approach to this issue is hilarious. Historical proof of AS: Catholics-YES Lutherans-NO. Catholic Popes-YES Lutherans don't have Popes. Do you know of a Confessional Lutheran Synodical President that has had a public AS Position? Of course not! However, many popes, cardinals and innumerable bishops? Oh yeah, history tells a different story. Even some of Luther's Catholic adversaries had papers rivaling JATL. Never hear of them. The Nazis weren't the only organization with a good propaganda office. And their own share of dupes on the Internet who spout their know-nothing bile.

Here is the apology from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (not Germany, where approximately two thirds of that wicked generation were "of Luther") that your links did not provide. Perhaps the ELCA has overseer authority over the German Lutherans and so apologized for them as well.

In the spirit of that truth-telling, we who bear his name and heritage must with pain acknowledge also Luther's anti-Judaic diatribes and the violent recommendations of his later writings against the Jews. As did many of Luther's own companions in the sixteenth century, we reject this violent invective, and yet more do we express our deep and abiding sorrow over its tragic effects on subsequent generations. In concert with the Lutheran World Federation, we particularly deplore the appropriation of Luther's words by modern anti-Semites for the teaching of hatred toward Judaism or toward the Jewish people in our day.

Grieving the complicity of our own tradition within this history of hatred, moreover, we express our urgent desire to live out our faith in Jesus Christ with love and respect for the Jewish people. We recognize in anti-Semitism a contradiction and an affront to the Gospel, a violation of our hope and calling, and we pledge this church to oppose the deadly working of such bigotry, both within our own circles and in the society around us. Finally, we pray for the continued blessing of the Blessed One upon the increasing cooperation and understanding between Lutheran Christians and the Jewish community.

Like I said, Lefties. elca of abortion on demand, gay marriage. They’re no more Lutheran than you are.

Perhaps the ELCA has overseer authority over the German Lutherans and so apologized for them as well.

They don't, they are lefties, meaningless apologies appeal to them. LWF another lib org.

If the 'wicked generation' Germans were 'of Luther', they spent all their time reading the JATL, and ignored the vast volume of hie other work.

Luther's good work isn't diminished by JATL. He was a sinner used by God. Peter denied Christ, was an Apostle, Paul actually delivered Jewish Christians to death, another Apostle. Catholic historians don't mention the ant-Jewish screeds of their reformation heroes Eck and Erasmus.

16th Century Anti-Jewish Roman Catholic Theologians.

Luther was attacked by his Catholic adversaries for what they deemed his soft stance on Jews in Luther's younger days.

The connection between Luther and Hitler is absurd. Luther didn’t lay the groundwork for Hitler. The fact is that most Europeans and most Christians throughout the last 2,000 years have disliked the Jews. There are any number of reasons for this, beginning with the crucifixion of Christ. Beyond that, the Papacy prohibited Christians from charging interest on money. As such, Jews for many centuries were the only ones in Europe who were willing to lend money. No one likes having to pay their banker back.

As for the National Socialists, one of their plans was to deport all the Jews to Madagascar. Presumably they would have had their own state, similar to what Israel is though likely less politically problematic. Obviously they ended up choosing to kill the Jews rather than deport them. In the very least, deportation was on the table.