levy@uunet.uu.net (2656-Daniel R. Levy(0000000)0000) (08/21/90)
In some recent debates between believers and nonbelievers in the alt.atheism group, I saw some statements ascribed to Martin Luther which, at least on their face, were virulently anti-Jewish. These statements were to the effect that the Jews and their synagogues should be attacked and burned because they (the Jews) were so low-down. Now to say the least this came across to me as a very, very un-Christian thing for a Christian to say. Jesus Christ Himself verbally lambasted and foretold woes upon the hypocritical Jewish Pharisees, true, but He clearly indicated that implementation of the woes would be left to the Father. And as for His human followers, the guiding rule seemed to be, far from vengeance, to return good for evil, "bless them that curse you." Is there a larger context to Luther's remarks which would better reconcile them to a Christian attitude? Or did Luther himself retract the comments at a later time? I am sincerely and sorely puzzled by this, Protestant (but non-Lutheran) though I am.* Could anyone who could shed some more light on the matter for me, please send me email? As I explained in an earlier query about a stumbling block, I foolishly swore off reading soc.religion.christian about a year ago, so email is the only avenue by which I can in good conscience get feedback. Thanks much, in Jesus' name. @@@ * Not a rock-solid alignment; looking at the Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic divisions of the faith and the various apparently unbiblical quirks and foibles of the various subdivisions within, the question to me at times has appeared to be not which is the _right_ church but which one is least _wrong_, a most distressing position for one earnestly convinced of the need for salvation to find himself in. After having struggled with this for many months and noting the slipups of even the saved disciples and the size of the multitude "too many for a man to count" which is shown in Revelation to have attained salvation, I have tentatively concluded that it isn't necessary to find and join the "perfect" denomination to attain to salvation in Jesus Christ, but the situation still leaves me uneasy. Just my personal comments, which have little to do with the Luther issue, but I am glad to get it off my chest. -- * Daniel R. Levy * uunet!tellab5!mtcchi!levy * Disclaimer: MTC may not agree * So far as I can remember, there is not one | ... therefore be ye as shrewd word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.| as serpents <Gen. 3> and harm- -- Bertrand Russell [Berkeley UNIX fortune] | less as doves -- JC [Mt. 10:16] [Here is Roland Bainton's discussion of the incident, in "Here I Stand": "[Luther] had early believed that [the Jews] are a stiff-necked people to have rejected Christ, but contemporary Jews could not be blamed for the sins of their fathers and might readily be excused for their rejection of Christianity by reason of the corruptions of the papacy. 'If I were a Jew, I would suffer the rack ten times before I would go over to the pope. The papists have so demeaned themselves that a good Christian would rather be a Jew than one of them, and a Jew would rather be a sow than a Christian. What good can we do the Jews when we constrain them, malign them, and hate them as dogs? When we deny them work and force them to usury, how can that help? We should use toward the Jews not the pope's but Christ's law of love. If some are still stiff-neced, what does that matter? We are not all good Christians.' Luther was sanguine that his own reform ... would accomplish the conversion of the Jews." But this didn't happen. "In Luther's latter days, when he was often sorely frayed, news came that in Moravia, Christians were being induced to Judaize. Then he came out with a vulgar blast in which he recommended that all the Jews be deported to Palestine. Failing that, they should be forbidden to practice usury, should be compelled to earn their living on the land, their synagogues should be burned, and their books including the Bible should be taken away from them. One could wish that Luther had died before ever this tract was written. Yet one must be clear as to what he was recommending and why." It was a variant of the territorial principle that was coming into effect for Christians: there were Protestant and Catholic countries. The Jews should also get a land of their own. Bainton notes that the only reason such proposals didn't show up in other countries is that they had already expelled their Jews. Note that this is the same period of time when Luther became involved in execution of Anabaptists. In general it appears that as he became influential in the government he moved from his earlier position that Christianity cannot be coerced, and came to believe it was his responsibility to prevent with the sword the spreading of false ideas. Thus his later attitude towards the Jews was part of what I regard as a general degeneration of his principles, and was consistent with his attitude towards others who taught what he believed were dangerous falsehoods. Indeed it was more sympathetic than his approach to the Anabaptists. --clh]