[Belteshazzar]

af_vet_1981 wrote:

“It seems to me ...”

Indeed, and therein lies the problem.

My directing you to your own missal seems to have touched a nerve.

Also, it is instructive to hear you pronounce the judgment of wickedness on Martin Luther. Does it not occur to you that our Lord specifically commanded his disciples not to judge the hearts of others? He told His disciples that such judgment is reserved to God alone ... alone. Do you not hear him?

Did Luther murder anyone? Did he hold any office that was so empowered to take the life of anyone, and can you show that he did indeed do so? Did he have anyone burned at the stake? Sir, you ought not go here for reasons that many others who read FR threads will recognize even if you do not. You either do not know what you are talking about - and that is the charitable view (I choose to take) - or you do not care that you are acting directly contrary to the will of Him who alone is head of the Church and Savior of all. Do you not hear?

There, I have abided by the rules of FR vis-a-vis you.

Oh, by the way, I am not “personally invested in the man Martin Luther.” I am, however, invested in the one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ, and that entirely by grace, for He first invested Himself in me ... and, yes, also in you. Do you not hear?

God be merciful to me a sinner.

[af_vet_1981]

Also, it is instructive to hear you pronounce the judgment of wickedness on Martin Luther. Does it not occur to you that our Lord specifically commanded his disciples not to judge the hearts of others? He told His disciples that such judgment is reserved to God alone ... alone. Do you not hear him?

Martin Luther, like Julius Streicher did not participate directly in the wanton killing of the Holocaust – but he helped create an environment where it might be conceived, planned and carried out. Streicher was the loudest, most prolific and most vulgar of the Nazi Party’s anti-Semites. Though he was not a party leader and his status in the NSDAP was well below that of Himmler or Goebbels, Streicher’s propaganda campaign against the Jews spread prejudice at street level, infecting the masses with anti-Semitism. Streicher’s propaganda was presented as reasoned theories; instead, he produced smutty and low-brow Jew-hating for the consumption of the working classes. Streicher was a pedlar of gossip, a muck-raker and a pornographer – but he was also clever enough to tap into the interests, fears and paranoia of ordinary Germans. - See more at: http://alphahistory.com/holocaust/julius-streicher/#sthash.cfc4qPHR.dpuf

Do you think that the Nuremberg Trials were against the commandments because they judged the evil in men ? It seems to me your interpretation seeks to shield men from their crimes. Martin Luther indicted himself in his own writings. One might as well defend a confessed child molester in the Church by claiming we should not judge his heart.