I disagree. It seems to me if it were of little consequence to us, it would not evoke such heated denial and defense of Luther.
The temptation and need to rehabilitate Luther at the expense of the Anabaptists and the Jews is overwhelming and essential for the preservation of the reformation. If Luther is wrong, the Reformation is illegitimate. Then all they have left are the Catholic/Orthodox and the Independent Fundamental Baptists who reject the Reformation.
Put me down as not much caring what Luther did. God used him to point out errors in the Catholic Church. God also used Judas. Following any man or organization other than Christ alone is not of God. The constant focus on man or an organization is idolitry.
If Luther was wrong, the COUNTER-Reformation needs to be explained.
Have at it.
Which is totally irrelevant as we have Scripture by which can come to faith in Christ and to grow into mature Christians, workmen thoroughly equipped for ever good work.
Actually, unlike the pope which RCs seem to think we see Luther as, if RCs were not often attacking Luther you would hardly see him mentioned by most evangelicals.
But he is defended mainly because RCs presume they have an argument by attacking him, and in doing so they often take him out of context, or parrot false quotes, despite frequent corrections.
I would ask other born again evangelicals if Luther was so important in their conversion or present faith that they feel their security threatened by attacks on him, as RCs do with attacks on their church or papacy. Or if their faith is based upon Scriptural substantiation, in word and in life, as in Scripture.
The real issue is why RCs are so preoccupied with attacking Luther, almost invariably being the ones who introduce and focus on him in an debate with evangelicals (being basically the only class that will contend for anything), while the latter cite Scripture, not Luther, until RCs evidence they think attacking Luther will somehow gain them a desperately needed argument for Rome.
• 1. RCs do what Scripture says not to do, "think of men "above that which is written" (1Co. 4:6) - "men" including women - which is evidenced in their incessant focus upon what the pope did or said. Their security is manifestly in a particular church, in which they find their identity and cherish a elitist supreme view of, and thus they feel threatened by anything that impugns it in the least, characteristic of the cults.
Thus unlike evangelicals and NT believers, they constantly are preaching their particular church, which stands in such contrast to the NT church that it is basically invisible in Scripture.
This is due to the majority never having had a "day of salvation" in which under conviction of sin, righteousness and judgment, they came to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, and trusted Him to save them on His blood-expense and credit, and thus experienced the profound changes in heart and life centered upon a relationship with the Christ of Scripture, by which they often enjoy a spontaneous and working relationship with others who also have realized this transformative regeneration, many of which were former RCs.
• 2. As RC cannot conceive of a faith that is not (Catholic) church-centric, papists , because they are papists and anxiously watch their pope - cannot but think evangelicals must likewise look to and follow a man, that of Luther as a pope who started their new religion, as RCs even believe Luther did.
But in reality, Luther and Reformers worked to bring the church back to NT faith from the deformation that is Rome (no supreme perpetual infallible papacy, no perpetually infallible magisterium, no distinctive sacerdotal clerical class of priests, no praying to the departed, no purgatory, etc.) Which is in contrast Scripture being the supreme transcendent standard for faith and obedience as the assured word of God, which it is so manifest to be. Thus the Reformation was progressive, rejecting many things Luther held at the beginning.
Therefore as Scripture and not man is the the Scriptural standard, even if Luther was shown to be all the horrible things traddie RCs attribute to them in their angst, it would hardly faze those who have been born again with its profound changes and relationship with their Lord, who thus look to Christ as the Rock of their faith, not man or a church. For RCs, this is such a foreign reality that they must attack Luther or their current pope, yet the latter is held as valid no matter how evil.
• 3. Some RC's actually believe Prots sense of salvation by grace alone is essentially based on Luther being saved, thus by attacking Luther, even by engaging in psycho-history , they imagine they will destroy Prot. faith, as if evangelicals were saved by looking to Luther, not the Christ of Scripture.
But most evangelicals were born again by faith in the Christ of Scripture, and knew little or nothing about Luther, whom they typically differ substantially from. Thus if RCs want to destroy evangelical faith, they need to discredit the Scriptures and its Christ as libs do, which in fact much of Roman scholarship is in sympathy with.
• 4. RCs uncritically post parroted anti-Luther polemics and Obscure Luther Quotes, and thus actually believe that his teaching rejected the need for holiness and works if one would be saved by faith, and or that SS means only the Bible is to be used in understanding God's will, and or that Luther as a maverick removed books from a infallible canon for no reason except they supported RC traditions that he opposed, and did not include them in his canon, and that he also did not have papal and Catholic precedent in his latter language against the Jews. Luther And The Jews and the A "Roman Catholic" Martin Luther Quiz may help, and more .
• 5. They believe that if Luther is wrong, the Reformation is illegitimate, and of course he must be wrong, as if a pope is wrong then Roman religion is wrong, but unlike Luther, Rome has presumed to infallibly declare she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares. Thus she simply cannot be wrong, if she does say so herself.
This premise of assured veracity is itself wrong in the light of Scripture, in which the church began in dissent from those who sat in the seat of Moses over Israel, as instead they followed an itinerant Preacher whom the magisterium rejected, and whom the Messiah reproved them by Scripture as being supreme, (Mk. 7:2-16) and established His Truth claims upon scriptural substantiation in word and in power, as did the early church as it began upon this basis. (Mt. 22:23-45; Lk. 24:27,44; Jn. 5:36,39; Acts 2:14-35; 4:33; 5:12; 15:6-21;17:2,11; 18:28; 28:23; Rm. 15:19; 2Cor. 12:12, etc.)
Out of Scripture being supreme comes the other cardinal Truth, that in regeneration God justifies the unGodly by faith being counted, imputed for righteousness, (Rm. 3:10-4:7ff) out of which must flow obedience, and repentance whn convicted of the contrary, versus being "formally justified and made holy by his own personal justice and holiness (causa formalis)" via sprinkling with water, (Catholic Encyclopedia >Sanctifying Grace) usually as a morally incognizant infant. And thus, as the subject sins and somewhat fails in moral perfection, usually the subject must conclude this salvation process by becoming good enough (and atoning for sins) in purgatory.
While Luther could be wrong in some other things, if Luther was wrong in these two cardinal Truths then it would indeed be fatal to all who believe them, but which would invalidate the NT church itself. Instead, among other things, rejecting Scripture as the supreme transcendent standard, and making justification to be on account of ones own holiness via sprinkling, Rome,invalidates the church of Rome as being the one true church, though some within it may be part of the body of Christ, which is the one true church in the NT, as it alone consists of 100% believers Thanks be to God. .
Nobody is defending or in denial about Luther.
When he was wrong, we've admitted it and condemned him for it.
Unlike the response of Catholics to their popes and priests.
It seems to me Protestants/Evangelicals/Other are compelled to defend Luther for these reasons:
We're not compelled to defend him for any reason.
He did not start my *religion*. I don't belong to a *religion* and whatever Luther happened to have believed has no bearing on what I believe.
I could not care less what he advocated for. I applaud him for exposing the corruption of Catholicism at the time and demanding some moral integrity within the Catholic hierarchy, but that was not a popular move within Catholicism, so they castigated and ex-communicated him for it.
Let me repeat for about the bazillionth time.
Nobody *follows* Luther. He is NOT our *pope*, not our human leader.
That his theology and mine at times are the same, is irrelevant. It's certainly not because I follow him, but because by using the same Scripture, the Holy Spirit led born again believer will come to the same conclusions about passages in the Bible as each other.