What exactly is troubling about the paragraph?
I’m a member of the Free Reform Church (FRC) though at heart I’m a Reformed Presbyterian.
You didn't agree with him, you're not Catholic, you proposed a historical view of history, it is obvious you don't hate the Reformation, you think justice to be justice works both ways, you didn't use a Nazi's testimony to bolster your position, you don't think anti-semitism is the world's worse crime except when the Catholic church is the perpetrator, you don't think apologizing for something you had nothing to do with is the right thing to do anyway? Any or all of the above.
The Nuremberg trials were nothing but victors justice.
The Nuremberg trials were justice for six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. The phrase used in your first sentence seems to me to indicate an affinity for the Nazi defendants and a vehement and deliberate assertion that they either did not commit war crimes, or they did not receive justice for those war crimes. I'm never shocked to see an affinity among Americans for the rebel cause in the American Civil War, but to see anyone support the Nazi war criminals is always disturbing. I was shocked when I saw similar comments on behalf of the Islamic terrorists that murdered Americans, which we see to this day in the push to grant them our constitutional rights rather than the justice they merit as enemy combatants and terrorist war criminals.
If the allies were actually interested in justice, Winston Churchill, Eisenhower and others would have been prosecuted for crimes against humanity. After all, it was the British who first used bombs against civilians and it was the allies that carpet bombed German cities in the same manner as the Germans carpet bombed British cities. If Nuremberg stands for justice, why weren’t the Soviets prosecuted for their murder of Polish officers? If justice works one ways then it ought to work both ways. In reality, Nuremberg was nothing but a political show trial.
I am shocked to read comments like this on FR. Not only as a veteran, but simply as an American, to read comments calling for Churchill and Eisenhower to be tried for war crimes for fighting (and defeating) the Nazis in WWII, especially in the context of the murder of six million Jews and millions of Gentiles, is truly troubling. It seems to me to be a very serious error in spirit and judgment.
I’m not a Lutheran, I’m reformed. However I see no point in demanding various Lutheran denominations apologize for statements made by Luther 500 years ago. Just because National Socialists used several works of Luther to further their cause is not evidence that Luther had anything to do with the Jewish Holocaust. His writings have context and the National Socialists were never the sort of people who placed much value in context. The National Socialists invented an ideology around Luther, particularly that he was a nationalist. He was no such thing. While he hated the Jews, his was for religious reasons more than anything else. I see no reason for anyone to apologize for Luther because his writings have context. We shouldn’t apply modern sensibilities to artists, writers, theologians and thinkers of the past.
It seems to me you present a religious exemption defense for Luther's hatred of the Jews. Islam does much the same. I dont see much difference between theological hatred and racial hatred, but history shows the fertilizer of religious hatred Luther laid in German soil made it easy to grow Nazis. It one regatds the Jews as "not a people" it is of little consequence what happens to them should they decline to join the religion "of Calvin," "of Luther," or "of Mohammed."