It seems Protestants these days tend to have more of a Calvinist bent than a Lutheran one. So what's the general consensus on Martin Luther?
Here are some quotes by him.
Know that Marriage is an outward material thing like any other secular business.
But the woman is free through the divine law and cannot be compelled to suppress her carnal desires. Therefore the man ought to concede her right and give up to somebody else the wife who is his only in outward appearance.
Suppose I should counsel the wife of an impotent man, with his consent, to giver herself to another, say her husband’s brother, but to keep this marriage secret and to ascribe the children to the so-called putative father. The question is: Is such a women in a saved state? I answer, certainly
I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture. If a man wishes to marry more than one wife he should be asked whether he is satisfied in his conscience that he may do so in accordance with the word of God. In such a case the civil authority has nothing to do in the matter.
Christ committed adultery first of all with the women at the well about whom St. John tell’s us. Was not everybody about Him saying: ‘Whatever has He been doing with her?’ Secondly, with Mary Magdalen, and thirdly with the women taken in adultery whom He dismissed so lightly. Thus even, Christ who was so righteous, must have been guilty of fornication before He died.
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sadly for the smear campaign - Luther never wrote any of that.
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First, the quote has no context. One does not know what exactly Luther had in mind. Was he kidding? Was he summarizing someone else's argument? Was he using hyperbole? It's really hard to say. If taken
literally, it certainly is at odds with his other statements about Christ. Thus, even though one can't know exactly why he said this, we can have a strong assurance he didn't mean it
literally.
The editors of Luther's Works include a footnote for this comment of Luther's, and they offer the following speculation:
"This entry has been cited against Luther, among others by Arnold Lunn in The Revolt Against Reason (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1951), pp. 45, 257, 258. What Luther meant might have been made clearer if John Schlaginhaufen had indicated the context of the Reformer’s remarks. The probable context is suggested in a sermon of 1536 (WA 41, 647) in which Luther asserted that Christ was reproached by the world as a glutton, a winebibber, and even an adulterer."
If you run across a Roman Catholic citing these words against Luther (or any obscure comments from Luther's Table Talk) I commend to you also these words by Roman Catholic Scholar Thomas O’Meara:
“…Catholics are using inaccurately rhetorical arguments when they make the value of Luther’s theology and reform depend upon his table-talk language. Rhetoric appeals to the mind- but it appeals through emotions. It reaches the mind not through a purely intellectual act, examining the case thoroughly and logically, but by leaps and bounds, driven by emotions and will, faculties incapable of a calm judgment of what is true” [Thomas O’Meara, Mary in Protestant and Catholic Theology, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1966), 5].
I always caution Roman Catholics to be careful with Luther’s Table Talk. The
Table Talk is a collection of comments from Luther written down by Luther’s students and friends. Thus
, it is not in actuality an official writing of Luther's and should not serve as the basis for interpreting his theology.
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What makes that even more ironic is that even the open-to-public-news-source is to be rejected in Catholic tradition if the person in the news does not have the Papal Imprimatur on his news article.
