In Defense of Martin Luther (part 9)
| January 8, 2012 | Posted by Joseph Keysor under Blog |
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).
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