Posted on 04/01/2017 7:10:18 AM PDT by Kaslin
As we approach the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, focus will return to the leader of that movement, Martin Luther. What kind of man was he, really? More specifically, what kind of Christian was he?
At a recent conference of R. C. Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries, panelists Stephen Nichols and W. Robert Godfrey discussed “whether Martin Luther was guilty of anti-Semitism,” and there is good reason to raise this question.
As Nichols rightly points out, in 1523, Luther reached out with kindness and humility to the Jewish people, denouncing how the Church had treated them up to now with the hope that many would become Christians. Twenty years later, when that did not happen, and when Luther, now old and sick, had been exposed to some blasphemous, anti-Jesus writings penned by Jews in past generations, he wrote his infamous document Concerning the Jews and Their Lies.
In this mini-book, he told the German princes how to deal with “this damned, rejected race of Jews.”
First, their synagogues should be set on fire...Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed....Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer-books and Talmuds...Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach any more...Fifthly, passport and traveling privileges should be absolutely for bidden to the Jews....Sixthly, they ought to be stopped from usury [charging interest on loans]....Seventhly, let the young and strong Jews and Jewesses be given the flail, the ax, the hoe, the spade, the distaff, and spindle, and let them earn their bread by the sweat of their noses...We ought to drive the rascally lazy bones out of our system....Therefore away with them....To sum up, dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domains, if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one so that you and we may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden-the Jews.
Yes, all this came from the pen of Martin Luther. (Brace yourself. There’s more to come.)
Of this despicable document, Nichols said that “Luther unleashes his rhetoric against the Jews and is very forceful in his rhetoric.” Very forceful? I’d call that a gross understatement.
Nichols continues:
Now we need to say that he was an equal opportunity offender. It wasn’t just—that rhetoric was not just reserved—for the Jews, he used the same rhetoric for the Papists, for the Anabaptists, for the nominal Christians, that he used for the Jews. But he was wrong. He spoke harshly, and I think he abused his influence that he had in speaking harshly. And so, we need to say that Luther was wrong in that. But this isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism, that’s really a 20th-century phenomenon.
Once again, I must take exception to these words, which minimize the horror of what Luther wrote.
Tragically, Adolph Hitler thought that Luther was a genius who figured out how dangerous the Jewish people were. And the date that many historians mark as the beginning of the Holocaust, Nov. 9, 1938, was the day that Hitler put Luther’s advice into practice, setting on fire and vandalizing Jewish synagogues, shops, and homes.
In that light, I cannot agree with Nichols in saying, “I think he abused his influence that he had in speaking harshly.” That, again, is a gross understatement, regardless of how ugly Luther’s rhetoric was towards other groups and regardless of how coarse the rhetoric of the day might have been. For a Christian leader, such writings must be renounced in the strongest possible terms, even with tears and wails.
Robert Godfrey, the other Ligonier panelist, commented:
Just to add one more thing . . . the one little that should be added is Luther, all his life, longed that Jews should be converted and join the church. Hitler never wanted Jews to join the Nazi party. That’s the difference between anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish. Luther wasn’t opposed to the Jews because of their blood. He was opposed to the Jews because of their religion. And he wanted them to join the Christian church. If you’re really anti-Semitic, you’re against Jews because of their blood and there’s nothing Jews can do about that. There’s not change they can make to make a difference. You’re absolutely right, Luther’s language should not be defended by us because it’s violent against the Jews. It was not against an ethnic people, as you said, but against a religion that he reacted so sharply.
Is Godfrey right? Yes and no. On the one hand, the real issue was the Jewish religion (specifically, from Luther’s point of view, Jewish unbelief in Jesus) as opposed to being Jewish in and of itself. On the other hand, there was a fine line between the two, as historian Eric W. Gritsch pointed out in his book, Martin Luther’s Antisemitism: Against His Better Judgment.
He writes,
There is even a hint of racism in Luther when he commented on the unsubstantiated rumor that Jews killed Christian children. This crime "still shines forth from their eyes and their skin. We are at fault in not slaying them [the Jews]." Such a declaration cannot be limited to a specific historical context. It is timeless and means "death to the Jews," whether it is uttered by Luther or Adolf Hitler. Moreover, Luther himself was willing to kill "a blaspheming Jew": "I would slap his face and, if I could, fling him to the ground and, in my anger, pierce him with my sword.”
So wrote Martin Luther. And I find little comfort in the fact that he wrote about others, like the peasants, in similarly dreadful terms: “On the obstinate, hardened, blinded peasants, let no one have mercy, but let everyone, as he is able, hew, stab, slay, lay about him as though among mad dogs, . . . . so that peace and safety may be maintained... etc.”
Returning to Luther and the Jews, quotes like this make it difficult to separate his theological Jew-hatred from his ethnic Jew-hatred:
A Jew or a Jewish heart is as hard as stone and iron and cannot be moved by any means. . . . In sum, they are the devil’s children damned to hell . . . . We cannot even convert the majority of Christians and have to be satisfied with a small number; it is therefore even less possible to convert these children of the devil! Although there are many who derive the crazy notion from the 11th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans that all Jews must be converted, this is not so. St. Paul meant something quite different.
As a non-Catholic, Jewish believer in Jesus, I am indebted to Luther’s positive contributions and recognize the hellacious battle he fought with corrupt traditions. But I appeal to followers and admirers of Luther today: Please do not minimize the horror of what he wrote (against the Jews and others). Please don’t downplay all this as an example of Luther having “feet of clay” (in the words of Nichols).
There is a lot of blood on those clay feet – including Jewish blood.
Let’s own it with sadness and grief. To do otherwise is to be less than honest with the memory of Martin Luther.
“However, we don’t see the worship of Mary, the idols of Mary, indulgences, penance, etc in the NT church which are current practices in the RCC. Worship those idols with pride vlad...worship them with pride.”
“To Protestantism False Witness is the principle of propagation. “ (John henry Newman, Lecture 4. True Testimony Insufficient for the Protestant View)
As I said we will never agree on this one
There were multiple protestants before Luther including the heugonots and albigensians All ruthlessly slaughtered by the RCC Are you forgetting your own history?
I couldn't have known this about this dear girl, God's lowly handmaid, apart from Scripture, that is, divine revelation: in this case, the highly revealing title by which God's angel addressed her.
Yawn.
When youse guys are having conniptions about the anti-Semitism, corruption, and wickedness in the Reformation-era Catholic church to the same degree, I’ll listen.
But in the meantime, it’s nothing but excuses to hate other Christians.
“An anti-Protestant posting anti-Protestant babblings on a Protestant topic is nothing new.as you of all people should well know. I’ve gotten over it a long time ago, but I never let it slide when I see it.”
Luther was the father of Protestantism. If you find an accurate statement about the father or Protestantism to be “anti-Protestant babblings” then that’s your problem.
“Protestantism is not defined by you nor is it defined by the Roman Catholic Church,”
Luther was the father or Protestantism. There was no Protestantism before Luther. If your feelings are hurt by the fact, you’ll have to learn to live with it because it’s reality. Protestants even teach those facts to their children: http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/church-history-for-kids/martin-luther-father-of-the-reformation-11634895.html
“any more than the Roman Catholic Church is defined by Protestants, but that’s never stopped you. Can you see the hypocrisy? For some strange reason, it seems that you just can’t.”
There’s no hypocrisy in what I posted - except when I quoted your own words.
“But there was Protestant soteriology, like in Augustine, Chrysostom, and also even in contrary views of what the Papacy is.”
No. Years ago I read Alister McGrath’s doctoral dissertation when it was published as a two volume book. https://www.amazon.com/Iustitia-Dei-Christian-Doctrine-Justification/dp/0521533899 I do not know what changes might have been made between the original two volume version and the third edition available now. In the original version he mentioned that Luther introduced a “theological novum unknown in the previous fifteen centuries of catholic thought” into soteriology. That quote is found through the “Look Inside” feature at Amazon for the book. Just type in “novum” as your search word and it should come up as the second listing but it won’t let you go to the actual page. If you put your cursor on it, you can read at least that much of the quote. Anyway, the point is, that even as great an expert on Protestant soteriology as Alister McGrath ADMITS that Luther introduced NEW THINGS, NOVELTIES into an understanding of salvation that became pervasive among the emerging group we call Protestants.
Now, I realize that’s only one thing - but it is admitted by a great authority among Protestants (oh, I can just hear the coming possible response, “We only have the Bible as out authority. . . “). If McGrath is an honest man, and admits Luther was wrong on even one small point that made its way into Protestant soteriology, what else could there be that he doesn’t realize is a “novum”?
Luther was NOT following St. Augustine. He was adapting him. Luther was NOT following St. John Chrysostom. He was adapting him as he saw fit. Luther didn’t even follow the Bible. He adapted it to suit his needs.
Some Protestants have harsher views of Luther than I do:
Romans 1:21-25 NASB
The Roman Catholic Church has done with Mary just what Paul instructs not to be done.
They've set up idols of her, they kneel before the idols and offer prayers before them, rely upon Mary for answered prayer and in some instances salvation through wearing a medal or piece of cloth.
“There were multiple protestants before Luther including the heugonots and albigensians All ruthlessly slaughtered by the RCC Are you forgetting your own history?”
Huegunots came AFTER Luther began the Reformation. They started in the 16th century. Their main inspiration was John Calvin. Everybody knows this.
Albigensians were not Christians let alone Protestants. They were dualists. If you want proof of this from a Protestant historian, read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Baptist-Successionism-James-Edward-McGoldrick/dp/0810836815
There were some differences, this is true, but Augustine's views were very different than what Rome was teaching during Luther's time or even today. For example, Augustine taught that only the Elect can enter into heaven, and the Elect are those who specially receive grace unto salvation, which is not based on any foreseen good works, but on God's mercy alone. Those who do not enter into heaven were either not given grace at all, or were only given a little grace, which they could use to go very far, but ultimately had to be cast out.
This is not what Rome teaches today, as they teach--and even explicitly interpret verses Augustine used in opposite ways--a sort of universalism, where God grants grace, or at least offers, grace to all people. Augustine taught the exact opposite.
Waldensians were medieval heretics who maintained some of their original Catholic practices until they were then converted into Calvinists. Today they are Methodists.
Eaun Cameron has pointed this all out in several of his books - and he’s a Protestant. He even subtitles one section in a chapter about the Waldensians becoming Calvinists in the Reformation, “Introduction: The End of Heresy?” https://www.amazon.com/Waldenses-Rejections-Church-Medieval-Europe/dp/0631224971/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Medieval Heretics to Reformation Calvinists to modern Methodists. Just heresy under three different guises.
Now that the Waldensians have embraced same-sex marriage I don’t expect them to be around too much longer. https://www.pcusa.org/news/2010/9/7/italian-protestants-approve-same-sex-blessings/
Oh, by the way, just so you know, since you apparently don’t know. The Protestant Church historian, James McGoldrick, absolutely destroys the fictional history that Protestants put forward that the Waldensians were somehow Protestants before Protestantism existed:
“They’ve set up idols of her, they kneel before the idols and offer prayers before them, rely upon Mary for answered prayer and in some instances salvation through wearing a medal or piece of cloth.”
Not only are you beating a dead horse, but you’re beating the wrong dead horse. There’s only one possible and rational explanation:
“To Protestantism False Witness is the principle of propagation.” (John Henry Newman, Lecture 4. True Testimony Insufficient for the Protestant View)
“Today they are Methodists.”
Today they are Waldensians!
Italy: https://www.chiesavaldese.org
Your Pope recently asked for their forgiveness for persecuting and slaughtering them.
I don't know what ECFs are (perhaps you'll help me out here) but of course Catholics have their own opinions, including the Pope and, beyond Catholics, all the people on this forum, including ealgeone and Mom MD. And if they are not official doctrines (what Christ teaches through His Church), then here's what they are: opinions.
"Every RCC priest, Sunday School teacher, Bible Study leader, etc puts together their own materials and lessons. They inject their opinion as to what they believe the text says. "
Every non-RCC preacher-teacher-leader and blogger, as well.
We all do this. This forum wouldn't exist without it.
All these statements do not have equal status, though. Opinions (including papal ones) are just opinions.
The teachings of the Church, however, are authoritative; if they were not, Christ would not have told us to listen to Him by listening to the Church ("HE WHO HEARS YOU, HEARS ME", Luke 10:16)
As for "praying to it, lighting candles before it or leaving flowers and other offerings...."
No Christian, Catholic or Baptist, prays to Christmas creches or any other kind of art object. Representational art represents. As the Second Council of Nicaea taught, "...the icon resembles the prototype... The honor passes from the visible image to the prototype depicted."
My son Ben (1st Lt. USMC) just got his "wings" yesterday --- big day. Lots of honorifics shown to flags, wings, medals, USMC and USA symbols. All of it honor. None of it worship.
Most Christian alta, tables, sanctuaries, worship areas, etc. have flowers and candles or at least the usual potted aspidistras. You see a lot of that at weddings and funerals. Nobody is worshiping the table, the newlyweds, the bridesmaids, the casket or the mortal remains of the deceased. Depending n a particular ceremony, everybody is remembering/honoring the marriage, the memory of the deceased, and adoring GOD ALONE.
Practically everybody I've ever met, Catholic or Non-Catholic, including all my Baptist relatives, manage to understand this --- except right here at Free Republic.
This must be some kind of fluke in the Space-Time Continuum.
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