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

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.