Hitler and Christianity

1. Violence

2. Unclean language

3. Hostility to science and reason

4. Luther’s responsibility for later events in German history

5. Luther and German nationalism

    a. Some misconceptions

    b. Luther’s worldview

    c. Modern nationalism

6. Luther’s anti-Semitism

    a. David and Bathsheba

    b. Luther’s biblical understanding of the Jews

    c. What Luther did not believe about the Jews

    d. Why Luther was angry at the Jews

    e. Advocacy of violence against the Jews

7. Luther and the Nazis

8. Modern hostility to Luther 

8. Modern hostility to Luther

Noted historian Martin Gilbert opens his otherwise excellent and deeply moving book, The Holocaust: A History of the Jews in Europe During the Second World War, with a reference to Martin Luther, as if that were the starting point for modern German anti-Semitism. But Luther’s attacks were the conventional anti-Semitism prevalent throughout Europe at that time – what was unique about Germany?

Many factors emerged in the 19th century that were very far removed from Luther’s day, as has already been mentioned. In particular, new ideas about the Jews began to emerge out of the “Enlightenment” that were very different from the religious anti-Semitism of the past. The new brand of anti-Semitism was concerned with issues of philosophy, race, and culture derived from secular thought.

There were also major political and economic changes which contributed to making Germany a world power instead of a disorganized collection of small states, and major social changes as well. But Gilbert refers to the 19th century in two sentences as only a time of progress for Jews. Walter Laqueur, however, in the concluding summary of his A History of Zionism, points out that along with the great advances made by German Jewry, there was at the same time increasing hatred against Jews, and an intensification of anti-Semitism.

To view the 19th century, the century in which Hitler was after all born and raised, as if it had nothing to do with what happened a few decades later, is a remarkable oversimplification. But it is an oversimplification that is gratifying the secular mindset, for which just about anything is justified as long as it makes Christianity look bad.

To overlook these issues, to ignore such anti-Semitic thinkers as Lagarde, Langbehn, Wagner, Chamberlain, Fichte, and Kant, and to point only at Luther is at best bad history. It is at worst dishonest. To explain the origins of the Holocaust in depth was admittedly not the purpose of Gilbert’s book, but since he marred an otherwise brilliant book by rambling in a disorderly fashion in the introduction about anti-Semitism in eastern Europe, he could easily have added a paragraph or two to his lengthy book explaining that modern racial and secular anti-Semitism had many totally different themes from the earlier religious variety.

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that “…the Jew cannot possess a religious institution, if for no other reason because he lacks idealism in any form, and hence belief in a hereafter is absolutely foreign to him” (vol. I chapt. 11). That the Jews were (among other things) only materialists with no concept of a hereafter was an idea stressed by Kant, not Luther. It shows a form of anti-Jewish “thought” that emerged out of the so-called Enlightenment, predicated upon the belief that the Old Testament was a merely human and historically inaccurate book.

But, in today’s cultural climate, many will applaud an attack on Luther who do not want to hear that Kant introduced new anti-Semitic themes predicated not on Luther’s belief in the Bible, but on modern secularism’s rejection of it. Moreover, as Professor Zygmunt Bauman suggests in his book Modernity and the Holocaust, pointing the finger at religion may be a way to dodge one of the most troubling aspects of the Holocaust – that it was a “characteristically modern phenomenon, which took place in modern culture using modern technology.”

How much easier, just to blame it on religion, without considering that it was the rejection of religion and the reliance on human reason alone which led to this catastrophic breakdown of civilized norms. The path that led to the Holocaust is a complex one – and I, for my part, do not believe that the 16th century is the logical place to start.

There are those who think that by attacking Luther they can at the same time attack the truths that he so effectively represented. That God exists; that the soul lives after death; that there will be a day of judgment, followed by heaven or hell; that we are all guilty of sin before God and can find forgiveness only in Christ, the Christ of Scripture – these things are hated in the modern era, and attacks on one of their most effective representatives must be understood in this context. But, the truth of what Luther believed does not fall because of an uncharacteristic lapse in his life, any more than the truths of Judaism fall with the sins of David and Solomon, or with the sins of the patriarchs who wanted to kill Joseph.

If someone wants to try and come to an understanding of Luther, two sympathetic biographies, such as Here I Stand by Roland Bainton and the more recent  From Out of the Storm by Derek Wilson are useful starting points. Bainton’s book is more overtly religious, and (as I recall) makes no mention of Luther’s Jewish problem, but both are sympathetic and also historically valid. Wilson’s biography devotes a chapter to Luther’s anti-Semitism (chap. 16, “A Death too Late?”), and deals with the issue fairly if briefly.

For an introduction to Luther in his own words, his “Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther’s Latin Writings” is a good overview of how he saw his own life and work. Written in 1545, the year before his death, it contains no mention of Jews or Judaism. His “Preface to the New Testament” and “Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans” are also useful for those who are not totally incapable of reading or understanding anything having to do with biblical teaching. These are conveniently presented in Martin Luther: Selections from his Writings, John Dillenberger, Ed. (New York, 1962).

Luther was a major figure in Western thought. It is too bad his great contribution to Western progress and democracy is systematically belittled and distorted by people incapable of understanding it. Much of what we consider to be positive about Western culture came not only out of the Renaissance and the “Enlightenment,” but out of the Reformation as well. To omit this fact is to present a false picture of Western culture.

1. Violence

2. Unclean language

3. Hostility to science and reason

4. Luther’s responsibility for later events in German history

5. Luther and German nationalism

    a. Some misconceptions

    b. Luther’s worldview

    c. Modern nationalism

6. Luther’s anti-Semitism

    a. David and Bathsheba

    b. Luther’s biblical understanding of the Jews

    c. What Luther did not believe about the Jews

    d. Why Luther was angry at the Jews

    e. Advocacy of violence against the Jews

7. Luther and the Nazis

7. Luther and the Nazis (contd.)

Steigmann-Gall (and many others too, of course) are fond of pointing to churchmen, both Protestant and Catholic, bishops, pastors, and priests, who supported Hitler, even praised him, and use this as further proof of the strong Christian element in National Socialism. What the Bible actually teaches is not part of Steigmann-Gall’s analysis. He sees infant baptism and partaking of communion as sufficient proofs of Christianity – as if Jesus had ever said, “Blessed are cruel murderers and evildoers who were baptized as infants and take communion.” Hitler’s occasional comments about religion are taken at face value, as if he were an honest man.

Christians who consider such attacks and crude distortions to be too far-fetched to merit a response are not aware of the extent to which this is sweet music to the ears of those who are both hostile to Christianity and ignorant of it. The Holy Reich was widely read and praised. To my knowledge there has been almost no Christian response to these dishonest attacks (though writing rebuttals to The DaVinci Code seemed quite popular).

Those who try to read a lot of significance into Christians who supported Hitler should be mindful of the extent to which people were motivated by fear. Many secularists and Darwinists, including well-known scientists, supported Hitler as well. None of us, theists and atheists alike, want to be thrown into a concentration camp or beaten by a gang of thugs. We should also be more mindful of the extent to which many people were in the beginning completely deceived by Hitler. No one like him had even been seen before, and in the last couple of years of the Weimar Republic, when Hitler was seeking votes, he tried to present himself as more moderate than he really was.

Thirdly, they should be mindful of the extent to which the Protestant churches had been undermined in the preceding century by theological liberalism, and represented a version of Christianity which Luther would not have recognized. Theological liberals like Friedrich Schleiermacher (a “Protestant” “theologian” who speculated that Jesus had not really died on the cross, but was placed in the tomb in a swoon and then revived); like Wellhausen and Harnack, who believe that the Bible was not historically accurate but full of errors; pastors, theologians, bishops who denied all of the most essential teachings of Christianity – these people had poisoned the church from within and left a mighty edifice of seminaries and churches that was hollow within, thoroughly conformed to the world, and ready for collapse.

These liberalizing tendencies reached their apogee in the “Protestant” Rudolf Bultmann, an enemy of Jesus Christ disguised as a Lutheran who openly dismissed essential biblical teachings as mythology, and viewed Christ’s death on the cross not as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, but as a call to an existentially authentic existence. Such people destroyed biblical Christianity in Germany. Their house was built not on the rock of biblical truth, but on the shifting sands of human wisdom and philosophy; on the wisdom of Hegel, Kant, Schopenhauer, Plato, and not on the wisdom of Jesus Christ.

Finally, those who point to Christian support for Naziism need to consider the few, Catholics and Protestants, who did speak out, who did not go along. We need to remember Lutheran pastor Paul Schneider, who refused to obey the Gestapo when they denied him the ability to pastor in his church, and was taken away. He died in Buchenwald. Another Luther pastor, whose last name was Kloetzel, denounced Naziism publicly from the pulpit in 1935, and died shortly thereafter in a concentration camp.

Lutheran pastor Julius von Jan spoke from the pulpit and denounced the Crystal Night pogrom of 1938. A few days later he was taken from a Bible study, attacked by a mob, and thrown into prison. Yet another pastor, Karl Friedrich Stellbrink was beheaded in 1942 after he stated (again in public, in the pulpit) that a recent air raid was the result of God’s anger and judgment on Germany’s wickedness. In his book Berlin Diary, American correspondent William L. Shirer spoke of five Protestant pastors who had just been arrested.

Nor should we forget the Catholics. Bishop Galen of Muenster was the boldest and most outspoken opponent of Hitler’s euthanasia program (others could be named, such as Lutheran Bishop Theophil Wurm and Cardinal Adolf Bertram). In the infamous Blood Purge of 1934 a number of prominent Catholics were murdered (such as Fritz Gerlach, Adalbert Probst, and Erich Klausner). Another Catholic, Provost Lichtenberg, openly expressed concern for the Jews, was arrested, and died in captivity.

The purpose of this is not to present a false picture of a bold church heroically opposing Hitler. Most churches and most Christians kept silent and went along. It is to correct the dishonest rewriting of history by those like Steigmann-Gall who have an agenda, and only present information that seems to support their agenda, however fragilely or tangentially, while neglecting or deliberately covering up plain and obvious facts that contradict their pet theses. Where are the Christian apologists here?

Incidentally, if America goes through enough hardship, as may well happen, most Americans too will, I believe, also accept a dictator who can bring them stability and security. They too will look the other way and say nothing when innocent people suffer. Even many of those who are most proud of their liberalism, or of their conservative American independence, will hail the saviour and follow him blindly. And how many others who still have some sense of right and wrong will just go along to stay out of trouble?

It has been said that Luther and Hitler were both “characteristically German” – as if being a brilliant scholar and Bible teacher who never harmed anyone in his life has anything to do with being a vicious, brutal, conquering warlord – and as if either of these two are somehow characteristic of all Germans. That such a stupid comparison is completely meaningless can be seen from the following example: “Abraham Lincoln and Elvis Presley were both ‘characteristically American.’ ”

1. Violence

2. Unclean language

3. Hostility to science and reason

4. Luther’s responsibility for later events in German history

5. Luther and German nationalism

    a. Some misconceptions

    b. Luther’s worldview

    c. Modern nationalism

6. Luther’s anti-Semitism

    a. David and Bathsheba

    b. Luther’s biblical understanding of the Jews

    c. What Luther did not believe about the Jews

    d. Why Luther was angry at the Jews

    e. Advocacy of violence against the Jews

7. Luther and the Nazis 

e. Advocacy of violence against the Jews

Luther’s anger led him to make some harsh statements in his tract. For example, there is a passage from On the Jews and Their Lies in which Luther advocates such repressive measures as burning synagogues, forcing Jews to do manual labor, depriving them of their sacred books, denying them their right to worship, and other things (not slaughter or systematic extermination). This is constantly pointed to, and used to link Luther to the Nazis. It is unfortunate that so few have studied his tract carefully enough to note that he changes his mind, admits such repressive measures would accomplish nothing, and in the end advocates expulsion instead. Here are Luther’s words: 

“But what will happen even if we do burn down the Jews’ synagogues and forbid them publicly to praise God, to pray, to teach, to utter God’s name? They will still keep doing it in secret … So let us beware. In my opinion the problem must be resolved thus: If we wish to wash our hands of the Jews’ blasphemy and not share their guilt, we have to part company with them. They must be driven from our country. Let them think of their fatherland … This is the most natural and the best course of action, which will safeguard the interest of both parties” (Part XII). 

People who want to attack Luther should at least be aware of what they are attacking. Luther’s desire to expel the Jews was unnecessary, unbiblical, unChristian, hurtful, and wrong, but it is significantly less than what he is constantly accused of. This was the traditional anti-Semitism that had led to expulsions fromEngland,France, andSpain, but which never led to death camps or a Holocaust. Who knows, if the Jews had been expelled from Germanyas Luther advised, how different Jewish and German history would have been? The Holocaust might have been prevented.

Unfortunately, more comments from Luther’s tract require discussion in this context. One states that the rulers should deal with the Jews like surgeons who remove gangrenous flesh “without mercy” – but this could refer to expulsion without exceptions. In this passage Luther also refers to Moses slaying rebellious Jews in the wilderness – but Christians and Jews commonly refer to Moses for examples without at the same time feeling we have his unique power and authority. In dealing with some people, the worst possible meanings can be attributed to their words. In Luther’s case, more understanding and insight are called for.

There is another quote that should be dealt with: 

“So we are even at fault in not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and of the Christians which they shed for three hundred years after the destruction ofJerusalem, and the blood of the children which they have shed since then (which still shines forth from their eyes and from their skin). We are at fault in not slaying them. Rather we allow them to live freely in our midst . . .” 

There is no defence for this type of language, and Luther deviated sadly from the biblical teaching which says “The servant of God must not strive, but must be gentle to all….” It is not our duty to avenge the blood of Christ, and Luther had never taught otherwise (I daresay) in all of his voluminous previous writings. All that can be said is that Luther was saying in anger and sarcasm what he never at any time attempted to do or have others do in his many years of vast influence.

Over-eagerness to discredit Luther or to see something innately sinister in all Germans makes it easier to magnify these statements far out of all historical proportion. When Luther speaks of 1500 years of Jewish expulsion from their homeland, without prophets and without a temple, and says rhetorically to the Jews that such a proof of God’s disfavour “strikes you to the ground like a thunderclap,” this or other statements about “lying on the ground” cannot be reasonably linked (as someone tried to do) to dead Jews lying on the ground in World War II. 

7. Luther and the Nazis

On the 450th anniversary of Luther’s birth, in 1933, the Nazi government held celebrations to commemorate this event. This was an occasion to glorify not salvation by faith in Christ; not belief in the Bible (written by Jews) as the word of God; not the necessity of living for Christ and following his teachings; not the reality of a world to come, a day of judgment followed by heaven or hell. No, such essential doctrines of the Reformation were of no interest to the Nazis. They emphasized the glory of the German people, German culture, Germany’s awakening to a bright new dawn under Hitler. And, of course, there were attacks on the Jews, fortified with some cut-and-paste quotes from a Luther of a different world entirely.

Richard Steigmann-Gall, in his book The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945 (a book which can be viewed as a subtle attack on Christianity cleverly disguised as scholarship), saw this event as proof of a profound connection between Protestantism and Naziism. In fact, it was an obvious propaganda show put on by the Nazis when Hitler had not yet consolidated his power, and was still mindful of the political influence of the churches (which he proceeded to break over time with great subtlety and political skill).

1. Violence

2. Unclean language

3. Hostility to science and reason

4. Luther’s responsibility for later events in German history

5. Luther and German nationalism

    a. Some misconceptions

    b. Luther’s worldview

    c. Modern nationalism

6. Luther’s anti-Semitism

    a. David and Bathsheba

    b. Luther’s biblical understanding of the Jews

    c. What Luther did not believe about the Jews

    d. Why Luther was angry at the Jews

c. What Luther did not believe about the Jews

What, then, was Luther’s problem with the Jews, and what provoked his anger in the last few years of his life when previously he had not been unduly concerned with them? Before exploring that in more detail, I think it will be helpful to show what Luther did not believe about the Jews. He was far removed from the weird philosophies that bubbled up out of human intelligence during the great turning away from faith in the beginnings of our vaunted modern era.

Unlike secular anti-Semites of the 19th century (who cared little or nothing about the crucifixion of Christ and specifically rejected religious issues), Luther did not believe that the Jews controlled the international banking system; that they were plotting to rule the world; that they were to blame for numerous and disconnected social ills; that they were scheming to destroy the German people by corrupting the purity of their blood, defiling their “sacred Aryan racial inheritance” by seducing Jewish women or even honourably marrying them.

Obviously, Luther did not share the much later view that Christianity was a false, Mediterranean, Semitic, Jewish ideology that had infected the German people and caused them to decline from their lofty, noble, and superior pre-Christian Germanic paganism. He did not believe, as did Schopenhauer, that the Jewish account of a divine creation had created a false and harmful dichotomy between the human and animal worlds. He did not blame the Jews, as Nietzsche did in The Antichrist, for creating the false, harmful, and socially destructive religion of Christianity. He did not agree with Richard Wagner that the Jews had corrupted an originally Indian Christianity and hence corrupted Europe via Semitic-Christian influence.

Luther also did not believe that the Jews were sub-humans and vermin who deserved only to be destroyed. He did not believe that the Germans were the master race; that people were only animals in a pitiless and amoral struggle for survival in which might made right; that Judaeo-Christian ethical values, including numerous New Testament teachings about mercy, kindness, honesty and forgiveness were nothing but delusions. Finally, Luther didn’t believe that war was healthy and morally uplifting for a nation, a normal means of progress and of weeding out the unfit. A number of other aspects of Nazi ideology could be presented, none of which Luther believed in. He was a man of the 15th and 16th centuries, and the foundational ideas of National Socialism would have been completely alien to him.

 d. Why Luther was angry at the Jews

In his tract On the Jews and Their Lies, Luther gave a number of reasons for his outburst of hostility, an attack different from all of his previous writings, and endorsed by no other Protestant leaders of that time (or of later times). What initially provoked Luther’s response was a Jewish booklet attempting to persuade a German of the truth of Judaism. This was not the main point of the tract – German conversions to Judaism must have been extremely rare – and Luther devotes the tract to other issues.

One reason for Luther’s overreaction to the secondary issue of Jewish apologetics was insults ridiculing and despising Jesus, Mary, and Christians. That Mary was a whore, or that she had been raped and Jesus was born illegitimately as a result; that Jesus was a tool of the devil whose miracles were only sorcery; that Jesus was mentally defective; that Jews would curse the name of Jesus and say “May God exterminate his name”; that Jews cursed Christians, and hoped the coming Messiah would exterminate them – these and other comments provoked Luther’s fury.

Some of Luther’s information on this came from converted Jews such as Anthony Margarita and Alfonso Burgensis, whom he names in the tract. That his information was not completely wrong can be seen in a work like the Toldos Yeshu (or Toledoth Yeshu), a medieval Jewish satire that ridiculed Jesus. Jewish historian Abram Leon Sachar refers to this in his book A History of the Jews, and describes it as an embittered Jewish response “to centuries of persecution in the name of Jesus.” The Medieval Chronicle of Simon Bar Simson as described by Steven Katz (The Holocaust in Historical Context) confirms Luther’s angry charges (at least in part).

Luther’s response was unChristian and wrong. He should have reflected more on the suffering that led some Jews to have such bitter feelings against his religion. He should have remembered what it says in James: “For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God,” and “the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated…” Nevertheless, his response was ordinary and easily understandable human anger. I am sure if I lived in a conservative area of Israel and mocked Moses as the son of a whore and a mentally defective leader of a bandit gang I would not be well received.

Another reason for his harsh attacks was the claim that mere physical descent from Abraham made Jews superior. As Luther wrote in On the Jews and Their Lies, “…they boast of being the noblest, yes, the only noble people on earth. So if the Jews boast in their prayer before God and glory in the fact that they are the patriarch’s noble blood, lineage, and children, and that he should regard them and be gracious unto them in view of this…what do you suppose such a prayer will achieve?”

Thirdly, Luther was angered by Jewish complaints about life in Germany. He stated that no one had asked them to come and if they didn’t like it they could leave. He even made a comment about them returning to their ancestral homeland. As he wrote, “In addition, no one is holding them here now. The country and roads are open for them to proceed to their land whenever they wish.” This was of course in the days before the system of passports and visas which kept the Jews so agonizingly trapped in Hitler’s Germany before war broke out.

Luther also refers to common charges that the Jews poisoned wells, kidnapped children, and so on. He was not sure about these things, and expressed some doubt, but considered such accusations plausible, and called Jews “children of the devil who sting and work harm stealthily wherever they cannot do it openly.” He relates this to John 8:44 where Christ called those who were plotting to kill him children of the devil – but that Jesus was not speaking of the Jewish people as a whole is clear from verse 37. Here Luther was wrong in his interpretation of scripture (and not for the first time).

A final point (not that Luther presented them neatly separated and exactly in this order) was Jewish usury. Sachar’s above mentioned History of the Jews gives some useful information on this point. Although a great many Jews at this time eked out lives in great poverty, official Christian opposition to money lending as well as restrictions denying Jews the right to work in many areas did lead to “disproportionate numbers” of Jews serving as bankers and moneylenders. “Often they were usurious in their dealings,” Sachar states, but he also clarifies that the ultimate beneficiaries of this economic activity were the kings and nobles (chapter 19. 3). Luther failed to take these factors into account.

Interrupting my series of blogs defending Martin Luther, I thought I would post my response to a long article on the subject of Hitler’s beliefs. The author claims he only wants to detach Hitler from atheism and from Darwinism, but numerous comments linking Hilter to Christianity and to Christians were made. The article can be found here  http://coelsblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/nazi-racial-ideology-was-religious-creationist-and-opposed-to-darwinism/

Hello Coelsblog,

In one of your messages you inquired about my trip. London is great, I also visited Berlin.

You said I gave you a lot to respond to, but your initial article was very long, and I could have written fifty pages in response. I do have as I said a whole book on the subject. There are a few extra copies of an earlier version to which a few changes were made. If you like, I will mail it to you – it covers all of these subjects in depth. But, I am sure you wouldn’t like the book, it is written from the basis of belief in the bible and explores these questions from a Christian vantage point.

I mentioned the fact that millions of Germans voted for the Communist candidates to the Reichstag, marched in Communist parades, called for the abolition of capitalism, and considered religion the opiate of the people, a trick used by the establishment to keep the people docile. They were out and out Marxists. Unless I missed something, you did not respond. Here is a clear and simple easily verifiable fact that contradicts your thesis – are you willing to deal with it?

These conversations can be endless, so I will make these comments and not write more – not that I am trying to have the last word. I’ll keep on your mailing list for a while and be glad to read whatever you might post. If you ask something specifically about Christianity I suppose I should respond.

You said to someone that the purpose was not to link Hitler to Christianity, but that is definitely the purpose of the No Beliefs website and also the Steigmann-Gall book, which sources you quote often. Also, you say if I remember rightly that Hitler was not mainstream Christianity, meaning he was still in some way part of Christianity. And, you continually refer to the 98% of people who claimed to be Christians, and also don’t want to accept that top Nazi leaders denied basic doctrines (you asked for evidence for my claim there).

When asked in a government poll about religion, “Protestant” or “Catholic” was a wise thing to say. The Nazis pursued the Communist party ruthlessly (have you read about this?) and anyone even suspected of being a Communist was liable to be beaten, tortured, and sent to a concentration camp. Saying “no religion” or “atheist” might lead to closer observation.

In the book “Hunting Eichmann,” by Neil Bascomb (I think that’s his name), it tells how a Protestant minister tried to evangelize Eichmann after his death sentence had been passed. Eichmann had no interest in that bible stuff, and was not concerned about repenting of his sins, believing in Jesus, and being saved. There are also detailed biographies of Heinrich Himmler. You will find that he had in interest in Hinduism (he liked the caste system), and German paganism. He was not interested in Christianity which was, after all, a Jewish religion. Bormann and Heydrich were openly hostile to Christianity. They changed Christmas to Yulefest so as to leave Christ out of it – just like secularists today.

Goebbels in his diaries (authentic, and accepted as legitimate) referred directly to Hitler’s hostility to Christianity. This is an important source S-G and Jim Walker (of the nobeliefs site) both ignore. This is because they are not interested in facts, but only want to attack Christianity. Anyone who reads the four gospels and sees anything of Hitler there is, in my view, incapable of rational thought on this subject. Jim Walker’s attitude toward Christianity is, in my view, one of hatred, ignorance, and fear.

You were not aware of Nazi persecutions of Catholics in Austria, and I suppose in Germany either. Shirer talks about the murders of Catholic political activists in the Roehm purge. John Conway’s book “The Nazi Persecution of the Churches” describes the problems of the Catholics in Austria in detail, and gives information about monasteries and seminaries arbitrarily closed by the Nazis. His book is not a whitewash either. He presents the well known fact that many “Christians” went along with Hitler, and he discusses in depth Germanic Christians who tried to combine National Socialism with Christianity. When S-G says Conway didn’t cover this it shows he either did not read the book, or was lying.

Catholics in Germany were also persecuted, fired, Catholic schools were all closed over time, the promises made in the Concordat with the Vatican were one more set of lies by Hitler. The Vatican protested numerous times against these violations, but it accomplished nothing. They did not excommunicate Hitler as this would have led to even fiercer persecutions and great damage to the church in Germany – not to mention the loss of many Catholics who, if they were forced to choose between the Pope and Hitler, would have gone with Hitler (if only to save their own necks). I am sure you have not read about the Hitler Youth member who tore a crucifix off the wall and threw it out a window into the street, saying “Lie there, you dirty Jew.” The Nazis were not ignorant of the fact that Jesus was a Jew.

About the Old Testament massacres, most people do not have any problem with the fiery destruction rained down on German cities in WW II in which hundreds of thousands of people were indiscriminately slaughtered, including of course infants. Most consider this justified and necessary to win the war – and does man have more power than God? Do we have the right to do this and not God? God is the creator of life, and he has as much right to take a life, or any number of lives, as you do to turn off a light switch in your own home. If because of their sins and to establish the Jews in their homeland, God decided the Canaanites had to go, he had that right, and the biblical Israelites were instruments of God’s anger.

This disturbs some on your side, but they have no concern at all for the much greater numbers of people massacred by atheists in our own modern era. Why is it that a comparatively small number of people massacred more than 3,000 years ago bothers you more than those massacred by secularists such as Pol Pot, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao? I suspect some people don’t really care about human life at all, they just want an excuse to attack religion.

Finally, on this point, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was a onetime incident, once in the history of the world. So was the flood, which God sent to destroy the world because of its wickedness. These have never been emulated by Christians, who recognize we do not have that calling. The same for the massacres of the Canaanites – a onetime event in world history that no Jews or Christians have ever tried to repeat. We understand we are not Moses, we are not in that situation, and God has not called us for that.

I found many passages in Table Talk relating to science, showing Hitler to have had profoundly secular views. You ignored that point – unless I missed something you posted somewhere. People on your side have a consistent tendency to ignore contrary evidence. This is not detached objectivity. Also, the passage I quoted did not merely show that Hitler studied Darwinism in school, it shows that he argued in favour of it. Possibly (?) as a boy Hitler came to believe in Darwinism, but later scrapped parts of the theory he didn’t like (a common origin for all races for example) but kept the part he did like (life as struggle for survival in which the perishing of the weak was normal and healthy). Hitler was not a consistent thinker or a scientist, he picked up whatever agreed with him and ignored the rest.

By the way, there are you know theistic Darwinists. They say “Darwinism is a fact, we have the evidence and know how it works, it’s science – but God is behind it. He started it, and he is guiding it to some end.” So, the fact that Hitler made some theistic noises by no means detaches him completely from Darwinism.

Also, someone said in a post on your blog that Table Talk was the only evidence Christians use to show Hitler was not a Christian. This is completely false. People like to use some good quotes from that source, but there is much more to it than that, and in my book I do not at all rely on this source, though I do refer to it a few times. Other evidence: first, Hitler never at any time referred to any of the foundational teachings of Christianity, such as the virgin birth, the Trinity, Christ as God in human form, his sacrificial death on the cross for the sins of the world and his resurrection from the dead, his final return as God to judge the world, the need to repent of sins and be saved, or the bible as the word of God.

If you say those are not essential and one can be a Christian without them, then I can say that natural selection is not essential to Darwinism and one can be a Darwinist if they believe in the literal truth of the first chapters of Genesis. A big part of the debate here is caused by the fact that many of you people do not have any idea of what Christianity is. It is true of course, Christians themselves may differ, but the bible plainly teaches that thieves, liars, murderers, and evildoers will not go to heaven – no matter if they were baptized, go to church one occasion, or say something about Christ. “No murderer has eternal life” as it says in I John.

By the way, the supposed Catholic Hitler never went to mass, never went to confession, never said a word about the Virgin Mary the whole time he was chancellor.

About Hitler’s theism, I agree he was not an atheist, but his theism was of a very odd sort. Conway’s book “The Nazi Persecution of the Churches” has a detailed and long quote from Marin Bormann, explaining that the Nazis believed in God, but it was not the naive God of the Christians. It was a “god” that worked through natural law and was understandable by reason and science, without revelation. I encourage you to look at this book, find the lengthy quote by Bormann, and post it on your blog.

Hitler’s ideas emerged out a very distinct tradition of secular German philosophy that emerged in the 19^th century. By the way, I wonder if you know that Hegel is often linked to modern totalitarianism, due to his belief that the state was the agent of the world spirit, and that people found their true freedom in obedience to the state. He has been consistently linked to both left (Communist) and right (Nazi) totalitarianism.

A few more points. Someone on your blog said that Churchill and FDR were Christians. Read a detailed biography of either of those men and find one place where they said “Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins,” or any other vital element of Christian doctrine.

About Naziism being a counterfeit religion, Hitler offered a new Chosen People (the Germans); a new promised land (Germany); a new concept of sin (racial impurity); a new means of salvation (eliminating sources of impurity in the German Volk); a new saviour (himself); a new system of ethics (life as pitiless struggle and might makes right). There is definitely a religious element – a counterfeit one, as Hitler understood people need something to believe in. The point has been made that the secularism and rejection of Christianity in modern Germany left the German people lost, confused, looking for certainty, for a cause to fight for, and Hitler met this need. Hitler and Stalin both knew how to manipulate religion to serve their own ends.

Two more points. I have read Weikart’s book “From Darwin to Hitler” and I think some people on your side don’t understand it. He plainly says that Darwinism did not CAUSE Naziism. He agrees there are many differences between Darwin and Hitler, many differences between Darwinism proper and Naziism, that many Darwinists are far from Hitler and sincerely reject him. He also recognizes that there were many factors behind the emergence of Hitler. This is plainly spelled out in the opening of the book, and you should not confuse his book with much simpler attacks by people who have not really studied the subject.

He does say, and he documents this thoroughly with many citations from primary sources, that Darwinism was popular in 19^th century Germany, and believed in by an influential segment of the population. He then shows how these people did not merely stop with Darwinism as an explanation for the origin and development of life on earth. They went on from there, and tried to build an ethical and philosophical system, applying the truths of Darwinism to people and to human society. For example, they reasoned that traditional ethics based on Christianity were false and out of date; that life was governed by the rule of struggle – the strong survive and the weak die, and survival is the main ethic.

They reasoned that sick and weak people should be allowed to die, as that was natural, and too much medical care interfered with natural selection. They reasoned that some people were higher on the evolutionary scale than others, and hence superior to them. They argued that if Germany seized territory from weaker nations, this was justified by the natural law of survival of the fittest. Darwin’s leading proponent in Germany before WWI was Ernst Haeckel, a racist militarist imperialist who thought people with blue eyes were superior (no, I am not talking about anti-Semitism here, his views about the Jews are debated, but not relevant to my main point).

This is called “social Darwinism,” an attempt to apply a Darwinian ethic to human beings. You may dislike this, you can say it is not true Darwinism, that it is not science, but Weikart proves that there were people who had these views. He presents basic and well documented facts, which I am sure some people on your side will refuse to consider because they feel that Darwin must be protected at any cost.

Finally, imagine there are two atheists. Both of them agree there is no God; science is the only sure path to knowledge; there is no heaven, no judgment, no hell, pure atheists in every way. But, they don’t stop there. They then go on to try and decide how they should live in the world. One just wants to be a nice guy, enjoy life, have a good job and a family, he is a good neighbour and a good citizen.

Another says, “There is too much injustice, oppression, poverty, and exploitation in the world. This is caused by greed, selfishness, and private property. The solution is to eliminate private property, capitalism, and religion and set up a state of the workers. Of course, this has to be set up by force, and people who oppose it are enemies the happiness of mankind and it is justifiable to deal with them harshly.”

You may say that is not real atheism, but it comes from atheism and atheism is its starting point. Stalin, Lenin, and Mao were atheists, and the fact that they used various psychological means to win people’s devotion and strengthen their own power, or had certain economic or political policies, does not mean they were not real atheists. To put it another way, atheists have been some of the most vicious, brutal, cruel people in the history of the human race.

I appreciate your considering an opposing point of view, which is helpful for all of us.

This does not cover all points but this is long enough.

Joe K.

1. Violence

2. Unclean language

3. Hostility to science and reason

4. Luther’s responsibility for later events in German history

5. Luther and German nationalism

    a. Some misconceptions

    b. Luther’s worldview

    c.  Modern nationalism

6. Luther’s anti-Semitism 

    a. David and Bathsheba

    b. Luther’s biblical understanding of the Jews   

I think it might be reasonable to stop with the last point – that Luther’s hostile comments about Jews in the last few years of his life were a fall into sin by a great man who earlier presented many excellent biblical truths. Since, however, there is a lot of misunderstanding about what Luther actually did say, it is also reasonable to spend some time clarifying just what his views were. They are different from what many people think, and far removed from the new forms of racial, philosophical, and cultural anti-Semitism that emerged out of secular thought in the 19th century.

The anti-Jewish “logic” that Hitler used in Mein Kampf was not that of Luther but of much later German “thinkers” (such as those mentioned earlier). Hitler’s belief that the Jews weakened Germany  biologically in its struggle for survival of the fittest had to do with concepts of racial purity and social-Darwinism that no one in Luther’s time would have accepted (if such ideas could even have been imagined). The one reference to Luther in Mein Kampf has nothing to do with Jews. It merely refers to Luther as a “great reformer,” along with Frederick the Great and Richard Wagner (vol. I, chapt. viii).

Hitler does quote the 19th-century “philosopher” Arthur Schopenhauer on the Jews, though (vol. I chapt. xi) – and this comment, referring to “the Jew” as “the great master in lying” included Schopenhauer’s belief in the falsehood of the Old Testament. There are a number of aspects of Schopenhauer’s thought that mesh well with Hitler’s (along with great differences as well of course) – including the primacy of will over intellect; life as essentially struggle; people as being no more than animals; and Christianity as a harmful and alien Semitic import. This gives credence to reported comments by Hitler that he had at one period in his life studied Schopenhauer diligently.

By the way, Hitler dismissed the Old Testament as historically inaccurate, and claimed in Mein Kampf that the Jews never had their own state or their own culture, and never were nomads either, but always and only parasites feeding off of other peoples. In claiming that the biblical record was culturally conditioned rather than divinely inspired, Hitler was squarely in the mainstream of secular liberal thought (including of course so-called liberal so-called Protestant so-called theology). Hitler made many references to God. His “god” was the god of German philosophy, not the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses.

Returning to the subject of Luther, it should be stressed here that Jews and Judaism had nothing to do with his main Reformation goals or writings. To my knowledge, none of the works written in his prime show him worried about any sort of a Jewish “problem.” Taking Luther’s comments on Paul’s teachings about the Jews in the apostle’s Letter to the Romans as contrary evidence of a life-long obsession is absurd. Luther had much to say about the whole letter – was he supposed to skip passages about the Jews that were an integral part of the text?

What Luther does say in this context (in his “Preface to Romans” at any rate) is not anti-Semitism, but only basic biblical teaching. For example, with reference to chapter 2 of Romans, Luther states that Paul teaches “the Jews are all sinners.” But, Luther goes on to explain that chapter 3 shows that the entire human race is under the same condemnation: “In chapter 3, he [Paul] treats of both kinds together [Jews and Gentiles], and says, of one as of the other, all are sinners in God’s sight.” As Paul wrote, “…we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin … There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:9-10).

Statements by Luther in the context of biblical commentary can be made to look bad when applied to Jews only, without mentioning that these negative statements also apply to humanity as a whole. That Jews resisted God’s grace and were under condemnation for their present-day rejection of Christ was equally true, in Luther’s view, of the Turks, the Papists, the radical Protestant sects, and outwardly decent ordinary Germans, even seeming Protestants, who were in fact without Christ. Luther saw Jewish unbelief as human unbelief, and applied John 3:36 to everyone, not only Jews (“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him”).

Moreover, Luther considered the Old Testament to be the Word of God. He translated it into German for the benefit of German people; he appealed to its teachings often in his Reformation debates and teachings; and he had deep respect for the Jewish men of God in the Old Testament. He wrote in his “Preface to the Psalms” (1528), “Where can one find nobler words to express joy than in the Psalms of praise or gratitude? . . . So, too, when the Psalms speak of fear or hope, they depict fear or hope more vividly than any painter could do, and with more eloquence than that possessed by Cicero or the greatest of the orators.” Even in his anti-Semitic tract On the Jews and Their Lies, Luther states that the Jews of the Old Testament era were honored and chosen by God above all other nations; that God gave them a country and did great works with them through kings and prophets (“great patriarchs, excellent kings, and outstanding prophets”); that God did these things so that Christ, the Messiah, might come from such excellent and noble ancestors.

1. Violence

2. Unclean language

3. Hostility to science and reason

4. Luther’s responsibility for later events in German history

5. Luther and German nationalism

    a. Some misconceptions

    b. Luther’s worldview

    c.  Modern nationalism

6. Luther’s anti-Semitism 

6. a. David and Bathsheba

Turning now to the serious problem of Luther’s attacks on the Jews, there is much that needs to be said on his behalf – not that Luther should be shielded from just criticism. The hostile comments he made about the Jews towards the end of his life were, in my view, his greatest single mistake. They have often been used to link him, and Christianity, to the Nazis – not that this is solely a Protestant issue. Medieval anti-Semitism is also commonly mentioned in this context. 

Nevertheless, while it is a problem, it is not an insurmountable one, and there are a number of aspects to Luther’s comments that are often overlooked or misinterpreted. First, though, to put this in perspective, it might be helpful to look at David and Bathsheba. I had some doubts about making this point first, fearing it might come across as nothing more than an evasive tactic, but a more detailed study of Luther’s beliefs about the Jews will follow. 

All Bible-believing Jews and Christians recognize David as a man of deep faith, mightily used of God. His psalms and prayers as preserved for us in Scripture have been a source of spiritual light to countless people of both faiths over the centuries – yet, at one point David fell so deeply into sin as to take Uriah’s wife, and have him murdered. 

How could such a great man of God have sinned so terribly? We don’t need, by the way, to consider the lame excuses some have offered to try and minimize David’s fault. The prophet Nathan said to him directly that he was guilty of killing a man and taking his wife, and that in so doing he had “despised the commandment of the Lord,” and that God would raise up evil against him as punishment. David did not respond with clever and tricky evasions, but confessed his sin and was duly punished before receiving forgiveness. 

A great man of God stumbled badly – but does this minimize his undeniable achievements? What would we think of someone who said “I refuse to read any of David’s psalms. They can’t be any good, look at the sort of man he was”? We would consider such a person to be blind to the wonderful truths which David, inspired by the Spirit of God, presents to us, and ignorant of the extent to which the greatest and the best of us, even spiritual leaders, are vulnerable to sin.  

Pascal has pointed out how Christianity provides an explanation for both the greatness and the fallenness of man. We are great, or potentially great, because we are made in the image of God, and are not accidental little bits of slime living to no end in a pointless universe. But, we are corrupt, even vile, because of sin, and the hosts of innumerable tendencies to wrongdoing. These truths of our divine origin and our natural depravity, as Pascal also points out, both elevate us and humble us, giving us self worth without pride, and humility without despair. They explain David’s greatness and baseness. They explain, I believe, Luther’s as well. 

Luther was in my view a great man of God who stumbled and fell late in life, long after his primary contributions had been made. This fall (as well as his other faults and errors) should not distract from his extraordinary achievement in redirecting the emphasis of much of Western Christianity from the Church and its human traditions to Christ, the written Word, and the Spirit. By these last three alone we can we find salvation and eternal life. Parenthetically, I may speculate that God allowed Luther to fall at this point, so we would not be tempted to put him on a pedestal of spiritual greatness where no human being belongs. 

Luther’s angry outburst may have been influenced by years of serious health problems (which he alludes to in his notorious tract, On the Jews and Their Lies). I have seen in my own family that protracted health problems in old age can over time lead to significant alterations of personality. Luther may also have been bitter about the fact that the Reformation had gone in so many different (and in his view wrong) directions. 

 Whatever the extenuating circumstances may have been, it is a fact that Luther did a great deal, as much I dare say as any other single individual, to facilitate the transition from medieval to modern Europe. All who value liberty of belief and conscience as opposed to unquestioning obedience to higher earthly authorities of any sort should recognize Luther’s contribution. 

It is also a fact that the Jews were decently (if not perfectly) treated in every single country where the Reformation took root. No countries in Nazi-occupied Europe were more helpful to the Jews than countries like Holland, Denmark, and Norway, with their strong Protestant (even Lutheran) backgrounds. Even Germany prior to World War I, though not without problems, provided a favorable setting for a dynamic and flourishing German-Jewish culture. 

Moreover, there are many American Christians today who respect Luther, even read his writings with care and share many of his basic beliefs, but bear no trace of anti-Semitism and are even supporters of Israel’s fundamental right to exist as a Jewish state (though they may or may not disagree with specific policies). If German history had not taken such a disastrous turn in the modern era, Luther’s tract would be completely ignored today.

1. Violence

2. Unclean language

3. Hostility to science and reason

4. Luther’s responsibility for later events in German history

5. Luther and German nationalism

a. Some misconceptions

b. Luther’s worldview

5 c. Modern nationalism

Luther cannot be reasonably linked to a much later nationalism. 19th-century Germans nationalists were obsessed with Luther only because he was a great German. They thus tried to adopt him for programs with which Luther had nothing in common.

The Reformation did not cause nationalism by sundering the unity of Catholic Europe. The popes had had many conflicts with secular rulers before 1517, conflicts in which rulers placed their national and dynastic interests above those of Rome. The emergence of the modern nation state was well underway long before Luther, and was the result of many causes – though the religious divisions subsequent to the Reformation did add more complicating factors to the European situation.

German nationalism and militarism in particular were influenced by some uniquely German factors, for example;

~ defeat and domination by Napoleonic France

~ secular philosophies which, following the decline of traditional religion, presented “a metaphysical view of the culture of each people as embodying an underlying specific force, spirit, or idea, incarnated in the particular Volk” (J.R. Burrow, The Crisis of Reason: European Thought 1848-1914, chapt. 2).

~ an emphasis on national myths (again, replacing religion). To quote Burrow again, “Myth was not simply invention or falsehood, it was an alternative and deeper way of seeing life than that which science could offer” (Crisis of Reason, chap.2). These national myths were to replace traditional religious myths, increasingly derided as “Semitic, Mediterranean, and non-Germanic.”

~ concepts of the nation as an agent of spiritual progress (Hegel), with favored peoples like the Greeks, the Romans, and the Germans in the vanguard (Fichte).

~ Germany’s unification by Bismarck, greatly increasing its military and economic power.

~ swift and dramatic victories in wars with France, Austria, and Denmark, which inflamed pre-existing misconceptions of war as glorious and heroic.

~ the supposedly scientific justification of war as healthy, natural, and beneficial, a national contest for survival of the fittest that was merely another manifestation of life’s fundamental law of progress through conflict.

~ new concepts of the state, and of its leaders, as not being bound by any higher moral law other than victory. People who go on and on about Luther’s concept of obedience to the authorities by the way forget (or never knew, being ignorant of Luther) that Luther saw the earthly authorities as being themselves subject to higher, divine law, and obligated to operate within clearly defined limits. Modern totalitarianism emerged from a modern secular mindset. It could not have been conceived of in Luther’s day, and was not.

Napoleon is vastly more relevant to an understanding of modern nationalism than Luther – and Hitler visited the former’s tomb, not the latter’s. Hitler’s attitude toward Luther is easily seen in some comments in Hitler’s Table Talk, where he called the German translation of the Bible “deplorable” and stated that it would have been better if its “Jewish mumbo-jumbo” had never been rendered into German.

It is commonly said “Hitler quoted Luther!” – that Hitler quoted Torah as well, and used “an eye for an eye” to justify his invasion of Poland is not mentioned. Also, in Mein Kampf, the “logic” Hitler used to describe the Jewish menace came not from Luther, or from traditional religious anti-Semitism, but from Kant, H.S. Chamberlain, Schopenhauer, and others. Later German nationalists who praised Luther so extravagantly admired him only because he was German. Calvin had many of the same basic ideas but was of no interest to them – he was French.

If in Luther’s day someone had argued for Aryan supremacy he would easily have been recognized as a nut. Someone who tried to forcibly unite all the disunited German governments into one would have been tossed into some dungeon, if not executed. If someone had argued that people were nothing but animals and life was only a struggle for survival of the fittest he would have received no hearing, and would have been rejected by Protestants and Catholics alike. In my view, anyone who tries to link Luther to German nationalism is badly misinformed.

“But, Luther was a vicious anti-Semite who hated Jews, and who anticipated Hitler’s program with his recommendations that Jews be persecuted!” This false and simple-minded misrepresentation of Luther’s views will be discussed in the next blog or two (or three at most).

1. Violence

2. Unclean language

3. Hostility to science and reason

4. Luther’s responsibility for later events in German history

5. Luther and German nationalism

    a. Some misconceptions 

    b. Luther’s worldview

In response to the argument that Luther was responsible for later abuses of nationalism, we need to consider first, Luther’s overall world-view; and second, European nationalism in general (5c). Really, this line of argument – “Luther was a great German, therefore he was responsible for everything that happened after him” – is unworthy of academic consideration and should be done away with by legitimate commentators and historians.

 Luther understood, like all Bible-believing Christians down through the centuries and until today, that national issues are not of primary importance. Nationalists of various stripes have at various times (with more or less success) manipulated religious enthusiasm for their own advantage, but such manipulations are far from the good news of Jesus Christ. Christians may and should have a legitimate concern for the well-being and security of the countries in which we happen to reside, and the Bible instructs us to pray for the authorities, that we might have peace, but Jesus said that his gospel should be sent into all the world, without partiality or favoritism. That, and serving Christ, should be our primary concerns, not irrational or blind super-patriotism that causes us to forget the love of God and the reality of the world to come after this one. 

In his profound and deeply spiritual book Pilgrim’s Progress, 17th-century English write John Bunyan wrote of the town Vanity Fair as having a French row, a German row, and English row, and so on. As we work out our salvation in fear and trembling before a righteous God, national issues must be of lesser importance, and will be with all genuine followers of Christ (who have ever been in the minority, as Christ himself taught). We understand what John meant when he wrote that “the whole world lieth in wickedness,” and are not so foolish as to think – if we believe in the Bible – that our country comes first, right or wrong. 

More specifically, Luther believed that there is going to be a day of judgment, and that all of us will stand individually before God, to be either accepted into paradise, or sent to hell, a place of everlasting punishment. He well knew, as do all serious Christians today, that a Frenchman, an Italian, an African, an Asian, or a Jew who is accepted by God and goes to heaven, however low their status here on earth might be, is happier, wiser, better, and more fortunate in the end than a German who dies and is rejected by God. These were Luther’s main concerns: salvation from sin, eternal life, reform in the church, the truths of the Bible, and a life according to its teachings (from which Luther at times, especially in his old age, sadly deviated, as have we all). 

The belief in the eternal value of all human life and our equality before God contributed to the gradual death of slavery in Europe while it was still routinely practiced in other parts of the world. It also contributed, along with many other factors, to the emergence of democracy in the West. Those who try to discuss the origins of Western democracy while ignoring the Reformation are badly misinformed. The Reformation contributed as much as the Renaissance and more to the emergence of modern Europe out of the Middle Ages. It is too bad that ignorant anti-religious bias has blinded some so-called scholars to this elementary fact. 

The main issue for Luther was not the magnification and the exaltation of Germany. It was, “How do we make peace with God, obtain forgiveness for sins, and enter into eternal life?” He was not concerned with the political boundaries of Germany – and this was the emphasis of Christ as well. When Christ’s “fatherland” was controlled by a foreign occupying power he did not issue a call to arms – instead, he counseled cooperation with the occupying power, and even said that people should do twice as much as they were asked. Jesus was concerned with the kingdom of heaven – how we can enter into it in this life, and be fully accepted into it in the world to come. 

Luther had an ordinary and natural concern for the people or ethnic group of which he was a member, and was not indifferent to human ties of language and culture that anyone might feel – but to say as one “scholar” did that Luther was obsessed with “Germanness” is totally false, and a grotesque caricature of a man of European, not merely Germanic, roots and character. Of course, I do realize some are incapable of informed and rational thought on this subject, being so poisoned by hatred, ignorance, and fear of Christianity. 

Luther understood, as taught in Acts 17:26, that God “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,” and modern nationalism was not an issue for him. Those who want to hunt through Luther’s multi-volume collected works and seize on any use of the word “German” or “Germany” as proof of his nationalism without regarding his overall purpose and life’s work are either dishonest or incompetent. Inevitably, as a German, he was concerned with the various issues of his day, but his emphasis was on the unseen and invisible spiritual world which endures forever, in contrast to this visible world which passes away.

Next blogs: 

5 c. Modern nationalism

6. Luther and the Jews

1. Violence

2. Unclean language

3. Hostility to science and reason

4. Luther’s responsibility for later events in German history

5. Luther and German nationalism

a. Some misconceptions

Before we examine the (in my view) greatest problem of Luther’s attitudes toward the Jews, we need to look at one more issue: the hideous and damaging charge that Luther inspired German nationalism (or at least contributed to it significantly). Apart from the obvious (but not necessarily true) reasoning that Luther was an important German in the 16th century, so therefore he had something to do with everything that happened three hundred years later and more, there are also statements like those of the 19th-century super patriot Heinrich von Treitschke and others. These claimed that Luther was the embodiment of the German character; that he inspired the German national consciousness; that he was a prophet of the new German national identity, and so on.

More modern claims include the assertion that nationalism in Europe began around the time of the Protestant Reformation and was the result of the breakup of Europe’s Catholic unity; that Luther was obsessed with “German-ness”; that he embodied negative nationalistic elements that were transmitted, by his influence, to the entire German people over centuries. And, there are countless comments which are the result of reading modern catastrophes backward into Luther’s time, and making many associations that would have been incomprehensible to people of Luther’s day.

If we were to read some other comments of Heinrich von Treitschke or others like him, we would instantly recognize them as ridiculous falsehoods emerging from confused minds. That “national honor” is “the sublime moral good”; “the sacred power of love which a righteous war awakes in noble nations”; German soil fertilized by German blood; the racial struggle against the Lithuanians – none of this would be taken seriously by any sensible person today. But, when extreme claims by these same thinkers are made about Luther, they are taken at face value by people who are not only badly informed or uninformed about what Luther actually believed, but are also eager to believe anything bad they hear about him. So they suspend their logical faculties and associate Luther with attitudes and beliefs totally foreign to him.

It is somewhat disappointing to have to deal with misconceptions disseminated by people who are unfamiliar with Luther’s main ideas and goals. Luther’s 95 Theses of 1517, the document which led to the Protestant Reformation, was not a Germanic document. It was a European document, and dealt with issues of equal importance to all of Catholic Europe. This was one reason it spread so rapidly, and had such a deep impact in so many countries.

The church should not use force to suppress criticism (point 90). If the pope has the power to liberate souls from purgatory, why does he not do it freely out of love, instead of asking for money? (82). What is the benefit of giving funeral masses for people who have been long dead? (83). It is not right to say that the insignia of the cross with papal arms is equal in value to the cross on which Christ died (79). The sale of indulgences is nothing more than a way of getting money (67). “It is vain to rely on salvation by letters of indulgence, even if the commissary, or indeed the pope himself, were to pledge his own soul for their validity” (52). Those who buy indulgences and neglect giving to the poor earn not God’s forgiveness but his anger (45). Extreme claims for the power of indulgences exceed papal authority (42). Those who rely on indulgences for their salvation will be eternally damned (32).

Luther’s goal in presenting these points for debate was to point out abuses in the Church with a view to reforming it. He was initially respectful to the pope (95 Theses point 9), but when his attempts to reform the church were met with opposition he became increasingly convinced that reform was impossible, that his desire to have a Christianity founded on the bible alone would never be realized within the existing structure.

Luther’s first concern was not with Germany and German nationalism. Germany in Luther’s day was divided into hundreds of kingdoms and independent domains of various sorts, and the Germans of that time were not seeking unification, conquest, and domination. Luther’s An Appeal to the Ruling Class of German Nationality as to the Amelioration of the State of Christendom was not a political appeal, urging the Germans to arise and conquer because their special essence made them inherently superior to other peoples. It was an appeal to Germany’s many different rulers to reject the spiritual teachings of Rome; to deny papal claims to spiritual superiority over earthly jurisdictions; to allow for free interpretation of scripture without fear of papal punishment; and to institute substantial reforms in the Church by means of a Church council to which the pope should be obedient.

He objected to the ostentatious wealth of the church; to the corruption of the ecclesiastical authorities; to the huge loss with no benefit of revenues to Italy; to ecclesiastical abuses and corruptions widely known and criticized throughout much of Europe. This treatise is a call for religious reform, and is very far removed in tone and content from the bombastic, haughty, militaristic, imperialistic noises emitted by chronologically and spiritually distant German nationalists of a later era drunk with new-found power (whose empty dreams were shortly exposed as totally false). True, Luther did write to the Germans, as a Frenchman might properly address French rulers or an Englishman English ones, but modern nationalism was still in its beginning stages in Luther’s day, and was less advanced in Germany than it was in England and France.