Martin Luther....antisemitic?

OK, so I think Martin Luther was a great leader...he had a very important role in the church. Yet, sometime...read this

http://www.flholocaustmuseum.org/his...eformation.cfm

Do any of you know if it was a common doctrine to be antisemitic in those days? Just a question out of curiosity (it's not meant to offend anyone)

More importantly, how do we help amend the damage that has been done in the past? How can we avoid doing similar (or the same for the matter) things in the future?

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"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation, and establish me by Thy governing Spirit. "
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It was more common then from what I have read, however, there is more to the stories at the site you linked to than presented there. Luther was anti-semitic before his break from the Catholic Church:

But what am I doing? My heart is fuller of these thoughts than my tongue can tell. I have come to the conclusion that the Jews will always curse and blaspheme God and his King Christ, as all the prophets have predicted. He who neither reads nor understands this, as yet knows no theology, in my opinion. And so I presume the men of Cologne cannot understand the Scripture, because it is necessary that such things take place to fulfill prophecy. If they are trying to stop the Jews blaspheming, they are working to prove the Bible and God liars.

Martin Luther: Letter to George Spalatin, Wittenberg, January or February, 1514.

Also, in the articles you linked to, it speaks of Luther witnessing peasant rebellions . . however, what it neglects to mention is it was Luther himself who incited the peasant rebellions that resulted in the masacure of 100,000 peasants and townspeople. He didn't just witness then, he was the firebrand that set the forest ablaze, and when they got out of control, he incited the nobility to squash them . . And he claimed full responsitibility for it, even claiming it was God speaking through him.

When I first learned of all this (and more) as a Protestant I went to my pastor's wife and told her what God had put on my heart, that we protestants, as a whole, needed to repent of the sins of Luther, the founder of Protestantism . .. I was met with total disbelief and my information, as well as my plea was completely rejected.

I have since become Catholic after 3 years of intense investigation into Church history, etc . . but still in my heart I feel the sorrow of what I learned and still believe that repentance for the sins of the fathers of the reformation needs to be done by those who embrace the teaching of the reformers. I really feel this is a necessary first step. But most will refuse to believe or even listen. It goes against everything we as protestants are taught about Luther.

Of those Nazi's who were tried after WWII, one held up Luther's book "The Jews and their Lies" and said {paraphrased), 'if Luther was alive today, he would have been on trial in my place'

It was when I stumbled upon the work "The Jews and Their Lies" that the proverbial last straw that broke the camel's back feel in place for me, and I started looking for the truth.


Peace in Him!

I have been pointed to many of his anti-Semitic writings. I gather that he was angry over the persecution of Christians and the death of Jesus. While his teachings were revolutionary and invaluable to man, he is not perfect. No one is. God has forgiven more than this and used these sinners in many ways. His anti-semitism should be a lesson to us- one that we should not follow- but we should not discard his teachings because of his sin of hatred as many have tried to attest to.

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1 Cor 4:6 Do not go beyond what is written. Then you will not take pride in one man over against another.

"Don't be a system disciple. Be a disciple of Christ. You might get to Heaven & realize your system was not His system."-Wiersbe

It isn’t ‘giving in to sin’ to disagree w/ love & kindness. ‘Giving in to sin’ is speaking w/o love & kindness.
Love is our mandate. Eph 4:32 2Tim 4:2 1Cor 13


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I do not want to sound snippy but this quote bothers me. It's the pot calling the kettle black. Being Catholic are you overlooking the attrocities done in the name of God by Catholics? The Crusades and Spanish Inquistion come to mind. Not to mention the corruptions of Popes and priests in history. There is also the fact that the Catholic church signed a treaty with Hitler, saying they would not rise against him as long as he granted them autonomy.

I do not agree with everything Luther said but I do agree with his beliefs regarding faith, salvation, and grace. I believe that he understood Christianity at a level that the Catholic church at the time could not understand. I admire him for going against the corruption and trying to reinstate a truer doctrine and a closer relationship with Jesus.

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How so?

Not at all . . but we were not discussing the Catholic Church. You have jumped to the wrong conclusion my friend. You have assumed that I am advocating that one group repent of what their founding fathers did and that there is no need to repent of what some people did over a millenia AFTER the founding fathers of Catholicism.

So no, it is not a case of the pot calling the kettle black . . this "pot" is very remorseful over those things done in the name of Christ by the Catholic Church that were atrocities. . . and the Catholic Church has done so.

And these two issues are some of the most misunderstood, misrepresented in all of Church history.

And yes, while true, this is a very over rated issue in the greater scheme of things. . . though also one Catholics have been remorseful of.

But there is one important factor here . . . the founding fathers of Christianity, the same who are the founding fathers of the Catholic Church, did not do the things the founding fathers of Protestantism did 1500 yeasr later . . . The founding fathers of the Catholic Church were not responsible for the slaughter of 100,000 people almost overnight, etc . . I think individuals going "wrong" in their perosnal lives hundreds of years, even a millenia, later is not the same as those who are the founders of a faith movement going wrong, having the blood of thousands upon thousands on their hands becasue of thier decrees . . I think it is appropriate and important to hold the founder of a religious movement to a higher level of accountabililty than individuals who follow much, much later . .

The beginnings of a movement are crucial. The beginning of protestantism has many, many problems, some so serious, that they call into question the legitimacy of the movement itself.

The reformation was founded in much bloodshed . . and that itself is a huge problem - but also the reformers', specifically Luther's, attitude towards such actions was huge problem as well.

I think that this period of Church history is so misunderstood due to popular anti-Catholic renditions of it (especially a fictional play that became to be believed as true), that there is a lot of false information floating around . . .

The way this is presented here, and what it suggests, is false . . .

By the way, treaties are signed between secular powers who have armies and can attack each other . . . the Catholic Church does not sign treaties . . it is not a secular power .

Obviously, or you would be Catholic.

Well, I used to admire him too . . until I found out some things that are generally never told to the rank and file Protestant Christian.

It was in finding out the truth about the reformers, primarily Luther, that caused me to look more deeply into what I had accepted as true for 30 years, which led me to the conclusion that not only had the reformers thrown out the baby with the bath water, but most of it was baby.

Because of what I found, I continued to investigate all this in more depth from the beginning of Christianity on forward - what did the first Christians really believe, teach, practice, and live; and what I learned led to my conversion to Catholicism this last year.


I would encorage you to learn more about all this.



Peace to all!

We discused this not too long ago in the Lutheran Forum ...

http://christianforums.com/t673499&page=1

Page three gets interesting.

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Concerning anybody that's anti-Semitic:

Romans 11.

Please read it. It makes you question how anydoby who is a "Christian" could ever be anti-Semitic.

This may be a little far-fetched and off-topic, but didn't Hitler try to justify slaughtering the Jews with Christianity?

All of this just leads to my further questioning of Luther...

Love in Christ,
Ryan

My goodness, this is ridiculous.

1.) In context, few of Luther's writings were anti-semetic at all, and the ones that are most often constrewed as so are because people are infamilliar with the context of the situation and Luther's style of writting. And the ones that were, were mild in the context of the times, during which Luther was critisized for being to nice to the Jews.

2.) Lutherans do not believe we were started by Luther, and claim the same history as you do. Whether that is right or not is another debate, but said arguement has no bearing upon us.

3.) To say that none of the ECF said anything anti-semetic is blatantly false.

4.) Luther was, if anything, only indirectly responsible for the Peasent Rebellion. He did give the princes permission to crush the rebellion, but in light of the situation, it would be hard to say that he was not right to do so. And, he did express remorse for his part in it.

5.) It is a double-standard indeed to hold us responsible for everything that was done in the Reformation, and at the same time attribute Rome's missdeeds to "individuals and not the Church." Let's continue to talk about the Peasent Rebellion and brush aside the massacre in Paris, which the Pope declared to be a feast day in honor of, or the Smalcald Wars.

6.) Ryan, unless you are Lutheran, chances are you follow little, if anything, Luther taught. So don't worry yourself.

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Monkey Ninja

So the conclusion is that Luther wasn't anti-Semitic... and that people have taken his writings out of context?

Love in Christ,
Ryan

Pretty much

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Monkey Ninja