“Though both Martin Luther and Joseph Smith”
Martin Luther was a man of God. If I give my opinion of Smith I would likely be given at least a timeout, if not an outright ban. There is no caomparison of the two men except that they walked upright.
Based upon his study of the Bible, Martin Luther concluded as early as 1522 that "Abraham did not commit adultery by leading a decent life with his second wife also. Abraham was a true Christian.16 His example dare not be condemned. It is true, one dare not make any laws out of the behavior of our forefathers, but one may not make sin out of their example."17 Luther's views were supported by his colleagues, notably Philip Melanchthon18 and Martin Bucer (whose writings influenced Calvin and who later helped Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, in the Protestant reform of the Church of England).19
In 1522, Henry VIII, king of England, wrote a book denouncing Luther's reforms and defending the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. For this action, the pope bestowed on him the title "Defender of the Faith." The friendship between England and Rome was not to endure, however. Henry had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn and sought to have the church grant an annulment of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, on grounds that she had been the wife of his deceased brother Arthur and that all of their children had been stillborn. Pope Clement VIII drafted an order directing the king to reject his "concubine," Anne, or face excommunication or even an interdict against his entire kingdom.
In January 1533, Henry secretly married Anne and thus became a polygamist. His actions may have been prompted by a letter that Melanchthon wrote to the king in August 1531:
Am I to assume if King Henry vIII wife could not give him an heir it is better to kill her than Polygamy!
“Though both Martin Luther and Joseph Smith”
Martin Luther was a man of God. If I give my opinion of Smith I would likely be given at least a timeout, if not an outright ban. There is no caomparison of the two men except that they walked upright.
Let’s clarify that more!:)
It would be wrong to conclude that Martin Luther was a “Mormon” or that he saw everything the same way Joseph Smith did, but it is equally wrong to think that Luther’s beliefs and teachings were identical to those found among modern Evangelical Christians.
Frequently called the “father of the Reformation,” Luther retained many Catholic views that other Protestants rejected. For example, in 1545 he described the Eucharist as the “adorable Sacrament,” prompting Calvin to accuse him of “raising up an idol in God’s temple,” and of being “half-papist.”
In a letter addressed to Melanchthon, he wrote that “It was very dangerous to assume that the Church which had existed for so many centuries . . . should not have taught the true doctrine of the Sacraments.”
Luther considered Reformers such as Zwingli and Oecolampadius to be “damned . . . out of the Church . . . offspring of hell . . . heretics,” because they acknowledged the Eucharist to be merely symbolic rather than literally becoming the flesh and blood of Christ.
Were the real Martin Luther to stand up today, he would not recognize some of the dogmatic issues imposed on the Reformation by some later adherents of Protestantism.
You mean that child-marrying peepstone-gazing bank-frauding money-digging False-Prophet who started the LDS and FLDS and RLDS churches? That Smith?
I'm betting you can criticize him mildly and not get banned. The forum has become much less protective of the sensitive feelings of LDS Posters lately. Whereas a year ago a statement like that would have caused my post to disappear, these days the mods are much more open to allowing criticism of the LDS Church than they were in the past.
This doesn't mean that they won't pull a thread or a post that somehow offends a Mormon, but the bar has been raised. I do believe however that there are a few (I think a handful) of Mormons who constantly annoy the mods by pushing the abuse button every time they see a post like this one. I'm sure this post will be brought to the attention of the mods shortly.
There is no comparison of the two men except that they walked upright.
I'm not so sure about that one. Joseph Smith was a snake in the grass.
Not to mention Luther didn’t claim to be a Prophet. Just a seeker of Truth like the rest of us.