Martin Luther is the father of Protestantism who lead a movement of a body of people from out of the Catholic Church. Any protestant today is basically a protestant due of the works of Martin Luther. The word protestant means “one who protests” and it relates to Luther’s “protest” when in 1517 he nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. If it was not for Martin Luther or another reformer like him coming on the world scene, most all of Christendom today would still be partakers of the Catholic Church as they were before the reformation movements.In other words, without Luther’s reformation movement, one would basically have to enter Christianity through the door of the Catholic church - the very church that is now known by most protestants to be "The Mother Whore" as depicted in Revelation 17:5. These things should be kept in mind when reading Martin Luther’s writings concerning the Jews below.
At first, Martin Luther attempted his Jewish conversion techniques by using flattery in which he asserted that “Christian love” was what was really warranted for Jewish conversion and condemned the past forceful methods used by the Catholic Church.
"If I had been a Jew and had seen such dolts and blockheads govern and teach the Christian faith, I would sooner have become a hog than a Christian." - Martin Luther, That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, in Luther's Works, Vol. 45, - 1523 CE
The evangelicals of today that seek Jewish conversion still use this same "love-the-Jew" method when it comes to answering Christian history. After twenty years of trying unsuccessfully to convert the Jews by using flattery, Luther did what Muhammad had done after he failed to convert the Jews in Arabia by using flattery. Luther, (like Muhammad) then turned from a Dr. Jekyll into a Mr. Hide.
For some reason it makes many Christians and Muslims very upset when those bad O Jews refused to go along with Christian and Muslim love and decide to stay with the covenant God gave them. Take a look at some of Luther’s Christian-loving suggestions he sent to the government leaders of his day and see if the following quotes sound anything like a German leader four hundred years later around the time of 1933 -1945:
“First, their synagogues should be set on fire and whatever does not burn up should be covered or speared over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or a stone of it.” “Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed. For they perpetrate the same things there that they do in their synagogues. For this reason they ought to be put under one roof or in a stable, like Gypsies, in order that they may realize that they are not masters in our land, as they boast, but miserable captives.…”
“Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer-books and Talmuds...... ”
“Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach any more…”
“Fifthly, passport and traveling privileges should be absolutely forbidden to the Jews. For they have no business in the rural districts since they are not nobles, nor officials, nor
merchants, nor the like. Let them stay home.”
- Martin Luther, On the Jews and Their Lies - 1543
What is really eerie about Martin Luther is his religious notion of justifying the horrors of the Holocaust four hundred years before it ever happened:
“Even if they were punished in the most gruesome manner that the streets ran with their blood, that their dead would be counted, not in the hundred thousands, but in the millions, as happened under Vespasian in Jerusalem and for evil under Hadrian, still they must insist on being right even if after these 1,500 years they were in misery another 1,500 years, still God must be a liar and they must be correct. In sum, they are the devil’s children, damned to Hell…..The Jews too got what they deserved.”
- Martin Luther, Of the Unknowable Name and Generations of Christ - 1543
The Nazi Connection:
Adolph Hitler was a big fan of Martin Luther insomuch that he refers to him as a “great reformer” in his book, Mein Kampf (page 213). For anyone to be admired by Hitler speaks volumes about one’s character, especially if Hitler himself took the time to record his admiration of an individual to be included in his autobiography / manifesto for all to publicly acknowledge.
Luther’s historic antisemitic words were used at many Nazi rallies throughout Germany. Even Luther's Schlosskirche (Castle Church) was adorned with draped Nazi flags in 1933 as well as the first Nazi archbishop having his consecration there. > http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090706/column06_st.art.htm
During Hitler's rise to power on February 24, 1920, he delivered his 25 point "theses" of the Nazi Party's agenda. The term "theses" was a deliberate copy of terminology from Luther's historic "95 theses" that Luther placed on the door of the Wittenburg Cathedral.
Luther’s historic antisemitic words were used at many Nazi rallies throughout Germany. Even Luther's Schlosskirche (Castle Church) was adorned with draped Nazi flags in 1933 as well as the first Nazi archbishop having his consecration there. > http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090706/column06_st.art.htm
During Hitler's rise to power on February 24, 1920, he delivered his 25 point "theses" of the Nazi Party's agenda. The term "theses" was a deliberate copy of terminology from Luther's historic "95 theses" that Luther placed on the door of the Wittenburg Cathedral.
Kristallnacht, the infamous “Night of Broken Glass” where on November 9, 1938, Jewish business shops were smashed, synagogues burned, and ninety-one Jews were murdered in the middle of the streets of Germany, was actually considered a commemoration of Luther’s birthday.
Julius Streicher, the one who yelled “purimfest 1946” just seconds before he was hanged at Nuremberg > http://desiretoshare.com/purim.htm argued at his trail that he had never said anything about the Jews that Martin Luther himself had not said 400 years earlier. In Streicher’s mind, he was just following in Luther’s footsteps who often described the Jews as “the people of whom Christ said was the devil”. Therefore, it is more than fair to say that Luther’s antisemitism helped lay the ground work for Nazism and the Holocaust!
The fact that there was a person named "Martin Luther" that attended the January 1942 Wannsee Conference of which set the "Finial Solution" to the "Jewish Question" into auction > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_(diplomat) and of whose very minuets of such a meeting are the only ones to survive the war, doesn't speak favorably of the popular spiritual leader of whom he was most likely named after.
Q. Why did Luther go beyond his culture of his day?
Outside of his antisemitism Martin Luther really wasn’t half bad, which is somewhat of an indicator of just how deep antisemitism can run in the soul as it brings down what would normally be a good man. There is no doubt that Luther did much good in exposing the corruption of the Catholic Church at the time in which he lived, but anyone who wishes to praise Luther for his works of “Justification” should also be more than willing to criticize his antisemitism as for what it was.
Julius Streicher, the one who yelled “purimfest 1946” just seconds before he was hanged at Nuremberg > http://desiretoshare.com/purim.htm argued at his trail that he had never said anything about the Jews that Martin Luther himself had not said 400 years earlier. In Streicher’s mind, he was just following in Luther’s footsteps who often described the Jews as “the people of whom Christ said was the devil”. Therefore, it is more than fair to say that Luther’s antisemitism helped lay the ground work for Nazism and the Holocaust!
The fact that there was a person named "Martin Luther" that attended the January 1942 Wannsee Conference of which set the "Finial Solution" to the "Jewish Question" into auction > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_(diplomat) and of whose very minuets of such a meeting are the only ones to survive the war, doesn't speak favorably of the popular spiritual leader of whom he was most likely named after.
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Supporters of Luther today will use the excuse that Luther was only able to walk in a limited amount of “light of the Gospel” due to the world and culture that surrounded him throughout his life. They will also add that his comments concerning the Jews were just errors of his "carnal flesh" and not of his true in-heart experience of the “new-birth”. Any such defense of Luther causes me to start asking questions that demand an answer:
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Q. Since when did the word of God and its life changing power become subjected to man’s culture surroundings or upbringing?
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Q. Since when did the word of God and its life changing power become subjected to man’s culture surroundings or upbringing?
There are New Testament verses that reads: And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, in order to prove by you what is that good and pleasing and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:2) and "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:9). I personally have a DVD documentary that focuses on the causes of Palestinian terrorism that is entitled “From Cradle to Grave; An Inside Look at the Culture of Death”.
If we use this same defense for today’s Palestinians as many do for Luther’s antisemitism, we would have to somehow minimize the murderous acts of the Palestinian suicide bombers and rocket shooters due to their culture and upbringing! For some reason Walid Shoebat, (a once Palestinian terrorist but now a Christian) who was raised in a Palestinian culture of death environment was able to make a full exit of Islam of all things and even became one of the most dedicated Zionist that I had ever seen. He didn’t feel the need to continue his terrorizing the Jewish Israelis after his Christian conversion, so why did Luther in his Christian experience?
Q. Why did Luther take a more righteous approach when he started out dealing with the Jews?
If we use this same defense for today’s Palestinians as many do for Luther’s antisemitism, we would have to somehow minimize the murderous acts of the Palestinian suicide bombers and rocket shooters due to their culture and upbringing! For some reason Walid Shoebat, (a once Palestinian terrorist but now a Christian) who was raised in a Palestinian culture of death environment was able to make a full exit of Islam of all things and even became one of the most dedicated Zionist that I had ever seen. He didn’t feel the need to continue his terrorizing the Jewish Israelis after his Christian conversion, so why did Luther in his Christian experience?
Q. Why did Luther take a more righteous approach when he started out dealing with the Jews?
Apparently, Luther when wishing to use flattery on the Jews for conversion sake, was able to take a non-violent approach towards the Jews during the time and culture in which he lived, so why couldn't he continues to do so throughout his Christian life whether trying to flatter them or not?
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Q. If the amount of Christian light during the in which Luther lived was Luther's problem, why didn't this limited amount of Christian light effect all other Christian men as well like Elector Joachim of Brandenberg and Henry Bullinger who lived during the same time as Luther but rebuked Luther for his statements against the Jewish people?
Q. Why did Luther go beyond his culture of his day?
Obviously the nobles and leaders wasn’t antisemitic enough in Luther’s eyes which lead him to call upon them for more acts against the Jews, which is exactly what Hitler and the Nazi party did before they came into power in 1933. If Luther was held captivated by his time, culture, and surroundings, why wasn’t he satisfied with actions of the leaders towards the Jews in his day. Why did he feel that they wasn’t doing enough, and pushed them to do even more?
Q. Did Luther actually read what he translated?
Q. Did Luther actually read what he translated?
Luther was able to translate the Hebrew and Greek / Latin scriptures into German. When translating, the translator has to know relationship of words, idioms, structure of sentences, verb tenses, and so on. It takes deep concentration to translate and Luther’s translation of the scriptures are considered by scholars to be a very good translation.
As a translator, Luther had to concentrate on the words he was translating, and therefore, there should be absolutely no reason for him not to fully “take-into heart” the words that he believe to be the word of God and strictly apply them to his heart and everyday life regardless of what era he lived. If running Luther’s statements of hatred concerning the Jews through a Christian perspective, let alone the Sixth Commandment, here is how the book of First John would depict Luther concerning his hatred for the Jews:
It was twenty-six years after Luther’s reformation movement first began and just three years before his death, when he made his most vicious statements concerning the Jews. It’s apparent that Luther’s hatred of Jews wasn’t due to Christian immaturity. His Jewish hatred was expressed during the time that his spiritual grow was at its peak and his spiritual maturity fully expressed. Proverbs 4:18 states: “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shines more and more to the perfect day”.
Luther’s later writings about the Jews reveal that the supposedly compassion that he had towards the Jews at the start of his ministry, was nothing more than a gimmick to get the Jews to convert away from their covenant, when what he really had was a dark hidden secret of hatred for them all along. I fear that this maybe the case for most (perhaps not all) evangelicals today who like Luther, pacifically target the Jews for conversion.
Q. How would the majority of Christendom throughout history have responded to such statements coming from Rashi (a great Jewish sage) about Christians?
As a translator, Luther had to concentrate on the words he was translating, and therefore, there should be absolutely no reason for him not to fully “take-into heart” the words that he believe to be the word of God and strictly apply them to his heart and everyday life regardless of what era he lived. If running Luther’s statements of hatred concerning the Jews through a Christian perspective, let alone the Sixth Commandment, here is how the book of First John would depict Luther concerning his hatred for the Jews:
- In darkness until now (I John 2:9)
- Not of God (I John 3:10)
- Abides in death (I John 3:14)
- A murderer (I John 3:15)
- No eternal life abiding in him (I John 3:15)
- A lair (I John 4:20)
- Cannot love God (I John 4:20)
It was twenty-six years after Luther’s reformation movement first began and just three years before his death, when he made his most vicious statements concerning the Jews. It’s apparent that Luther’s hatred of Jews wasn’t due to Christian immaturity. His Jewish hatred was expressed during the time that his spiritual grow was at its peak and his spiritual maturity fully expressed. Proverbs 4:18 states: “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shines more and more to the perfect day”.
Luther’s later writings about the Jews reveal that the supposedly compassion that he had towards the Jews at the start of his ministry, was nothing more than a gimmick to get the Jews to convert away from their covenant, when what he really had was a dark hidden secret of hatred for them all along. I fear that this maybe the case for most (perhaps not all) evangelicals today who like Luther, pacifically target the Jews for conversion.
Q. How would the majority of Christendom throughout history have responded to such statements coming from Rashi (a great Jewish sage) about Christians?
Would the defenders of Luther today be so kind towards Rashi if that were the case? If Jews were murdered for such things as unfounded rumors of Jewish blood libel rituals and false accusations of Talmudic writings which resulted in the Talmud itself to be put on trial and burned (as if to burn it at the sake) I can only image how the French Jews, British Jews, and Russian Jews during the last nine hundred and fifty years would have been persecuted in the most horrific ways over Rashi’s comments if he had stated anything close about Christians as to what Luther said about the Jews. I could just imagine how the evangelicals of today would use such a quote from Rashi in order to degrade Judaism in their efforts to beautify Christianity to potential Jewish converts.
It’s funny, but even Luther, not knowingly complimented Judaism when trying to flatter the Jews: “Our fools, the popes, bishops, sophists, and monks--the crude asses' heads--have hitherto so treated the Jews that anyone who wished to be a good Christian would almost have had to become a Jew.” - That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, in Luther's Works, Vol. 45, - 1523
It’s funny, but even Luther, not knowingly complimented Judaism when trying to flatter the Jews: “Our fools, the popes, bishops, sophists, and monks--the crude asses' heads--have hitherto so treated the Jews that anyone who wished to be a good Christian would almost have had to become a Jew.” - That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, in Luther's Works, Vol. 45, - 1523
Outside of his antisemitism Martin Luther really wasn’t half bad, which is somewhat of an indicator of just how deep antisemitism can run in the soul as it brings down what would normally be a good man. There is no doubt that Luther did much good in exposing the corruption of the Catholic Church at the time in which he lived, but anyone who wishes to praise Luther for his works of “Justification” should also be more than willing to criticize his antisemitism as for what it was.
The reason why the Lutherans are not black listed by other protestant denominations who supposedly loves Israel and the Jews is simply because they are fellow protestants that sprang up by the event of Luther’s separation from the Catholic Church. Other protestant denominations will disagree with the Lutherans on doctrinal issues such as predestination and infant baptism, but other than passive lip service, and recent comments by Evangelical Pastor John Hagee, I personally have never heard of a protestant denominational leader make it a point to straight forwardly denounce Luther’s antisemitism.
There have been many great Christian reformers who have never even came close to speaking as viciously against the Jewish people as did Martin Luther. Yet recently, as well as in the past, Hollywood has chosen to glorify Luther over all of them while never mentioning the fact Luther was a vicious antisemite! Therefore, one must ask just why that is?
There have been many great Christian reformers who have never even came close to speaking as viciously against the Jewish people as did Martin Luther. Yet recently, as well as in the past, Hollywood has chosen to glorify Luther over all of them while never mentioning the fact Luther was a vicious antisemite! Therefore, one must ask just why that is?
212 comments:
1 – 200 of 212 Newer› Newest»I have not read this about Luther. If what you say about his anti-Semitism is true, then he was wrong. Yet another illustration of our need of a Savior. Thanks for sharing this.
To Kevin,
The fact that you haven't read or heard these things about Luther causes me to wonder why these things are not more known among the public - even among Lutherans?
Yes, even Luther needed a savior (Ish.43:11). Thanks for viewing
-Joe Whitehead
Yeah I've read this before but you added good insights. To say "We all need Jesus," as Kevin wrote, is to evade moral responsibility, something Jesus wont' let us get away with.
But what bothers me is not just Martin Luther but that the church as a whole has an anti-semitic history. Why does Jesus always come out smelling like roses when he is the only common denominator in the church's history?
To anonymous:
Thanks for your input.
There are a lot negative things concerning the nation of Israel within the Gospels. Rabbi Tovia Singer of "Israel National Radio" has stated that Matthew 23 reads like a modern UN report against Israel. However, Jesus never taught the nobles and leaders of government to assault the Jews like what Luther did. The Crusades and Inquisitions certainly wasn't following the teachings f the New Testament. Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence." (St.John 18:36) Though the Jews are painted in a bad light throughout the New Testament(notice in the verse above that its "the Jews" and not the nail-driving Romans of whom Jesus is to be delivered to)it stops short of advocating any kind of violence against them. What the Crusaders, the Inquisitionors, the Nazis, and the like, did was take it a step further from where the New Testament left off into the realm of violence against the Jews, of which Jesus said wasn't a part of his kingdom. I do believe that there are many Christians (very few from the whole of Christianity) that do have a genuine love for God. And every one of these love Israel as God's chosen people and carry a "Zionist" nature about them, something that is totally absent throughout the entire New Testament. Amazing huh?
-Joe Whitehead
Luther and us lutherans do not hate Jewish people NEVER HAVE NEVER WILL .. We hate their
Christless worthless god ! Luther simply wanted to silence wITH ROUFF words Those jews who Did not want other Jews to hear about Jesus their only savior from sin .
Because the Jewish god simply is not god enough
to have won Jewish people heaven all by himself as Jesus has..
Adolph Hitler was a big fan of Martin Luther
The above statement is not true
IF luther had been alive Their would have been no Nazi germany.
But since Luther had passed on .
hitler knew he could easly pervert what luther thought and wrote to his own advantage ..
as long as people remained fairly ignorant of what luther believed..
www.whataboutjesus.com
To Junker Bob, (response to your November 12, 2011 6:22 PM post)
The very fact that you can speak / post "We hate their
Christless worthless god!" proves above all else that you hate the Jewish people "BECAUSE" of their GOD.
You're like the Muslims who hate Jews because Muhammad and his Allah god hated Jews, yet will claim to just be against the "Zionists". What a laugh, I mean, really.
Antisemitism's (a.k.a. Jew-hatred) core inner most reason purpose and reason throughout history even before the Christian era has been hatred towards the God of Israel.
Your words, "Jewish god simply is not god enough" further prove this spiritual point; you're a God of the Jews, hater, plain and simple.
You might want to read the article again, especially where I quote Luther. By the words of his own mouth he wanted the Jews to be ""murdered"" for simply teaching their scriptures and their commentary (the Talmud).
I know, it was love of Jesus in his heart and the Holy Spirit abiding in him that caused him to want the Jews put to death, just like the past and future Jew-haters had done before and after Luther, right Junker Bob???
Then you post, "Jewish god simply is not god enough
to have won Jewish people heaven all by himself as Jesus has.."
My response to your spiritual allusion:
I guess the Psalms of David influenced them a little too much:
"Put not your trust in princes, nor in THE SON OF MAN, in whom there is no salvation." - Psalms 146:3
(emphasis is mine...of course) :)
To Junker Bob, (response to your post November 12, 2011 6:40 PM)
I just think it's amazing how there was a "Martin Luther" attending the Wannsee Conference that initiated the Finial Solution and it was this sole "Martin Luther's" notes by which we have a minutes of that demonic conference. Don't you think that is amazing Junker Bob???
What is "true"is that Hitler called your Martin Luther a "great reformer" on page 213 in Mein Kamph. What is further "true" is that the Holocaust could not have came about had not Luther and many, many, other Jew-hating so-called Christians laid the foundation of Europe's antisemitic world, making the conditions perfect for Hitler's arrival.
Let's read Luther's words again, while thinking about 1941-45 Nazi Germany:
“Even if they were punished in the most gruesome manner that the streets ran with their blood, that their dead would be counted, not in the hundred thousands, but in the millions, as happened under Vespasian in Jerusalem and for evil under Hadrian, still they must insist on being right even if after these 1,500 years they were in misery another 1,500 years, still God must be a liar and they must be correct. In sum, they are the devil’s children, damned to Hell…..The Jews too got what they deserved.”
- Martin Luther, Of the Unknowable Name and Generations of Christ - 1543
Hmmm? I wonder if Hitler read this 1543 words of Luther and just as you say,
"knew he could easly pervert what Luther thought and wrote to his own advantage ..
as long as people remained fairly ignorant of what Luther believed.."
Hmmm....I see more of a "fulfillment" here than a perversion. Sorry.
Oh, and btw, If Hitler had lived during Luther's time their wouldn't have been a Holocaust either, but since each man did indeed live in his proper time, there was indeed a Holocaust.
I hear the Holocaust deniers are taking application to help spread their doctrine. Believing their devilish lies might help your cause with Luther....in your own mind. :)
Joe Whitehead, what do you think of this article from the website,
www.quora.com titled "Would Martin Luther have supported the Holocaust?"
https://www.quora.com/Would-Martin-Luther-have-supported-the-Holocaust ,
Some people have even suggested that the evil Super villain Lex Luthor was given the last name "Luthor" because it sounds and is spelled similarly to "Luther" as in Protestant reformer Martin Luther, that the character of Lex Luthor is supposed to be evil like Martin Luther was, would Martin Luther have supported the Nazi Holocaust ?
From Wikipedia it says about the fictional supervillain of Lex Luthor
Lex Luthor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Publication information
Publisher DC Comics
First appearance Action Comics No. 23 (April 1940)
Created by Jerry Siegel
Joe Shuster
In-story information
Full name Alexander Joseph "Lex" Luthor
Team affiliations Injustice League
Injustice Gang
Legion of Doom
Justice League
Secret Six
Intergang
Secret Society
LexCorp
Notable aliases Mockingbird, Kryptonite Man, Superman, Atom Man
Abilities
Genius-level intellect
Expert engineer with exceptional technological prowess
High-tech warsuit:
Superhuman strength, speed and durability
Energy projection
Force fields
Flight
Advanced weaponry
Alexander Joseph "Lex" Luthor (/ˈluːθər/) is a fictional supervillain appearing in publications by the publisher DC Comics. The character was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Lex Luthor originally appeared in Action Comics No. 23 (cover dated: April 1940).1 He has since endured as the archenemy of Superman.[1]
Originally introduced as a mad scientist whose schemes Superman would routinely foil, Lex's portrayal has evolved over the years and his characterisation has deepened. In contemporary stories, Lex is portrayed as a wealthy, power-mad American business magnate, ingenious engineer, philanthropist to the city of Metropolis, and one of the most intelligent people in the world. A well-known public figure, he is the owner of a conglomerate called LexCorp. He is intent on ridding the world of the alien Superman, whom Lex Luthor views as an obstacle to his plans and as a threat to the very existence of humanity.[2] Given his high status as a supervillain, however, he has often come into conflict with Batman and other superheroes in the DC Universe.[3]
The character has traditionally lacked superpowers or a dual identity and typically appears with a bald head.[3] He periodically wears his Warsuit, a high-tech battle suit giving him enhanced strength, flight, advanced weaponry, and other capabilities.[4] The character was originally introduced as a diabolical recluse, but during the Modern Age, he was reimagined by writers as a devious, high-profile industrialist, who has crafted his public persona to avoid suspicion and arrest. He is well known for his philanthropy, donating vast sums of money to Metropolis over the years, funding parks, foundations, and charities.[5]
The character was ranked 4th on IGN's list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time[6] and as the 8th Greatest Villain by Wizard on its 100 Greatest Villains of All Time list.[7] Luthor is one of a few genre-crossing villains whose adventures take place "in a world in which the ordinary laws of nature are slightly suspended".[4] Scott James Wells, Sherman Howard, John Shea, Michael Rosenbaum, and Jon Cryer have portrayed the character in Superman-themed television series, while Lyle Talbot, Gene Hackman, Kevin Spacey, and Jesse Eisenberg have portrayed the character in major motion pictures. Clancy Brown, Powers Boothe, James Marsters, Chris Noth, Anthony LaPaglia, Steven Blum, Fred Tatasciore, Jason Isaacs, Kevin Michael Richardson, Mark Rolston, John DiMaggio, James Woods and Rainn Wilson, and others have provided the character's voice in animation adaptations."
No matter what the Context, we can all agree that Protestant Reformer Martin Luther said some Extremely Sick Disturbing Disgusting Hate Filled Statements about the Jewish people, even for that time period, From the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary website,
wisluthsem.org , their is a review of a book titled "The Fabricated Luther" which attempts to Whitewash Martin Luther
the article review of the book says
REVIEW: THE FABRICATED LUTHER: REFUTING NAZI CONNECTIONS AND OTHER MODERN MYTHS, 2ND EDITION
Title of Work:
The Fabricated Luther
Author of Work:
Uwe Siemon-Netto
Reviewer:
Pastor Jeff Samelson
Page Number:
196
Format Availability:
Kindle or Hardcover
Price:
$35.09 or $36.99
Correction. In the review of The Fabricated Luther (posted on October 28, 2013), the Shepherd’s Study incorrectly reported that the work is a translation of an original German monograph. In actuality the work was based on the author’s 1992 doctoral dissertation (Boston University) that was written in English. Our apologies to Dr. Uwe Siemon-Netto and our thanks to him for pointing out the error. – the editors of The Shepherd’s Study
The Fabricated Luther: Refuting Nazi Connections and Other Modern Myths, 2nd Edition, by Uwe Siemon-Netto. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2007. 196 pages.
Uwe Siemon-Netto was born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1936. After a colorful career as a journalist, in his 50s he took up the study of theology, eventually earning a doctorate from Boston University. A lifelong Lutheran, he served as Director of the Concordia Seminary Institute on Lay Vocation in St. Louis, and then helped found and direct its successor organization, the Center for Lutheran Theology and Public Life and League of Faithful Masks in Capistrano Beach, California. His work as a journalist — continued during and after his theological endeavors — has focused particularly on issues concerning religion and society, as well as international affairs. He has written and published four books in addition to The Fabricated Luther. He continues to write today and blogs at: uwesiemon.blogspot.com.
Uwe Siemon-Netto has done Lutheranism, the study of history, and, more generally, the practice of discussion and argumentation a great service with this book designed to both explore and explode the all-too-common myth that Martin Luther was in some way the spiritual or philosophical ancestor of Adolf Hitler and the excesses of the Nazi German state. This second edition — the original was subtitled “The Rise and Fall of the Shirer Myth” — makes use not only of significant scholarship but also many of Siemon-Netto’s personal experiences, interactions, and observations as a native German and as a journalist.
Siemon-Netto does not begin the book where one might expect — instead of dealing head-on with the issue of Luther’s reputation and “responsibility” for the rise and success of Nazism in Germany, after briefly setting some context, he gives the reader an extended lesson on the use and abuse of cliché in modern thought:
The word cliché is the French vocable for a stereotype printing plate. Its function is to reproduce the likeness of a given object over and over again. A cliché does not give an altogether truthful picture of that object. For one thing, a cliché is never more than two-dimensional; for another, it is not alive — once cast, it will never change. And even the best cliché is never more than a rough approximation of the real thing. (22)
the article from wisluthsem.org continues
"Siemon-Netto goes on to connect cliché thinking to the Zeitgeist, which certainly roots it in what is only contemporary and human, excluding “the theological option that God might interfere directly with history” (22). This attention to the cliché gives structure to the author’s argument — he explores next how this mental shorthand resulted first in an unsubstantiated and then an unthinking certainty in many circles that Luther was an ardent German nationalist and that he was a racist anti-Semite (along with a number of smaller but related clichés).
After presenting us with this picture of Luther as “villain” — and the various writers, thinkers, and propagandists who developed and promoted this stereotype — Siemon-Netto proceeds to systematically take apart cliché after cliché and refute charge after charge. In the process he does not shy away from admitting Luther’s errors and weaknesses, but by putting the Reformer’s words into the context of his times, his thoroughly evangelical, i.e. gospel-centered, theology, and the actual issues of his life (as opposed to the issues of the 20th century his critics have applied his writings to) Siemon-Netto gives the reader an education (or review) of Luther’s doctrine of the two kingdoms and a history lesson in how that understanding — distinguishing between the spiritual realm of the church and the secular realm of the state — played out in his dealings with peasants and princes, rebellions and resistance.
From Luther’s life, Siemon-Netto moves his arguments next to one Lutheran’s life during the rise of the Third Reich (one who sadly did not survive till its final fall), Carl Goerdeler, the former mayor of Leipzig. He would have been made chancellor of Germany if the 1944 coup attempt against Hitler had succeeded. He also worked with foreign contacts in the hope of finding a peaceful solution to the war (his attempts were unsuccessful largely because by that point Germany’s enemies were convinced that their enemy was not Nazism alone but the German people as a whole). Goerdeler’s life and words are used to counter the cliché that Lutheran theology and heritage necessarily led to acquiescence to authoritarianism and thus cooperation with or even support of Hitler and his regime.
More cliché-busting comes with a chapter set in Siemon-Netto’s hometown of Leipzig in 1989. Here he uses the events leading to and surrounding the collapse of the East German state to show again that Luther’s legacy leads not to unquestioning subservience to authority, but instead to the undermining of tyranny."
the article continues
"In an epilogue titled Kairos and Betrayal, Siemon-Netto moves from the past to the present and discusses the modern church’s continuing failure to treasure and teach (correctly) Luther’s doctrine of the two kingdoms:
At least in part, the emptiness of Europe’s Protestant churches every Sunday morning is the result of the ongoing betrayal of Luther’s doctrine. This seems to indicate that the lessons of World War II and the East German experiences have still not been sufficiently learned. (173)
As confessional Lutherans, we will cheer the author’s condemnation of the liberal theology and practice that has plagued the church, and we will be cheered by his optimism and encouragement for the cause of orthodox Lutheranism. We will also agree with him that “the pastor proclaiming political dogmas from the pulpit leads his congregation out of the spiritual realm” (180) and especially that, as Luther’s church stands at a crossroads, “it must rediscover its founder” (184).
Lutherans looking for a more polemic approach to various libels of Luther may not be entirely satisfied by Siemon-Netto’s work, but the author admirably achieves his aim of refuting the modern myths surrounding our church’s namesake. He does so with an approach and voice that is both academic and journalistic, introducing some rather advanced ideas (like the cliché) alongside both theological explanation and the real-life stories of people who illustrate the truth of the theology and the error of the aspersions. We meet along the way, for instance, the radical reformer Thomas Münzer, the writer Thomas Mann, Siemon-Netto’s devout Lutheran grandmother, and 20th century German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
My criticisms of the book are largely of the “I wish he had …” type, mostly a desire for even more of the material he included. Since this is the second edition, I also found myself trying to determine what material was new and what was not. It would have been valuable to see whether his conclusions and recommendations had changed since he first wrote the book, but the only obvious evidence of revisions was the inclusion of footnoted references dated after the publication of the first edition. It is also unclear to what extent this English edition is merely a translation of an original German monograph or a fresh treatment of the topic for an English-speaking audience — the focus on William Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich suggests the latter might be the case).
I found the “cliché thinking” approach interesting, but I did feel it would have worked better as support to the main arguments, rather than as what gave structure to the arguments. (Those looking for another look at the power and danger of such thinking might be interested in a non-theological book published in 2012, Jonah Goldberg’s The Tyranny of Clichés; while it definitely has partisan political edge, it provides useful — and entertaining — practice in identifying how aphorisms and things “everybody knows” are often at odds with both reason and truth.)"
the article lastly says
"The Fabricated Luther would be a valuable addition to any Lutheran pastor’s, teacher’s, or layperson’s library, not only for his education and ready reference, but also as something he can loan out to members and others who are confronted with or taken in by the monster-making modern myths about our theological forebearer. A good knowledge of Luther’s life and works, combined with deep knowledge of Lutheran theology, especially the doctrine of the two kingdoms will, of course, more fully equip you to more effectively refute those stereotypes when you encounter them. Siemon-Netto’s book is a very solid foundation on which to build, and he has given our church a great gift by providing it." How should we Respond to the book "The Fabricated Luther" ???
From Amazon.com some people gave the following comments in Review of
"The Fabricated Luther" 2nd Edition, Kindle edition , they said
This is a must read for anyone who cares about truth, facts, and logic. Sometimes much of what is said about Luther today is grounded in shallow and superficial thinking, but other times it is just plain ignorance. In other words, as Dr. Siemon-Netto points out in the book, the popular view of Luther is a caricature grounded in cliche rather than fact. "The Fabricated Luther" is the antidote to the ignorance and superficiality of popular thought." Another person typed
5.0 out of 5 stars What an OUTSTANDING book!
Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2013
This book is a very well-researched and presented case that really lays out how the teachings/sayings of Luther were twisted into Nazi justification. It begins with the premise of The Luther Cliche' which presumes that Hitler was merely a logical extension of Luther and his philosophies.
Unfortunately, late in Luther's life when he was suffering from living out his life with a (no kidding) price on his head for defying the Pope, suffering from painful stomach ailments and frustrated that the Jews didn't get the message of Christ and his gospel, made some pretty anti-Semitic statements out of his frustration at trying to convert them to Christianity. The author admits this basically right up front.
But then goes to show how Luther's doctrine of the 2 realms (Kingdom of earth and kingdom of heaven, aka kingdom of man and the kingdom of the spiritual) has been claimed (after much twisting and misquoting) into agreement with Nazism thru not resisting Hitler (quietism). Again the author lays out a brilliant case about how a man like Luther who endorsed Peter and Paul's statement that "We must obey God over men" would never have endorsed something like Nazism and their policy of genocide. (In his angst and frustration, Luther did, regrettably, say some pretty harsh things about how to treat Jews, but he never advocated killing them, etc like the Nazis did).
And he makes the case how someone who boldly stood up to the Pope - the law of the land of the day, and at the cost of his freedom, his job, and potentially his life (he lived out his life with a price on his head) - would have never have sat still for someone or some group's statements, attitudes and policies that would so oppose God's Law and morality as Nazism did.
Further, the author goes on to show how many a Lutheran German - e.g., Carl Goerdler, Dietrich Boenhoffer, et al - who were raised and schooled on Luther and Lutheranism actually did actively resist Hitler and Nazism and - tragically - paid for it with their lives. All because they could not rationalize Hitler and Nazism with their Lutheran beliefs.
For anyone questioning Luther's and Lutheranism's "blame" for spawning Hitler, the Nazis and/or the Holocaust, I would humbly recommend this book be the middle of a trilogy onpoint beginning with "Here I Stand" by Roland H. Bainton be read first, followed by this book "The Fabricated Luther," and then concluding with "Lutherans Against Hitler" by Lowell Green. Following such an indepth study, such a reader would know firmly and wholeheartedly that the Luther Cliche' is an outright falsehood of convenience and/or agenda." We have to admit that Luther did indeed say some very sick hateful things not only about the Jews, but against all his opponents, still Modern Day Opponents of Luther did NOT Fabricate things about Luther out of thin air, out of nothing, no matter what the Context, we cannot Deny that Protestant Reformer Martin Luther did indeed say many Extremely Hateful Things against the Jewish People, even for that time period, there was No Excuse or Justification for Martin Luther's hateful Anti-Jewish Attitudes & Actions
A cached Editorial article from the website Christianitytoday.com is headlined
"Did Christianity Cause the Holocaust?" and it says:
No, despite what a biased film at the tax-supported Holocaust Museum implies.
APRIL 27, 1998
from the April 27 1998 issue. the article says:
"In defending myself against the Jews, I am acting for the Lord," said Adolf Hitler. "The difference between the church and me is that I am finishing the job." Hitler was lying in an attempt to mislead his public by concealing his own racial animosity behind a mask of Christian language.
Now, a group of prominent Jews has accused the United States Holocaust Museum of the same thing, of misleading the public by blaming Hitler's genocidal program on historic Christian beliefs about Jews (see "Is Holocaust Museum Anti-Christian?," p. 14). The writers of the U.S. Holocaust Museum orientation film Antisemitism, they say, have confused harsh Christian statements about Jewish religion with the race-based ideologies that informed Nazism. In addition, they have taken Hitler's explanation for his motivations at face value. Should Hitler's attempts to use the church to justify himself tell us any more about Christian theology than, say, David Koresh's ravings tell us about the Bible?
Hundreds of thousands of Christians who have visited the United States Holocaust Museum have sat and squirmed through all 14 minutes of the film's loose linking of historic Christian condemnation of Jewish refusal to believe in Jesus with Nazi racism. Most of those Christians, vaguely aware that there has been persistent prejudice against Jews for most of European history, have meekly accepted the film's claims and have not protested the inclusion of this anti-Christian message in a tax-funded national museum.
In December, however, six Jews, Jews who knew the horrific facts of historic Christian anti-Semitism, did indeed protest, sending a letter to the then director of the museum, Walter Reich. In that letter, Michael Horowitz, Elliott Abrams, and other notable Jewish thinkers called attention to the film's unfairness in portraying anti-Semitism in almost exclusively Christian terms. And since then they have taken a lot of heat for their stance—from The New Republic to vile personal attacks via e-mail.
The film paints with a broad brush. A dull voice intones disconnected facts and quotations that leave the viewer believing that anti-Jewish bias is the result of Christian influence on the Roman Empire, that it has been Christian society alone that has marginalized and oppressed Jews, and that Nazi racial prejudice against the Jews was in clear continuity with earlier religious prejudice. The anti-Judaism that preceded Christianity and that has long existed outside Europe is ignored.
Certainly one reason American Christians have not heretofore protested the dubious film is that they are largely unaware of the history of Christian anti-Judaism. They have heard, vaguely, about ghettos and pogroms, and they may have heard that Christians once called Jews "Christ-killers" and circulated rumors that blamed Jews for the Black Death. But they have not studied their own history, and they have no framework in which to place isolated facts and evaluate the claims of this film."
the article continues
"Facts without a framework
Let's be clear: From its very earliest days, Christianity spoke ill of "the Jews." The apostles (all of them Jews) felt deeply the rejection of their good news about Jesus from their own community's leaders, and they took the gospel to a more receptive Gentile audience. The internal disputes between Jesus and the leaders of various, competing Judaisms were transposed into a setting where the inner divisions of Judaism were obscured. Paul's hope for a church in which barriers between Jews and Gentiles were obliterated turned into a barricaded community.
From the early second century, the church fathers, puzzled over the fact that Jewish leaders did not interpret the their own Scriptures as Jesus and his apostles had, concluded that the Jews were blind, obdurate, stubborn, hard-hearted—and possibly demonic. John Chrysostom called the Jews, " … inveterate murderers, destroyers, men possessed by the devil, [whom] debauchery and drunkenness have given … the manners of the pig and the lusty goat." Despite their harsh words, many of the Fathers did not cease to appeal for Jews to come to Jesus (though, tragically, they required such converts to give up their Jewishness). Nor did church leaders advise or officially support violence against Jews: the Jews were to be preserved in misery as a sign of reprobation, the Fathers concluded, until the Last Day when God would exact judgment.
Article continues below
From Constantine to the Renaissance (with the notable, bloody exception of the Spanish Inquisition), both the "Christianized" empire and the imperialized church protected the existence of Jews, while progressively restricting their rights and their economic activity. On the whole, it was mobs, stirred by fanatics, who were responsible for the burning of synagogues and the killing of Jews. Church and state needed Jews, both to prop up a triumphalist theology and to foster finance and trade. And at times when other non-Christian religions were not tolerated, they protected the Jews' radically circumscribed existence.
For all the horrible history of Christian European anti-Judaism, it was almost always a cultural and theological prejudice, not a racial one, and therefore it was at least possible for Jews to escape the pressures through assimilation and conversion. Sadly, when they refused conversion, they faced even further straitening of their circumstances, as when Martin Luther, deeply disappointed by Jewish lack of interest in his Reformation, called them "this damned, rejected race," and advised the German princes to raze their synagogues and houses and forbid their rabbis to teach."
the article continues:
"Nazi anti-Semitism was different. It targeted Jews as a race. Even those who had been baptized and assimilated were sought and rooted out, even from monasteries and convents. It was their fantasized racial characteristics that threatened the mythology of Aryan blood purity.
In March, John Paul II emphasized that same distinction between historic Christian anti-Judaism and various secular, racialist anti-Semitisms in his cautiously worded apology for the role some "sons and daughters of the Church" played in the Holocaust. Nazi acts and ideology, he claimed, had their "roots outside of Christianity."
Some have complained that this distinction cannot bear the weight the pope puts on it. And surely there is a debate to be had: To what degree did Christian beliefs about Jewish unbelief merely set the historical stage for the Holocaust, and to what degree did they actually contribute to the Holocaust? But this requires a complex and careful analysis that no 14-minute film (nor even an hour-long television special) can be made to bear.
The wages of guilt
Yes, Christians have plenty to apologize for in the way we have treated Jews in the past. But accurate history is vital for many reasons, among them this: indiscriminate guilt-mongering can lead Christians to be unfaithful to their own faith.
Take, for example, this comment attributed by the New York Times to National Council of Churches general secretary Joan Brown Campbell: "If you look at the Nazi regime, you can see in it the philosophy of Christian superiority." Campbell's remark was inaccurate, ignoring Nazi beliefs about the defects in historic Christianity. But it was also made in an interview in which she undercut the rising concern about persecution of Christians around the globe. Her timidity about the claims of Christ caused her to cast doubt on the efforts others are making to save lives and to spare believers from torture and imprisonment."
Article continues below
Likewise, Rosemary Radford Ruether's fascinating historical account of Christian anti-Judaism, Faith and Fratricide (1974), called Christians to abandon the belief that Jesus is the savior for everyone in favor of the notion that Jesus is the savior of some, while others will have their own "saviors." Overwhelmed by the history she recounts, Ruether is convinced that anti-Judaism is the inevitable corollary of believing Jesus is the savior of the world.
Christians must confront their anti-Judaism, but they cannot retreat from the core of their faith. Making unwarranted connections between Christianity's true-to-itself claims for Jesus and the tragedy of the Holocaust leads Christians like Campbell to the brink of denying their Lord (something about which Jesus himself had strong words) and to undercut an important humanitarian movement.
A museum of conscience
The concerned Jews' protest didn't receive the public attention it should have because the museum was soon after embroiled in a controversy over an invitation to Yasser Arafat to visit the exhibit. Museum director Reich fought the invitation and refused to be part of the welcoming committee. He was fired February 18. "This is a matter of conscience for me," Reich said, "and this is a museum of conscience."
& lastly says
"As a museum of conscience, the U.S. Holocaust Museum has a responsibility to report how Jews have suffered, in large part because of morally repugnant stereotyping. How ironic and sad that its own film should foster inaccurate stereotypes of Christianity!
The museum celebrates its fifth anniversary this month. The controversies have come at a bad time, casting a shadow over an institution all Americans should take pride in. But what better time is there to correct the egregious stereotyping of this film and assure the public of the care and accuracy with which the museum's exhibits report the most tragic event of the twentieth century?
As communities of conscience, the churches also have a big burden. That burden is, first, to educate their members on the history of both Judaism and anti-Judaism. Contact with those for whom Judaism is a living faith is essential so that Christians do not think that Judaism froze in fixed form in the first century. (Some of the nastiest comments early church fathers made about Jews reveal they no longer had active contact with living Judaism.)
Second, the churches' burden is to take care in how we preach about Jews in the Scriptures—not treating Pharisee as a simple synonymn for hypocrite, for example, and not treating the Old Testament (as many have done) as a simple history of unbelief or as a mere codebook of messianic clues. Indeed, here American evangelicals have an advantage, thanks to the appreciative reading of the Old Testament handed to us by our Puritan forebears, and thanks to the more positive reading of the preservation of the Jews popularized by dispensationalism.
Above all, let us avoid triumphalism. Deaf to the invitation to self-examination brought by the biblical prophets, the Fathers applied their criticism only to the Jews. They spoke only of the church's glories, and forgot that the prophets' challenges apply also to us."
Do we agree with this article ? Did Christianity Cause the Holocaust ? Directly or Indirectly ?
From the website Christiancentury.org an article is headlined CRITICAL ESSAY
"On Luther and his lies" the article says
As the Reformation's 500th anniversary nears, Christians are contending with Luther's violently anti-Jewish writings.
by Noam E. Marans
October 11, 2017
Title page of Martin Luther's On the Jews and Their Lies, from 1543. the article says
"When Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses in Wittenberg, he set in motion a revolution which transformed Christianity, Europe, and eventually the world. Jews and Judaism were a relatively minor detail of the Reformation, but Luther’s virulent anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism—a term first used in the 19th century—left a legacy that would be cynically championed by the Nazi cause and religiously heralded by some Christian leaders in the 20th century as genocide was perpetrated against the Jewish people.
There is hope in this sad story because Lutherans and other Christians confronted their anti-Jewish past during the second half of the 20th century. But before celebrating that change of heart, the first 400 years of Luther’s legacy must be remembered. The retelling of that story is not simply an academic exercise. It represents a commitment by Jews, Christians, and others to acknowledge that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Even when we study history, we humans sometimes, perhaps even quite often, repeat it. Unfortunately, the Shoah was not the final genocide of human history. And today we see almost every day—including recently in the United States—how the venom of xenophobia, racism, and hatred inevitably leads to violence.
Luther initially believed that kindness toward Jews was the right path, if only for the purpose of enlightening them and opening their eyes to Christianity. As a professor of Old Testament, he believed that Jews could be taught the proper meaning of certain Hebrew Bible verses prophesying Jesus’ life, messianic mandate, and New Covenant, thereby leading to their conversion. This period in Luther’s early fame is represented by his essay “That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew” (1523). Both the title and intermittent points of the tract foreshadowed some elements of 20th-century Christian outreach to and reconciliation with Jews. For example, Luther writes, “We gentiles are relatives by marriage and strangers, while they [the Jews] are of the same blood, cousins and brothers of our Lord” (I rely here as elsewhere on Thomas Kaufmann’s Luther’s Jews: A Journey into Anti-Semitism}
But this attitude did not last. Frustrated by Jewish steadfastness, and misinformed regarding Jewish practices, Luther in his later years undid his early openness toward the Jewish people and penned anti-Jewish rants. “On the Jews and Their Lies” (1543) is a patently anti-Semitic document. He writes"
the article continues :
"And so, dear Christian, beware of the Jews . . . you can see how God’s wrath has consigned them to the Devil, who has robbed them not only of a proper understanding of the Scriptures, but also of common human reason, modesty and sense. . . . Thus, when you see a real Jew you may with a good conscience cross yourself, and boldly say, “There goes the Devil incarnate.”
Worse than that, Luther’s rage and increasing religious and political power were accompanied by a program for protecting Christian society from Jewish influence and contamination by burning or razing synagogues, destroying Jewish homes, confiscating Jewish holy books, banning Jewish religious worship, expropriating Jewish money, and deporting Jews.
Luther’s anti-Judaism might have been forgotten and even understood as a product of his times. After all, Luther preached in a Wittenberg church where anti-Jewish art—the notorious Judensau depicting Jews nursing on the teats of swine—had been installed hundreds of years before he was born. But Luther’s prolific output, his mastery of the media revolution unleashed by Gutenberg, and his role as founder of a religious movement that would have many offshoots guaranteed that he would never be forgotten.
Never was that more painfully clear than with the rise of Nazism. Hitler was influenced by those who appropriated and reenergized Luther’s anti-Jewish polemics. Chillingly, in November 1938, just two weeks after Kristallnacht, Martin Sasse, bishop of the Evangelical Church of Thuringia, published a pamphlet titled Martin Luther and the Jews: Away with Them! Sasse wrote:
On 10 November, Luther’s birthday, the synagogues are burning. . . . At this moment, we must hear the voice of the prophet of the Germans from the sixteenth century, who out of ignorance began as a friend of the Jews but who, guided by his conscience, experience and reality became the greatest anti-Semite of his age, the one who warned his nation against the Jews.
That polemic, with a print run of 100,000 copies, connected the dots between Luther’s aspiration for the burning of synagogues to its fulfillment by the Nazis.
In a similar vein, Julius Streicher, who founded the anti-Semitic paper Der Stürmer and was sentenced to death at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity, defended his actions by saying they were inspired by Luther himself. It was Luther, he suggested, not he, who should be on trial.
Jews and Christians have found a way to move beyond Luther’s anti-Judaic diatribe.
But the story does not end there. From the hell of the Shoah came Christian self-reflection on centuries of Christian anti-Judaism and culpability that enabled the persecution of the Jews throughout the ages, culminating with the Holocaust. The Catholic Church’s 1965 document Nostra aetate, which rejected the charge of deicide against the Jews, is the most widely cited of Christian documents in this new era of Christian-Jewish relations. But it is not the first or only one. Lutheran documents are remarkable in that they confronted the challenging task of rejecting Luther’s anti-Jewish teachings while sustaining an appreciation of his religious heroism and legacy."
& continues
"In 1983, the Lutheran World Federation declared, “The sins of Luther’s anti-Jewish remarks, the violence of his attacks on the Jews, must be acknowledged with deep distress.” In 1994, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America stated:
In the spirit of . . . truth-telling, we who bear his name and heritage must with pain acknowledge also Luther’s anti-Judaic diatribe, and the violent recommendations of his later writings against the Jews. . . . We particularly deplore the appropriation of Luther’s words by modern anti-Semites for the teaching of hatred toward Judaism or toward the Jewish people in our day.
In 1983, 500 years after Luther’s birth, the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland called Luther’s anti-Jewish texts “calamitous.” In 2000, the EKD reiterated the point:
Fifty years ago, at its second session in Berlin-Weissensee, the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany . . . declared: “We state clearly that through omission and silence, we too have become guilty before the Merciful God of the outrage perpetrated against the Jews by members of our [German] people.” The Synod thereby admitted the church’s complicity in the persecution and murder of European Jewry.
And in 2016 the EKD stated: “In the lead-up to the Reformation anniversary we cannot bypass this history of guilt. The fact that Luther’s anti-Judaic recommendations in later life were a source for Nazi anti-Semitism is a further burden weighing on the Protestant churches in Germany.”
Engaging Luther is not an all or nothing enterprise. The ELCA document “Luther and Contemporary Interreligious Relations,” issued several years ago in anticipation of the Reformation’s 500th anniversary, delineates ways in which Luther’s better ideas can be incorporated into interreligious relations generally and Christian-Jewish relations specifically.
The Christian world has found partners within the Jewish community who have embraced the Christian move toward reconciliation. That positive Jewish response should not be taken for granted or assumed. Dabru Emet (1999), the first broad-based Jewish communal response to the post-Shoah Christian reversals, states, “Nazism was not a Christian phenomenon,” and “We applaud those Christians who reject this teaching of contempt and we do not blame them for the sins committed by their ancestors.”
the article from Christiancentury.org lastly says "I recently accompanied a group of young American Jews on a visit to Wittenberg. They were part of a seminar sponsored by Germany Close Up, an organization committed to introducing young American Jews to modern Germany, and by the American Jewish Committee. For two days, together with German Christian peers, these Jews studied Luther’s anti-Jewish texts and recent church repudiations of those texts, visited the sites of the Reformation, viewed medieval anti-Jewish art, heard from Jewish and Protestant religious leaders, and weighed the implications.
That Wittenberg experience can serve as a model for Christians and Jews. We have reached a point in the journey when we can feel comfortable speaking candidly about our respective traditions and firmly held beliefs. In consultation with Jewish partners over many years, Lutherans found a way to help Christians and Jews acknowledge and move beyond “Luther’s anti-Judaic diatribe” and its utilization as “a source for Nazi anti-Semitism.” If that is possible, then we need not fear taking on other topics that threaten to drive a wedge between Christians and Jews.
On the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, the story of Luther and the Jews in the context of Christian-Jewish relations is a narrative of how bad things were, how much better they are today, and how it may yet be possible to complete the journey of reconciliation."
A version of this article appears in the October 25 print edition under the title “On Luther and his lies.” It was adapted from a lecture Noam E. Marans delivered in August in Wittenberg, Germany. Do we agree with this article ? At least partially agree ?
From the website timesofisrael.com an article is headlined
"Europe’s anti-Semitism is literally carved in stone" the article says:
From Notre Dame to Prague, the fine art of Jew-hatred is on public display at many of the continent’s most visited landmarks
By TONI L. KAMINS
23 March 2015,
This carving on the facade of Martin Luther's church in Wittenberg, Germany shows Jews suckling at a sow's teat. (Toni L. Kamins/JTA) the article says:
"JTA — Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of Paris is among the most visited sites on the planet and a splendid example of Gothic architecture.
Each year, millions flock to admire and photograph its flying buttresses and statuary, yet few take any real notice of two prominent female statues on either side of the main entrance. The one on the left is dressed in fine clothing and bathed in light, while the one on the right is disheveled, with a large snake draped over her eyes like a blindfold.
The statues, known as Ecclesia and Sinagoga, respectively, and generally found in juxtaposition, are a common motif in medieval art and represent the Christian theological concept known as supercessionism, whereby the Church is triumphant and the Synagogue defeated.
Sinagoga is depicted here with head bowed, broken staff, the tablets of the law slipping from her hand and a fallen crown at her feet. Ecclesia stands upright with crowned head and carries a chalice and a staff adorned with the cross.
The disheveled Sinagoga, blindfolded with a snake, is a common motif in medieval art, representing the Church’s supercessionism. (Toni L. Kamins/JTA)
While the issue of what constitutes free speech and what crosses into incitement to violence was brought to the fore by the deadly January attack on the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, images mocking Jews and Judaism and encouraging anti-Semitic violence have been displayed throughout Europe since the early Middle Ages.
In a time when literacy was uncommon, these images were the political cartoons and posters of the age, and the ridicule and carnage they promoted was both routine and government sanctioned.
What’s more, most remain visible if you know where to look. Below are some of the most common ones.
Judensau
Wittenberg, Germany is famous as the place where Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg castle’s church, and where the Protestant Reformation began, but the facade of its otherwise grand Stadtkirche, the church where Luther preached, features another medieval motif known as the Judensau (Jew’s sow).
This particular Judensau (1305) shows Jews suckling at the sow’s teat while another feeds at the animal’s anus. Above it appears an inscription in Latin letters, “Rabini Shem hamphoras.” The phrase is gibberish, but refers to the Hebrew words “Shem HaMephorash,” a term for one of the hidden names of God.
Blood libel
The blood libel in Europe, a false allegation that Jews murder Christian children so they can use their blood to make matzah, probably originated in England with the murder of William of Norwich in 1144, followed by accusations in Gloucester (1168), Bury St. Edmonds (1181), Bristol (1183) and Lincoln (1255). It rapidly spread like a cancer to the continent.
This plaque at the Palazzo Salvadori in Trent, Italy, illustrates the supposed martyrdom of Simon of Trent at the hands of Jews. (Wikimedia Commons/JTA)
Spain’s Toledo Cathedral has a fresco depicting the alleged ritual murder of Christopher of La Guardia near one of its exits — on one side a malevolent man is dragging away a child, while on the other the child is being crucified. At the 16th-century Palazzo Salvadori in Trento (Trent), Italy, which was built on the foundation of a synagogue, two plaques illustrating the supposed martyrdom of Simonino di Trento (Simon of Trent) at the hands of Jews in 1475 were affixed to the front portal in the 18th century."
the article continues & lastly says
"Some of the supposed victims of ritual murder — William of Norwich, Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, St. Christopher of La Guardia and Simon of Trent — were canonized, but the Church’s 1965 Second Vatican Council removed them from the canon, forbade worship of them, and absolved Jews of any guilt in such murders. Sadly, some Catholics still believe the libel and continue to celebrate the saints’ days.
There are thousands of Ecclesia/Sinagoga, Judensau and illustrations of blood libel on churches, in paintings, stained glass windows, wood carvings and in medieval manuscripts all over Europe. Meanwhile, the blood libel continues to have currency in places such as Belarus, the Arab world and, of course, on the Internet.
Jesus of Prague
This statue on Prague’s Charles Bridge combines a crucifix with lines from the Kedushah prayer and has a backward aleph. (Toni L. Kamins/JTA)
In Prague, the 15th-century Charles Bridge across the Vltava River connects Old Town to Prague Castle. Some 30 statues line its pedestrian-only walkway, but only one is likely to make Jews cringe – Jesus on the cross surrounded by the Hebrew words “kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, Adonai Tzva’ot” (holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts) from the Jewish prayer known as the Kedushah. The statue and inscription, whose origins are disputed, essentially appropriate Jewish liturgy to imply that Jews regard Jesus as God.
Elias Backoffen, a Jewish community leader, was forced to pay for the gold-plated letters as a punishment in 1696 either for an actual or trumped-up blasphemy that may have been at the hands of a rival Jewish businessman. Explanatory plaques in English, Czech and Hebrew were added in 2009 after the city’s mayor was petitioned by a group of North American rabbis.
Take a good look at the aleph in the word Tzva’ot – it’s backward. A secret signal to other Jews? No. The letter was removed by the Nazis during their occupation of Prague, and when the Czechs restored the letters after the war they made a mistake. And the vav in Adonai? It seems to have gone missing."
From the website, levitt.com an article is headlined
"Has God Forgiven the Nazis for the Holocaust?"
by Todd Baker
Rev. Todd Baker is a Staff Theologian at Zola Levitt Ministries.
This article appeared originally in the February 1998 issue of the Levitt Letter.
the article says
"After thoughtful analysis from Scripture, the answer would be a qualified no. Divine forgiveness is always based on repentance and faith (Mark 1:14). Jesus made this clear, and said so more than once in Luke 13: “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3, 5).
Scripture teaches that if the sinner does not repent and ask for God’s forgiveness, he will not be forgiven but will eternally perish. God’s forgiveness is effectively given when the sinner admits that he has sinned and needs to be forgiven by God (Luke 18: 9–14). Some people might say that the statement made by Jesus on the cross in Luke 23:34 (“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”) contradicts this, but that verse cannot be used for the Nazis because those words, from their context, applied directly to those who crucified the Lord.
To apply it to the Nazis is to read into Luke 23 something that simply is not there. Most of the Nazis never repented before God for their crimes against the Jews. They never asked the Lord or the Chosen People to forgive them. Indeed, those Nazis who were brought to justice either denied that they had murdered Jews (Herman Goering) or justified it as simply “following orders” (Adolph Eichmann). Because Nazi Germany refused to repent, God justly condemned them and brought utter destruction upon their country, using the Allied powers as His instrument of judgment in the process.
Many passages in the New Testament tell us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:47–48). These verses do not mean, however, that we are to overlook the wrong acts of others. The love that is meant here is one that includes a righteous hatred for sin and evil. Until the surviving Nazis see the terrible harm they have caused and ask God to forgive and save them, they cannot be forgiven. We do not love what they did, nor can we condone or excuse their atrocious acts against the Chosen People and the rest of humanity.
On the contrary, we must constantly remind the world of what they did to the Jewish people so that it will not happen again. Jesus said that God will “avenge” His “elect” (Israel and the Church) and mete out punishment on those who seek their harm: “And shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him… I tell you He will avenge them speedily”(Luke 18:7–8). The Nazis certainly fall under this category, if anybody does.
The eternal promises that God made to Abraham stand for all time. Among the unconditional blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant is the one that clearly says that God will curse anybody who seeks to harm, curse, or destroy the Jewish people. In this covenant, God said, “I will bless them that bless you, and curse him that curses you” (Genesis 12:3)."
the article lastly says
"This has been fulfilled throughout the course of history. Hitler’s Nazi Germany brought God’s eternal curse of Genesis 12:3 down upon itself, just like all the other nations, empires, and individuals before it that sought to destroy the nation of Israel. The Nazis are the latest of those who joined the graveyard of anti-Semitic nations when they tried to exterminate the Chosen People. If God were to grant forgiveness to the Nazis who have not repented, He would in effect be breaking His own promise to Abraham and the Jewish people.
The Bible teaches that there is no forgiveness for the reprobate, this includes Nazi Germany. The biblical doctrine of reprobation begs the question of what is a reprobate? A reprobate proves by his very actions that he is an enemy of God who will not change, no matter what God does. He remains hardened against God even at death. Human reprobates (like their spiritual counterparts, Satan and the fallen angels) cannot be forgiven by God because they have closed their hearts to Him.
The Pharaoh of the Exodus and Judas the Apostle are biblical examples of reprobates. We discover from these two individuals that there are two distinct features of being a reprobate: (1) a permanent hatred for the Jews and (2) an incorrigible unbelief and opposition toward Christ. Obviously the Nazis possessed these two traits. They proved by their recalcitrance that theirs was a reprobate rule. They rejected and sought to destroy the Jews, and so God justly rejected and destroyed them.
Liberal Churches are fond of speaking about a God of love, to the point that they exclude the God of judgment. They would say that God loved the Nazis and forgave them, and that the Jews and the rest of us Christians need to make peace with the past by forgiving Hitler and his followers. But this kind of unbiblical thinking is symptomatic of the universal apostasy in the Church today. Liberal churches are known for worshiping an attribute of God rather than worshiping God Himself. They especially do this with the attribute of love, to the exclusion of God’s wrath, holiness, and righteousness, which require that He punish sin.
This holy God raised up the Allied powers to mercilessly destroy Nazi Germany so that the Nazis could not prevail in their satanic quest of exterminating the Jewish people, which would have rendered the promises of God to the Jews null and void.
For those in the Church to tell the Jews they need to forgive the Nazis is hypocritical. Christians need to wake up and realize that the Church has also been responsible for the long historical mistreatment of the Chosen People. Jews who survived the Holocaust can tell you how the Nazis who sent them to the death camps and gas chambers claimed to be Christians and followers of Jesus Christ. When Christians tell them to “get over” the Holocaust and forgive the Nazis, the Jews understandably interpret such advice as a belittlement of what they suffered and a denial of the grave reality of what happened to their people at the hands of these self-proclaimed “Christians.”
The churches of Europe did little or nothing to save the six million innocent Jews who were killed. Instead, they looked the other way, or worse, gave theological justification for Hitler and the Nazis. It is the Church, not the Jews, that needs to ask for forgiveness from both God and the Jewish people for its passivity and complicity in the Holocaust.
The Church needs to stand up and take responsibility for its part in the Holocaust and the historical abuse of the Jews. Until this is done, Jews will naturally view Christians with suspicion."
From the website forward.com an article is headlined
"Why I Cannot Forgive Germany" the article says
by Anita Epstein June 9, 2010
“I cannot and I do not want to forgive the killers of children; I ask God not to forgive.”
— Elie Wiesel
It was more than 15 years ago, but I still remember the day clearly. My husband and I hosted a dinner at our home for emerging young German leaders. They were participating in an exchange program with the American Jewish Committee that included a week in Washington, D.C. I viewed the evening as a test of how I would deal with Germans — indeed, of whether I could deal with them at all.
The Germans, after all, had murdered almost all of my family in the Holocaust, to say nothing of their wanton slaughter of millions of other Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and others. I escaped that gruesome fate myself only because shortly after my birth in the Krakow ghetto, in November 1942, my parents gave me away to be hidden by a Polish Catholic family. More than a million Jewish children, however, were not so fortunate: They were strangled or starved, shot or gassed, bashed against walls or tossed out windows, burned in ovens or buried in mass graves.
I tried to behave myself that evening. I really did. But I could not help myself: I asked a wispy young German woman with whom I was speaking whether she thought she was capable of throwing a baby off a balcony. She was stunned. “What do you mean?” I told her that Germans routinely had thrown Jewish children off balconies during the Holocaust. Did she think she could do something like that? She protested. She said that she was not even alive during the Holocaust. How could I think such a thing? Wouldn’t I ever be able to forgive the Germans? She began to cry.
I told her that it was not hard for me to think such a thing. I think about such things often. I think about how easily I could have been one of the murdered babies. I think of how the Germans killed all pregnant Jewish women they discovered in the ghetto along with so many others. I think of how my mother avoided their clutches to bring me into this world and, after she suffered terribly in four Nazi camps and returned from the brink of death, found me again after the war. And I think of the father, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and others I will never know, of the postwar anti-Semitism in Germany and Poland, and of the resentment heaped on me by some Holocaust survivors whose own sons and daughters had perished. (When I was older I realized that I was a constant reminder to them of their inability to save their children. I evidently was being punished for living.)
Despite all of this and more, I have managed to have a full life, if a deeply scarred one. After several years spent chiefly in a displaced persons camp in Germany, I came to America on a crammed troop ship, the U.S.S. Taylor, and in New York survived a different kind of ghetto — Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant. I married and raised two wonderful daughters who have given me five marvelous grandchildren. I have done fulfilling work in publishing, in teaching and, for 30 years, as a Washington lobbyist.
None of this, however, has been thanks to the Germans, who are responsible only for the darkest corners of my life, including, among other things, my regular nightmares, my survivor guilt (why was I spared?), and my persistent fear of intruders and attackers. No, I cannot forgive the Germans. That’s God’s job."
the article continues
"Of course, many people would disapprove of this view, and they can draw on an extensive literature about the importance of forgiving, including texts from the world’s religions, pronunciations of literary lions and volumes from modern psychology and psychiatry. For me, though, most of their arguments miss the point. Consider perhaps the most well-worn dictum in favor of letting bygones be bygones: Alexander Pope’s “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” In my case I find it easily dismissible. This is not only because it would be disgraceful to apply a remark about literary criticism — the line is from Pope’s 1711 “An Essay on Criticism,” which is actually a poem — to Germany’s systematic extermination of more than 6 million innocent people. Even more, it would be outrageous to characterize so immense an abomination as “erring.”
I am also unpersuaded by those who favor forgiveness because the act often makes the person doing the forgiving feel better. That’s a favorite of psychiatrists and psychologists, who are of course dedicated to making their patients feel better about themselves. Thus one can find works about how bestowing forgiveness can lift a weight from your shoulders, set you free, bring you peace and improve your physical health in the process. The problem is that I have long felt tolerably well about myself. Indeed, for me, the idea of forgiving those who perpetrated the Holocaust would have the opposite effect: It would make it hard for me to live with myself, to get out of bed and look in the mirror. I could not dishonor the memory of my family members and the millions of other Holocaust victims by giving a free pass to their murderers. That would only signal to other bestial beings that they, too, would be forgiven if they were to commit genocide.
Granted, a good number of people have followed the healing-through-forgiveness advice and benefited. They range from passed-over employees with deep grievances and divorcées seeking revenge to victims of childhood sex abuse and mothers in Northern Ireland who have had to bury their sons. In the Jewish community, one of the most striking examples is Eva Kor, a victim of Dr. Josef Mengele’s vile genetic “experiments” at Auschwitz on Jewish and Gypsy twins, dwarfs and others. The subject of a documentary film called “Forgiving Dr. Mengele,” Kor stood at Auschwitz in the winter of 1995, 50 years after its liberation, and declared that she was granting “amnesty to all Nazis who participated directly or indirectly in the murder of my family and millions of others,” including Mengele."
& continues
"So dramatic a declaration took the Jewish community aback and infuriated other twins who had been Mengele victims. After all, the “Angel of Death,” as the racial researcher was known, had brutalized and killed thousands. He selected twins for “experiments” on heredity, relationships between racial types and disease, on eye coloration and other questions raised by his mentor, Otmar von Verschuer, a pathologist who was a leading proponent of Nazi racial policies. Mengele put children through excruciating pain, ordering surgeries, spinal taps and other procedures without anesthesia. He had some twins infected with deadly diseases, others castrated, still others injected in their eyes with chemicals and at least one set sewn together. Many twins were killed with injections of phenol or chloroform into their hearts, after which their bodies were dissected and their eyes and other organs sent to Verschuer in Berlin. That is the man Kor wanted to forgive.
Whether she knew it or not, however, Kor had her own Jewish problem: Judaism does not give her the ability to forgive Mengele or others. Judaic paths to forgiveness are, of course, unlike those of other religions. In Judaism, a person cannot obtain forgiveness from God for wrongs done to other people, only for sins committed against God. For sins against others, Jewish law and tradition require offenders to express remorse, genuinely repent, provide recompense to victims if appropriate — and directly ask the victim, three times, for forgiveness. Obviously, Josef Mengele did not repent, and he did not beg Kor or other victims for forgiveness. Kor was thus mistaken when she thought, and said, that she had the power to forgive Mengele. She did not, at least so far as Judaism is concerned, and she certainly could not speak for her family or other victims or forgive all other Nazis, only those who specifically sinned against her.
Like anybody else, Kor naturally could come to terms personally with the atrocities committed by Mengele and other Nazis. While that would not absolve Mengele or anybody else, it could — and evidently did — help Kor. “I felt a burden of pain was lifted from me,” she has said. “I was no longer in the grip of pain and hate; I was finally free. The day I forgave the Nazis, privately I forgave my parents whom I hated all my life for not having saved me from Auschwitz. Children expect their parents to protect them, mine couldn’t. And then I forgave myself for hating my parents. Forgiveness is really nothing more than an act of self-healing and self-empowerment.”
I’m afraid not. Forgiveness is, by definition, much more than a self-centered act. What Kor is describing is closer to catharsis, a purging of pain, a very different process — and one that not all Holocaust survivors wish to experience. Elie Wiesel, for example, has remarked, “I want to keep that pain; that zone of pain must stay inside me.” While I did not suffer from the ineffable horror of the concentration camps as Wiesel, my mother, my murdered family members and so many others did, I know what he means. I, too, want to hold onto my pain. It helps ensure that the past is always present in me. It is an important part of what keeps me close to those I lost and to the world that died with them."
& Continues :
"It also helps me deal with questions that keep rattling around in my head. For example, while the overwhelming majority of today’s Germans obviously were born after the Holocaust, do they nonetheless share guilt for the actions (or inactions) of their parents and grandparents? I have family members and friends who think not, who firmly believe that one can never hold children guilty for the sins of their parents. I have even been called some unpleasant names for holding an opposing view. I have noticed, however, that such opinions usually come from people who did not suffer from the Holocaust, who are a generation or two removed, and whose beliefs are rooted in theory, not experience. I think that such people, good-hearted though they may be, may find that the answer is not as simple as they think.
They are often among the first, after all, to insist on collective guilt for atrocious episodes in our own nation’s past — the horrors of slavery, the slaughter of Native Americans, the World War II internment of Japanese Americans and other acts committed in our name. Such American guilt has been passed from generation to generation (though our forbears were in many cases not even on these shores when the events occurred), and it has triggered such public responses as affirmative action; Japanese-American reparations payments; compensatory education, jobs and housing policies; and repatriation of tribal graves and cultural property."
& continues
"Like a number of other nations, today’s Germany also struggles with collective guilt for the sins of parents and grandparents. Germany’s burden is especially heavy, because it stems from what former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder termed “the greatest crime in the history of mankind,” the ultimate sin. Nations cannot easily shed that kind of guilt, and certainly not in a generation or two.
That’s why Germany tries so hard, to this day, to make amends with the Jewish community, a seemingly impossible job. It not only has made restitution payments to a dwindling number of Holocaust survivors for more than 60 years. It also stands behind Israel in the Middle East. It is Israel’s second-largest trading partner. It has encouraged the renewal of a sizable Jewish community in Germany. It has built Holocaust memorials, created Holocaust school curricula, maintained former concentration camps as museums.
This is as it should be. If the pain of the past is always present in me, as it is in many other survivors and their children, it does not trouble me that contemporary Germans live with the hurt from that past as well. After all, just as children inherit wealth and otherwise benefit from what their parents achieve, so do they sometimes inherit their parents’ debts, including this one.
As for forgiveness, the truth is that I could not forgive today’s Germans even if I wanted to. While I never explained this to the young German woman at my home that day, under Judaic law both the perpetrators and the survivors must be alive to have even the possibility of forgiveness. It is because of this, in fact, that some Jewish and Christian scholars have been groping with the question of whether, when all of Hitler’s henchmen and their victims are gone, the Jewish community will have any ability to grant forgiveness for the Holocaust. The answer seems to be that it will not. For me, though, this is not a terribly difficult question to begin with: I believe that the Holocaust is among what Moses Maimonides, in his Mishneh Torah, the 12th-century compilation of Jewish religious law, suggested were sins so hideous as to be beyond the realm of human forgiveness.
Nevertheless, many in the American Jewish community at least want to pursue reconciliation, if not forgiveness, with others. They are understandably eager to respond to Germany’s gestures toward the Jewish community and Israel, as well as to public statements of remorse by Protestant and Catholic leaders for the mistreatment of Jews. I certainly endorse reconciliation with Christian communities in general. I also understand the importance of Jewish and Israeli links to Germany today, just as I understand how U.S. national interests dictated that our main World War II enemies, Germany and Japan, become our postwar allies or that today we have shifting alliances with former foes like Russia and China. Such is the world of realpolitik."
& lastly says
"On a personal level, however, I feel quite differently. I have never sought any restitution payments from Germany, and while I am mindful of how many Jews in Germany today are from the former Soviet Union, I still find it hard to comprehend why any Jew would want to live in that country. As for myself, I will never again set foot on German soil. I flinch just hearing someone talking German, the language I spoke myself when I first arrived in the United States at age 7.
In short, then, there are obvious strategic and practical reasons for reconciling and dealing with Germany. None, however, would move me to forgive all Germans today even if I had the ability to do so. In the end Germans will have to ask the Almighty for such absolution (though I sure would like to be there to have my say during those conversations)."
From the website iwu.edu an article is headlined
"The Darker Side of Martin Luther"
by Emily Paras the article says
"If we wish to find a scapegoat on whose shoulders we may
lay the miseries which Germany has brought upon the
world-I am more and more convinced that the worst evil
genius of that country is not Hitler or Bismarck or
Frederick the Great, but Martin Luther.
-Reverend William Ralph Inge, 1944.
Martin Luther is remembered as one of the most famous religious figures in
history, considered to be the founder of Protestantism. However, there was a lesser
known side of him, one that was dark and full of hatred. Unknown to popular
knowledge, Luther wrote a treatise in 1543 titled On the Jews and Their Lies. In this
65,000-word document, he repeatedly attacks the Jews. The consequences of this treatise
were far reaching, even extending into the present day, as his writings continue to be
reproduced in pamphlets by neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic groups. More devastating, his
writings were circulated during the most horrifying event of the 20th century: the
Holocaust. Hitler himself named Luther as one of history’s greatest reformers in his
novel, Mein Kampf. How much did Luther’s writings affect Hitler and the Nazis? This
paper will serve as evidence of how difficult it is to accurately recount past events,
especially ones that involve unpleasant aspects of world history. I will examine this topic
using primary sources written by Luther and Hitler and official documents concerning the
International military tribunal at Nuremburg to explore Luther’s influence on Hitler.
Secondary sources such as books written by Peter Wiener, Eliot Wheaton, and Daniel
Goldhagen, will also be considered in order to compare my findings to those of other
scholars.
2 Emily Paras
Luther’s attitude toward the Jews appeared to change over his life. His earlier
attitudes seemed were sympathetic towards the Jews. The most convincing evidence of
this is his publication in 1523 of the essay That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew. In it, he
urges Christians to treat Jews more gently, and condemns those who treat them as
inhuman. Specifically he accuses Catholics of being unfair to them, arguing that,
If I had been a Jew and had seen such dolts and blockheads
govern and teach the Christian faith, I would sooner have
become a hog than a Christian. They have dealt with the
Jews as if they were dogs rather than human beings; they
have done little else than deride them and seize their
property.1
This quote will stand out later in stark contrast to Luther’s later works about the Jews.
He even goes so far as to write, “If we really want to help them, we must be guided in our
dealings with them…we must receive them cordially, and permit them to…hear our
Christian teachings and witness our Christian life.”2
Lutheran theologians who excuse
Luther’s later anti-Semitic attitudes, called “apologists,” often use these two quotes to
prove that Luther originally was friendly to the Jews. They offer excuses such as his old
age and declining health as reasons why he adopted a negative attitude toward Jews.
However, as I more thoroughly examined the primary source itself, I have come to
believe that the real “truth,” if this can be found, is that Luther was anti-Semitic all along,
and only revealed his true colors after becoming agitated and frustrated with the Jews.
As Luther explains, he was prompted to write this earlier essay, That Jesus Christ
Was Born a Jew, in response to a lie that was circulating about him. This lie was that he
did not believe that Mary was a virgin at the time of Jesus’s birth. Through this book, he
1 Martin Luther, That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew, ed. Helmut T. Lehmann, trans. Walther I.
Brandt, vol. 45 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1962), 200. 2
Ibid., 229.
the article continues
"he was not addressing the Jews, but Christians who supposedly spread this lie about him.
However, he does reveal another, more minor objective, when he writes: “that I might
perhaps also win some Jews to the Christian faith.”3
A secondary source written by
Andreas Pangritz supports my theory: “A close reading of Luther’s statements will prove
that as early as 1523 he was interested in the Jews simply as objects of conversion…there
is much more continuity than apologists of the Reformer would admit between Luther’s
allegedly pro-Jewish attitude in 1523 and the explicitly anti-Semitic writings of his later
years.”4
Lutherans are not proud of Luther’s anti-Semitic views. One way they have
attempted to salvage his reputation is by alleging that he only became anti-Semitic when
he grew older, perhaps due to psychological reasons. Through this and other excuses
they have tried to hide the truth, in order to keep this embarrassing aspect of their religion
secret.
Another event that demonstrates the continuity of Luther’s views throughout his
life occurred in August of 1536. Elector John Frederick of Saxony, one of Luther’s
biggest supporters, decreed that all Jews were to be driven out of his electorate. Josel von
Rosheim, who at the time was considered the spokesman for the Jews, appealed to Luther
for help. At this time Luther was considered to be friendly towards the Jews, especially
because of his book, That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew. However, Luther refused, much
to the surprise of von Rosheim. According to Heiko A. Oberman, a renowned biographer
of Luther, “even today this refusal is often judged to be the decisive turning point in
3
Ibid., 200.
4
Andreas Pangritz, “Once More: Martin Luther and the Jews,” Remembering for the Future: The
Holocaust in an Age of Genocide 2 (2001): 604.
4 Emily Paras
Luther’s career from friendliness to hostility toward the Jews.”5
During this time Luther
tried to convert the Jews, but to no avail. He became frustrated with them, especially
when he received a treatise from Count Wolfgang Schlick of Falkenau, which suggested
that Jews were attempting to convert Christians to Judaism. Luther records this as
justification for writing On the Jews and Their Lies, “so that I might be found among
those who opposed such poisonous activities of the Jews and who warned the Christians
to be on their guard against them.”6
I believe this event pushed Luther over the edge, and
thus began his explicitly anti-Semitic writing.
In 1543 Luther published his infamous On the Jews and Their Lies. His main
arguments can be divided into four major parts. In the first part, Luther attacked what he
considered the Jews’ “false boasts,” mainly their lineage and covenant of circumcision.
In the second part, he debated key biblical passages. Third, he focused on the grossest
medieval superstitions concerning the Jews are the focus of the third part. The fourth,
and final, part included Luther’s recommendations for actions concerning the Jews. For
the purposes of this paper, the fourth part of this treatise will be primarily examined. It
contains the most evidence for Luther’s anti-Semitic views, and the Nazis quoted Luther
most often from this section.
Throughout the treatise he decried the Jews, claiming they were “an idle and lazy
people, such a useless, evil, pernicious people, such blasphemous enemies of God.”7
He
especially stressed the commonly held belief during this time that because Jews made
their livelihood through usury, they were able to steal and rob from others: “we let them
5 Heiko A. Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1989), 293.
6 Martin Luther, On the Jews and Their Lies, ed. Helmut T. Lehmann, trans. Martin H. Bertram,
vol. 47, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 137. 7
Ibid., 276.
& continues "we let them get rich on our sweat and blood, while we remain poor and they suck the marrow from
our bones.”8
After ranting and raving about the Jews, he gave his advice to his fellow
Christians. This advice is in the form of an eight-point plan to deal with the Jews. This
plan is most often referred to when scholars attempt to connect Luther with Hitler.
First, Luther told Christians to “set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury
and cover with dirt whatever will not burn.”9
This advice was implemented by the Nazis
during the anti-Semitic pogrom known as Kristallnacht, which will be elaborated on later
in this paper. Second, he recommended that “their houses also be razed and destroyed.”10
Third, he advised that “all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such
idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.”11 Fourth, he
declared that “rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb.”12
Fifth, he urged that “safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for
the Jews.”13 Sixth, he wrote that “usury should be prohibited to them, and that all cash
and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping.”14 This
recommendation directly contradicted one of Luther’s earlier statements defending Jews
in his treatise, That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew, and was also taken by the Nazis.
Acting on this advice during the Third Reich, the Nazis often stole money and valuables
from the Jews, especially after they were sent to concentration camps. Seventh, he
recommended “putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the
8
Ibid., 273.
9
Ibid., 268.
10 Ibid., 269.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., 270.
14 Ibid.
6 Emily Paras
hands…letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow.”15 The Nazis also took
this advice when they implemented concentration camps, where Jews were forced into
hard manual labor.
Finally, he wrote that “if we wish to wash our hands of the Jews’ blasphemy and
not share in their guilt, we have to part company with them. They must be driven from
our country…like mad dogs.”16 This also directly contradicted Luther’s earlier statement
criticizing the Catholics treatment of the Jews. This advice was taken by the Nazis as
well, but they took it a step farther when they implemented their “final solution.”
Is it “true” that Luther was anti-Semitic? I have to answer with a resounding yes.
However, I think the term “anti-Judaic” better describes Luther, considering the fact that
“anti-Semitic” is a modern word, first used in the mid-19th century. Anti-Semitism also
concerns the issue of race, whereas Luther’s objection to the Jews had nothing to do with
their race, but their religious beliefs.
In trying to uncover the “truth” about Luther’s views, the main problem I
encountered was the depth of his writings. Luther’s works fill volumes upon volumes of
books. To read all of them would be nearly impossible, especially in my case where I
had a limited amount of time to research. Therefore I read only the two books that most
directly impacted this paper. There may be other important writings of his on this matter
that I have not been able to uncover due to time constraints. Also, my readings of
Luther’s work are dependent on the translated version. How much should I trust that the
translator was accurate? On balance, however, I believe the evidence I did uncover is
extensive enough to prove that Luther was anti-Semitic.
15 Ibid., 272.
16 Ibid., 292"
& continues
"The influence of Luther’s writings on the Nazis was quite profound. Several of
Hitler’s top advisors quoted Luther, as well as Hitler himself. In the chapter entitled
“The Beginning of My Political Activity” from Mein Kampf, Hitler’s infamous book, he
discussed the “great warriors” in this world, who:
though not understood by the present, are nevertheless
prepared to carry the fight for their ideas and ideals to their
end…to them belong, not only the truly great statesmen,
but all other great reformers as well. Beside Frederick the
Great stands Martin Luther.17
Hitler also quoted Luther during one of his speeches: “I do insist on the certainty that
sooner or later-once we hold power…the German church established…without a Pope
and without the Bible, and Luther, if he could be with us, would give us his blessing.”18
Hitler’s top officials soon followed his example, beginning with Bernhard Rust.
Bernhard Rust, Hitler’s Education Minister, was quoted in the Volkischer
Beobachter as saying: “Since Martin Luther closed his eyes, no such son of our people
has appeared again…we shall be the first to witness his reappearance…I think the time is
past when one may not say the names of Hitler and Luther in the same breath. They
belong together; they are of the same old stamp.”19 This quote by Rust demonstrates that
he was influenced by Luther, and believed his teachings paralleled Hitler’s. In arguing
that they “belong together” he tried to justify Hitler’s actions through Luther’s beliefs.
Hans Hinkel, a journalist and ministerial official during the Nazi regime, was also
influenced by Luther. He paid tribute to him during his acceptance speech of Goebbels’s
Chamber of Culture and Propaganda Ministry, saying that “through his acts and his
17 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1971), 213. 18 Peter F. Wiener, Martin Luther: Hitler’s Spiritual Ancestor (Cranford, New Jersey: American
Atheist Press, 1999), ix-x. 19 Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945 (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 136-7.
"through his acts and his spiritual attitude he began the fight which we still wage today; with Luther the revolution
of German blood and feeling against alien elements of the Volk was begun.”20 Again,
this quote demonstrates that Luther’s works were used to justify Nazi actions. In this
case, Hinkel alluded to the fact that Luther began the revolution that the Nazis continued.
One of the most vehement anti-Semitic Nazis during this time period was Julius
Streicher, editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Sturmer. After the end of World War II, he
was arrested and accused of committing war crimes. During his trial, he claimed that
“Dr. Martin Luther would very probably sit in my place in the defendants’ dock today, if
this book [On the Jews and Their Lies] had been taken into consideration by the
Prosecution.”21 This statement from Streicher shows that he believed Luther was just as
guilty as himself, and he uses Luther to defend himself against the accusations being
made against him. On October 1st, 1946, he was found guilty of crimes against humanity,
and he was executed on October 16th of that year.
Not only did Luther influence important Nazi officials, but it has been suggested
that he also helped inspire certain major events during the Third Reich. One of these
events was Kristallnacht. On this night, November 10th, 1938, Nazis killed Jews,
shattered glass windows, and destroyed hundreds of synagogues. Bishop Martin Sasse, a
leading Lutheran churchman, immediately saw the connection between this event and
Luther’s writing. Shortly after the event, he published a compendium of Luther’s antiSemitic works. In the foreword, he applauded the event, especially since it occurred on
Luther’s birthday. He also wrote that the German people should pay attention to the
20 Ibid., 137.
21 The International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals, vol. 12, (Nuremburg,
Germany, 1947), 318.
the article says "pay attention to the writings of Luther, who was the “greatest anti-Semite of this time, the warner of his
people against the Jews.”22 Another event in which Luther’s presence was felt was the
Nuremberg rallies. During the rallies, a copy of On the Jews and Their Lies was publicly
exhibited in a glass case, and the city of Nuremberg presented a first edition to Julius
Streicher.
Another Nazi propaganda pamphlet that cited Luther was titled “Why the Aryan
Law? A Contribution to the Jewish Question.” It was written for mass circulation by Dr.
E.H. Schulz and Dr. R. Frercks in 1934. It summarized the “Aryan Law,” which was
implemented early in Hitler’s rule with the intent of driving Jews out of the professions.
This pamphlet quoted Luther in an attempt to justify Nazi racial legislation. The quote is
from On the Jews and Their Lies: "They [Jews] hold we Christians captive in our own
land. They have seized our goods by their cursed usury, they mock and insult us because
we work."23 Following this, Schulz and Frercks elaborated on Luther’s ideas and
writings, and the connections it had with Nazi legislation. Schulz and Frercks ended the
pamphlet by writing that “[i]f in the coming days the Jewish race is driven out of the nonJewish world…It has made clear to them for all time the value of maintaining the purity
of race and blood in clear, understandable and unforgettable ways.”24 Even though
Luther does not mention race in his writings of the Jews, the Nazis were able to twist and
warp his writings to support their beliefs.
Articles written during the Third Reich also used Luther to support their beliefs.
Kurt Hilmar Eitzen’s article written in the party monthly for propagandists, entitled “Ten
22 Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, (New York: Vintage, 1997), 265. 23 Schulz and Frercks. Accessed from http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/arier.htm 24 Ibid.
10 Emily Paras
Responses to Jewish Lackeys,” is one example. This article presented counterarguments
to the most common objections the Nazis encountered. These counterarguments were
supposed to be used in everyday conversations among common citizens. Luther is
quoted to counter argument number 5: “Argument 5: ‘Mr. Levi is not a Jew, since he has
been baptized!’ — Counterargument: ‘I have no desire to convert the Jews,’ Martin
Luther wrote, ‘since that is impossible.’ A Jew remains a Jew.”25 This is yet another
instance of the Nazis’ misuse of Luther’s works. Luther very often contradicted himself
on the possibility of converting Jews. However, he wrote that “whenever a Jew is
sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred
florins.”26 From this statement, one can conclude that Luther believed Jews could be
converted. His last sentence in his treatise On the Jews and Their Lies, deals with the
possibility of conversion: “May Christ, our dear lord, convert them mercifully.”27 Again,
Luther might have seen the possibility of Jews converting to Christianity. However, this
article uses Luther’s work to support the Nazis’ belief that Jews could not convert
because Judaism is a race. The idea of race and the purity of blood was one fundamental
belief of the Nazi party. However, not once does Luther mention the idea that Jews were
a separate race. The article takes Luther’s quote completely out of context, distorting it
to support their claims.
Luther also had an impact on the Lutherans living in Germany during the Third
Reich. In 1941, Hitler declared his intent to reform the Evangelical Church and
coordinate it with the state. On November 13th, a big rally was held in support of this
idea. The movement’s leader, Reinhardt Krause, delivered a speech which dealt with
25 Eitzen, Kurt accessed from http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/responses.htm
26 Luther, On the Jews and Their Lies, 270. 27 Ibid., 306
& lastly says
“which dealt with the tasks of a Reich Church in the Spirit of Dr. Martin Luther.”28 Lutherans throughout
Germany embraced this idea, and in general the majority did not oppose Hitler and his
policies. This may be hard to understand in retrospect, but author William Shirer
explains “it is difficult to understand the behavior of most German Protestants in the first
Nazi years unless one is aware of…the influence of Martin Luther. The great
founder…was both a passionate anti-Semite and a ferocious believer in absolute
obedience to political authority.”29 This influence on Lutherans led many of them to
accept the Nazis’ anti-Semitic views, and to blindly obey Hitler and other authorities as
Luther had preached.
There was one group of dissent, the “Confessing Church,” which was founded in
1934 by a group of pastors. These pastors opposed Hitler’s idea to create a Reich
Church. While it has been suggested by many scholars that this group proved that not all
Lutherans went along with Hitler, the evidence does not support this claim. Author Eliot
Wheaton writes that the Confessing Church “never ceased to resist Nazi encroachments
in the religious sphere. Outside that sphere…they…made little effort to oppose the
progress of Nazi tyranny and protect its victims.”30 This group was opposed to the Nazis’
interfering in their church, but they were not opposed, or at least publicly, with the Nazi’s
ethics. This is not to say that there were not Lutherans who resisted the Nazis, but it is
true that the majority were compliant.
How much did Luther actually influence the Nazis? Scholars are split on this
issue. Author Robert Waite argues that “Luther would have been appalled by the Third
28 Eliot B. Wheaton, Prelude to Calamity: The Nazi Revolution 1933-35 (Garden City, New York:
Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1968), 365. 29 William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960),
236. 30 Wheaton, 367.
12 Emily Paras
Reich…he would have denounced Hitler…would have been among the first executed.”31
Yet, he also concedes that “we must also say that the great religious reformer did
unwittingly help pave the way for Hitler.”32 In this realm, “truth” is harder to find. First
of all, the actual pamphlets that were written in Germany during the Third Reich are
stored in archives that are not easily accessible. These pamphlets are the primary
documents that would offer concrete evidence of Luther’s influence. Another difficulty
to discerning the truth is the actions of the Lutheran churches. While Luther did have
many positive contributions, this does not excuse or compensate for his negative
contributions to society. I was raised as a Lutheran, and yet I never learned of Luther’s
anti-Semitism. Now that I think about it, it makes sense that the Lutheran Church would
want to keep Luther’s anti-Semitism a secret. There are also very few secondary sources
that connect Luther and Hitler, and so I was not able to use a lot of these sources to aid
my investigation into the truth of my claim.
In the end, I believe I have uncovered a substantial amount of evidence that
proves that Martin Luther was anti-Semitic. However, I believe that I have not
uncovered enough truth to thoroughly support my claim that Luther significantly
influenced Hitler and the Nazis. Perhaps, in the future, with more time to investigate and
research sources, my claim will be proven.
31 Robert G.L. Waite, The Psychopathic God Adolf Hitler (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1977),
249. 32 Ibid., 249."
An article online by Pastor Paul Prather is headlined
"‘A sin against the Lord himself:’ Christians can’t love Christ and hate Jews."
BY PAUL PRATHER
JANUARY 07, 2021 the article says:
"For the past several weeks I’ve been mulling over something I normally have no call to think about: antisemitism.
I’m a Christian. I live in a small rural county where there are few, if any, Jews.
Prejudice against Jews, then, usually isn’t at the forefront of my mind. It’s something I assume belongs to some distant era. I don’t think much about Studebakers or Francisco Franco, either.
Yet it invariably turns out antisemitism isn’t a relic of the past. It’s an ugly manifestation of the present.
Of course, prejudice of any kind—racial, religious, national—makes little sense.
It results not just from malice, but also from lazy and irrational thinking that extrapolates from the specific to the universal.
It takes the crimes or quirks of a few members of a group and applies those shortcomings to everyone in the group. It creates guilt by association. It traffics in stereotypes.
This is cockeyed, obviously, as it denies humans their uniqueness and complexity. It also reveals an unwillingness to stop hating for five minutes to actually look at real people in all their diversity and complexity.
That same reasoning underlies bigotry no matter which group it’s aimed against: blacks, gays, women, men, Muslims, immigrants, Appalachians, Jews, you name it.
But the bigotry that makes least sense is the hatred of Jews by self-proclaimed Christians—of which there is a long and shameful history dating back centuries.
Still, around the nation, much of the bile and violence against Jews today is perpetrated by self-described Christian identity and nationalist groups.
Not only does Christian antisemitism include the hostility and lack of logic inherent in all bigotry, but there’s an added irony to it: no one owes more to the Jews than Christians do.
Because the New Testament tells us that hostile Jewish leaders pressured Roman authorities to crucify Jesus, antisemites within Christianity historically have slandered Jews as “Christ killers.”
That narrative, however, omits an equally clear part of the New Testament accounts.
Jesus was himself a Jew, descended from Abraham, the father of the Jewish faith. Jesus’ Jewish genealogy is included prominently in the scriptures. He quotes the Hebrew Bible. Most of his teachings come directly from Jewish traditions.
Mary was a Jew. Joseph was a Jew. The 12 original apostles were Jews. St. Paul was a Jew. All the early followers of Jesus were Jews, thousands of them. In its early years, what later came to be called Christianity was considered not a separate religion, but a sect within Judaism. The apostles seem to have believed initially that to become a disciple of Jesus you had to have been born a Jew or else must convert to that faith.
If you maintain that the people partly responsible for killing Jesus were Jewish, then you also must recognize that so were the mother who birthed, raised and loved him, the crowds who followed him and the leaders who took up his mantle after the resurrection.
For many Christians today, Jesus’ prophesied return to Earth revolves around modern Israel and the Jews, and some Christians expect Jesus to eventually reign from Jerusalem.
How then can a person who claims to be a Christian justify hating Jews?
Without Jews we don’t have our Bible as we know and love it. Without Jews there would be no Jesus. Without Jews there would be no Christianity. To hate Jews is to hate your own spiritual forbears. And your savior.
It’s beyond absurd.
No Jew should be despised by anyone for being Jewish, any more than any person should be despised for being brown, black, white, yellow, red, male, female, Muslim or atheist. People of all stripes are individuals who must be treated with respect.
But for someone to call himself by the name of Christ and hate Jews is uniquely repugnant. It’s a sin against the Lord himself."
From the website israeltoday.co.il an article is headlined "The “Synagogue of Satan”
Does this image in the New Testament describe the Jews? Judaism? What does it mean?"
JULY 13, 2020 TOPICS: MESSIANIC JEWS, BIBLE
by David Lazarus the article states:
"This image from the New Testament has been used for centuries to endorse the idea that Jewish synagogues and Judaism are from the devil. It has also contributed to the deep divisions and disunity between the church and synagogue. How should we understand this fateful portrayal, and what does the apostle mean by it?
As happens all too often, verses like this are taken out of context (especially about Israel and the Jews), and used in ways that they were never intended. A simple reading of the passage shows that this image is not about Jews or Judaism, but was used by John as a jarring image to warn the early Messianic community about a first century group “calling themselves Jews.”
“Look at those who belong to the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews but are liars instead” (Rev. 3:9).
Some have surmised that the Apostle is suggesting here that only he, and his Messianic followers, are the “true Jews.” In other words, as though John is saying, “We are the true community of God, the unbelieving Jews are “fake Jews.” This idea comes from another misinterpretation of Paul’s statement in Romans that, “true Jews are those circumcised in heart” (2:28-29). However, he is merely emphasizing that there is a deeper spiritual meaning of being Jewish that is often disregarded. He is not redefining who is a Jew, as some assume.
John is not claiming the title “the true Jews” for himself, or the Messianic community. The image of a synagogue of Satan is not a condemnation of the Jewish religion, rather, it is an expression of John’s concern that certain members of the Messianic community were “calling themselves Jews but are liars.”
The seat of Satan
In this section of his vision, John is writing from the Isle of Patmos to the seven churches in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey. To the Church of Pergamum, John writes, “I know where you live, where the throne of Satan sits” (Rev. 2:13). In the late 19th century, excavations at Pergamon uncovered a massive altar to the Greek god Zeus. The altar is 110 meters (360 ft.) in circumference with a 20- meter-wide (66 ft.) staircase leading up to it and was the centerpiece of an entire acropolis dedicated to the Greek gods. The restored altar is now part of the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, which includes findings from the legendary metropolis of the Hellenistic world in Pergamon that had influence throughout the region John is visiting in Asia Minor, since 146 BC.
At the time of his writing, John’s major concern was the influence and attraction that Hellenism was having on the early Church. The group of “fake Jews” John opposes are made up of Hellenized Jews who are welcoming God-fearers, and others, into their community without requiring substantial separation from the Greco-Roman culture and its idolatries. John then creates an image of this dangerous splinter group, a “synagogue of Satan,” who disagree with the apostle about what is required to be God’s people. John insists that the Messianic community be a movement of Jews and Gentiles separated from the pollutions of the all-encompassing Hellenistic-Roman culture."
the article continues
"In these passages to the seven churches in Asia Minor, John refers to several other groups that are also competing with John for leadership, and present dangerous cultural and idolatrous attractions leading the early community into serious error. He calls these factions Jezebel, Balaam and Nicolaitans (Rev. 2-3), and together with the image of a satanic synagogue, John sees the same diabolical hand behind them all.
John is mocking these sects with biblical names, and of the fake “true Jews” who present themselves as the congregation of God, John calls sarcastically a “synagogue of Satan.”
There is absolutely no justification to see in this image a rebuke of the Jewish people in general, nor of a supposed corrupt Judaism. Neither can we use this image to conclude that John was pointing to an early split between Judaism and Christianity; “us” and “them.” John nowhere claims exclusive use of the title Jew for himself, nor is there any notion of a so-called “true Israel” applied to the Church in any of his writings. This group that John considers outside the boundaries of Messianic faith, are simply those who are too Hellenized, too assimilated, or too willing to compromise with polytheism.
It is this boundary, between the Messianic community of faith and the (“idolatrous” and “Satanic”) worldly culture, that is being opposed by the image of a “synagogue of Satan” – not the separation between Christianity and a supposed “demonic” Judaism. Understood this way, the apostle’s writings are a perceptive insight into what eventually became the greatest danger to the Church: the Hellenistic-Roman-Western materialistic and rationalistic culture and philosophy, in opposition to a biblical, Jewish faith.
It is perhaps needless to point out, again, how the misinterpretation of this verse, and others, has contributed to a long history of antisemitism and anti-Judaism in the Church.
Perhaps we all might consider what Abraham Joshua Heschel, a rabbi who articulates better than most a challenge to the Church in our own days: “The vital issue for the Church is to decide whether to look for roots in Judaism and consider itself an extension of Judaism, or to look for roots in pagan Hellenism and consider itself as an antithesis to Judaism.” The Insecurity of Freedom (Schocken Books, 1972) pp. 169-70."
For more on this see our series Athens or Jerusalem? Establishing the Spiritual Heritage of Jesus’ Followers
From the adl.org website, an article is headlined ANTISEMITISM GLOBALLY
"The Role of the Churches in Nazi Germany"
Compliance and Confrontation
by:
Victoria J. Barnett
January 1, 1998
This article originally appeared in Dimensions, Vol 12, No 2 the article says:
"Churches throughout Europe were mostly silent while Jews were persecuted, deported and murdered by the Nazis. Churches, especially those in Nazi Germany, sought to act, as institutions tend to do, in their own best interests -- narrowly defined, short-sighted interests.
The list of "bystanders" -- those who declined to challenge the Third Reich in any way -- that emerges from any study of the Holocaust is long and depressing. Few organizations, in or outside Nazi Germany, did much to resist Nazism or aid its victims.
[I]t has become abundantly clear that [the Churches'] failure to respond to the horrid events...was not due to ignorance; they knew what was happening. Ultimately, the Churches' lapses during the Nazi era were lapses of vision and determination.
Assisting European Jews was not a high priority of the Allied governments as they sought to defeat Hitler militarily. The courageous acts of individual rescuers and resistance members proved to be the exception, not the norm.
To a great extent, this inertia defined the organized Christian community as well. Churches throughout Europe were mostly silent while Jews were persecuted, deported and murdered. In Nazi Germany in September 1935, there were a few Christians in the Protestant Confessing Church who demanded that their Church take a public stand in defense of the Jews. Their efforts, however, were overruled by Church leaders who wanted to avoid any conflict with the Nazi regime. Internationally, some Church leaders in Europe and North America did condemn the Nazis' measures against the Jews, and there were many debates about how Christians outside Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied territory should best respond to Hitler's brutal policies. These discussions, however, tended to become focused more on secondary strategic considerations -- like maintaining good relations with colleagues in the German Churches -- than on the central humanitarian issues that were really at stake.
Churches throughout the world began to address their failures after 1945. Confessions of guilt have been issued by Catholic Churches in France and Germany, and most major Protestant denominations, beginning with the German Evangelical Church's Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt in August 1945 (three months after the war in Europe ended). The early statements were vague, often referring only to the Churches' general lack of decisiveness in opposing Nazism. More recently, however, the Christian Churches have been far more specific -- recognizing that they not only failed to resist Nazism, but actually helped prepare the way for the mass destruction of Europe's Jews through centuries of proselytization, attacks on Judaism, and tacit or overt support for pogroms and other anti-Jewish violence."
the article continues :
"These admissions of guilt are part of a difficult process, which still continues, in which Christians try to grasp exactly what happened to their Churches during the Holocaust. The examinations raise a number of questions: Were the Churches, by and large, passive while millions of innocent people were murdered? To what extent can we say they resisted? To what extent were they guilty of active complicity? Most importantly: Why did the Churches respond as they did? These are, obviously, complex questions, historically and theologically.
Factors Shaping Behavior of Christian Churches
Three main factors shaped the behavior of the Christian Churches during the Nazi reign of terror in Germany and abroad. The first was the theological and doctrinal anti-Judaism that existed in parts of the Christian tradition. (Long before 1933, the anti-Judaism that existed within the Churches -- ranging from latent prejudice to the virulent diatribes of people like Martin Luther -- lent legitimacy to the racial anti-Semitism that emerged in the late nineteenth century.) The second factor was the Churches' historical role in creating "Christendom" -- the Western European culture that, since the era of the Roman emperor Constantine, had been explicitly and deliberately "Christian." The Churches' advocacy of a "Christian culture" led to a "sacralization of cultural identity" (as the theologian Miroslav Volf puts it), in which dominant, positive values were seen as "Christian" ones, while developments viewed negatively (such as secularism and Marxism) were attributed to "Jewish" influences. Moreover, particularly in the German Evangelical Church (the largest Protestant Church in Germany), the allegiance to the concept of Christendom was linked to a strong nationalism, symbolized by German Protestantism's "Throne and Altar" alliance with state authority. The third factor was the Churches' understanding of their institutional role. While most Christian religious leaders in Germany welcomed the end of the Weimar Republic and the resurgence of nationalism, they became increasingly uneasy about their institutions' future in what was clearly becoming a totalitarian state. (Moreover, many of the leading Nazis were overtly anti-Christian.) The Churches in Nazi Germany, while wanting to retain their prominent place in society, opposed any state control of their affairs. The Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches sought to maintain some degree of independence by entering into certain arrangements with the Nazi regime. The 1933 concordat, signed by representatives of the Nazi regime and the Vatican, ostensibly secured independence for Catholic schools and other Catholic institutions in Nazi Germany. The Protestant Churches, which were divided regionally, behaved cautiously -- avoiding public confrontation and negotiating privately with Nazi authorities -- in the hope that this would ensure institutional independence from direct Nazi control."
& continues:
"Throughout Hitler's Germany, bishops and other Christian religious leaders deliberately avoided antagonizing Nazi officials. When Christian clergymen and Christian women deplored Nazi policies, they often felt constrained to oppose those policies in a muted fashion. Even in the Protestant Confessing Church (the Church group in Germany that was most critical of Nazism), there was little support for official public criticism of the Nazi regime, particularly when it came to such central and risky issues as the persecution of Jews.
Anti-Judaism in Germany's Churches
The role of anti-Judaism in Germany's Churches during the Nazi era was a complicated one. Throughout the 1930s, there was ample evidence of anti-Semitism in many of the sermons and articles that appeared in the German Churches' publications. Some German Church leaders proudly announced that they were anti-Semites. Others, who weren't anti-Semitic, nevertheless warned their colleagues against any public show of support for the Jewish victims of the Nazi regime. Christian anti-Semitism often complemented other factors -- notably, the strong nationalism in the German Protestant Churches. The most extreme example of this combination of anti-Semitism and nationalism was the so-called German Christian Movement, a Protestant group that embraced Nazism and tried to Nazify Christianity by suppressing the Old Testament, revising liturgies and hymns, and promoting Jesus as an Aryan hero who embodied the ideals of the new Germany.
It must be said that the Churches' theological attitudes about Jews did not always take the form of anti-Jewish diatribes, or other kinds of explicit anti-Semitism. Often they manifested themselves in their determination to convert Jews, and so Nazi policies confronted the Christian Churches with an unresolvable theological problem: in a society that was determined to eradicate the Jews, the Christian Gospel claimed that the Jews were God's chosen people and should be the special objects of Christian proselytizing. This led to deep divisions among German clergy about what they really believed and what they were supposed to do in their new situation.
For the most part, the influences that motivated and guided the German Churches in the Thirties and Forties essentially paralyzed these institutions' potential challenges to Nazism, or led them to implicitly (though reluctantly) support Hitler's regime. The German Churches stumbled, and they stumbled badly. The leaders of the Churches spent a great deal of time delineating a "viable" position: one that would conform to Christian doctrine, prevent their Church from dividing into opposing factions, and avoid antagonizing the Nazi authorities. In any examination of the German Churches' statements from this era, what is most striking is their painstaking attempt to say, publicly, neither too much nor too little about what is happening around them. Needless to say, this ruled out any consistent or emphatic response to the Nazis' persecution of Jews and others. And institutional inaction gave individual Christians throughout Germany an alibi for passivity. More tragically, individual Christians who did express solidarity with the persecuted Jews -- such as the Catholic priest Bernhard Lichtenberg and the Protestant deaconess Marga Meusel -- received no public (and little private) support from their respective Churches.
Christian Opposition to the Hitler Regime Outside of Germany"
& continues
"The story recounted in this article up to this point has been, for the most part, a dismal one, but some Christian Churches and organizations outside of Germany did evince vigorous opposition to the Nazi state in the Thirties and Forties. From the beginning of Hitler's regime, the ecumenical Christian movement (its central offices were located in Geneva, London and New York) strongly condemned developments in Nazi Germany that threatened the independence of Christian Churches and the safety of Jews. On May 26 and 29, 1933, twelve hundred American clergymen from 26 different Christian denominations sponsored an advertisement in The New York Times condemning anti-Jewish activities in Nazi Germany. Leaders of the Federal Council of Churches (a Protestant group), located in the United States, sent angry letters in 1933 to their colleagues in the German Churches, demanding public statements denouncing Nazi policies. Between 1933 and 1945, there were six major statements from the leaders of Churches in this country and in Europe (outside the Third Reich) that specifically condemned anti-Semitism and the Nazi persecution of Jews. (Among the officials involved were the Archbishop of Canterbury and Samuel Cavert and Henry Smith Leiper of the Federal Council of Churches in New York.) In November 1938, the three leading Protestant ecumenical organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, issued a statement castigating "antisemitism in all its forms" and urging governments to permit more Jewish refugees to enter their countries. In the United States in December 1938, the Federal Council of Churches and the U.S. Catholic bishops issued a joint condemnation of Kristallnacht, which had occurred a month earlier. (It was the first Protestant/Catholic joint statement on a social issue in this country.) In December 1942, after reports of genocide began to reach the Allied countries, the Federal Council of Churches passed a resolution protesting the "virtual massacre" of Europe's Jews. This was followed by similar protests from the Anglican Church in England and a joint statement by Protestant ecumenical leaders and the World Jewish Congress in Geneva. In Great Britain, the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, gave an impassioned speech in March 1943 in the House of Lords, demanding an immediate end to immigration quotas and an increase in Allied aid to countries that offered refuge to Jews. In a 1983 speech delivered at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Gerhardt Riegner, the director of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva during the war (and a man who had participated in efforts to rescue Jews from the Nazis), said that, during the Holocaust, "the human understanding, friendship, and the helping hand" of his Protestant ecumenical colleagues "were the only signs of light in the darkness that surrounded us."
These aspects of the Christian Churches' opposition to the Third Reich did not, of course, impede the workings of the Holocaust, or even lead to the rescue of significant numbers of endangered Jews. The actions and pronouncements described here were not part of any long-term, comprehensive and coordinated program. The Christian leaders outside of Germany who spoke out against the persecution of the Jews and against genocide were a minority in the Christian world. They failed to win significant support from their own Church members. There were early attempts (in 1933 and 1934, in the United States and Britain) to establish an interfaith Catholic, Jewish and Protestant network to help refugees from Nazi Germany. These efforts failed, in part, because of the lack of widespread support in the Christian Churches. Throughout the Thirties and Forties, the major Christian refugee offices in Europe and the U.S. received far more financial support from Jewish organizations like the United Jewish Appeal than from their own member Churches."
& lastly says
"German Churches Actions Based on Institutional Interests
Throughout the Nazi era, ardent debates took place within the German Churches about where to stand firm against Hitler's regime and where to compromise, when to speak out and when to remain silent. Ecumenical documents show that from 1933 to 1945 there were Christian leaders inside and outside Germany who agonized about what they could do to stop Nazism and help its victims. The historical complexities suggested by these factors should never lead us to condone the Churches' failures during the Thirties and Forties; they can, however, help us to understand the specific nature of those failures so that we may learn from them.
Perhaps at the heart of those failures was the fact that the Churches, especially in Nazi Germany, sought to act, as institutions tend to do, in their own best interests -- narrowly defined, short-sighted interests. There was little desire on the part of the Churches for self-sacrifice or heroism, and much emphasis on "pragmatic" and "strategic" measures that would supposedly protect these institutions' autonomy in the Third Reich. Public institutional circumspection carried to the point of near numbness; an acute lack of insight: these are the aspects of the Churches' behavior during the Nazi era that are so damning in retrospect. The minutes of German Protestant synodal meetings in 1942 reveal how oblivious the participants were to what was happening in the world around them. While innocent victims throughout Europe were being brutally murdered, Christian leaders were debating what points of doctrine and policy were tenable. This is especially haunting, of course, because the Christian clergy and laity never thought of their respective Churches as a mere institution, but as a religious body witnessing in the world to certain values, including love of neighbors, the sanctity of life and the power of moral conscience.
Reflecting on the failure of the Churches to challenge the Nazis should prompt us to ponder all the others -- individuals, governments and institutions -- that passively acquiesced to the Third Reich's tyranny. Even the wisest and most perceptive of them, it seems, failed to develop adequate moral and political responses to Nazi genocide, failed to recognize that something new was demanded of them by the barbarism of Hitler's regime. Moreover, it has become abundantly clear that their failure to respond to the horrid events in Europe in the Thirties and Forties was not due to ignorance; they knew what was happening.
Ultimately, the Churches' lapses during the Nazi era were lapses of vision and determination. Protestant and Catholic religious leaders loyal to creeds professing that love can withstand and conquer evil, were unable or unwilling to defy one of the great evils in human history. And so the Holocaust will continue to haunt the Christian Churches for a very, very long time to come.
Victoria J. Barnett is a writer and scholar whose work examines the Protestant Churches during the Holocaust. She is the author of For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler and Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity in the Holocaust. She is also the editor of the English-language edition of Wolfgang Gerlach's And the Witnesses Were Silent: The Confessing Church and the Jews and the English-language edition of Eberhard Bethge's biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer."
From the website, washingtonpost.com an article is headlined Acts of Faith
"‘If you hate Jews, you hate Jesus, too’"
A man walks near a memorial outside Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 28, a day after a gunman killed 11 people there. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)
By Russell Moore
Oct. 31, 2018 the article says:
"On the Jewish Sabbath this week, a white-nationalist terrorist killed 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in what is being called the deadliest attack on Jewish people in American history. Sadly, at a time when it seems as though every week brings more bloodshed and terror in this country, we should not let the news cycle move on without a sober reflection of what this attack means for us as Christians.
Such is especially true as we look at a world surging with resurgent “blood-and-soil” ethno-nationalism, much of it anti-Semitic in nature. As Christians, we should have a clear message of rejection of every kind of bigotry and hatred, but we should especially note what anti-Semitism means for people who are followers of Jesus. We should say clearly to anyone who would claim the name “Christian” the following truth: If you hate Jews, you hate Jesus.
Anti-Semitism is, by definition, a repudiation of Christianity as well as of Judaism. This ought to be obvious, but world history, even church history, shows us this is not the case. Christians reject anti-Semitism because we love Jesus.
I will often hear Christians say, “Remember that Jesus was Jewish.” That’s true enough, but the past tense makes it sound as though Jesus’ Jewishness were something he sloughed off at the resurrection. Jesus is alive now, enthroned in heaven. He is transfigured and glorified, yes, but he is still Jesus. This means he is still, and always will be, human. He is still, and always will be, the son of Mary. He is, and always will be, a Galilean. When Jesus appeared before Saul of Tarsus on the Road to Damascus, the resurrected Christ introduced himself as “Jesus of Nazareth” (Acts 22:8). Jesus is Jewish, present tense.
Indeed, much of the New Testament is about precisely that point. Jesus is a son of Abraham. He is of the tribe of Judah. He is of the House of David. Jesus’ kingship is valid because he descends from the royal line. His priesthood, although not of the tribe of Levi, is proved valid because of Melchizedek, the priest’s relation to Abraham. Those of us who are joint-heirs with Christ are such only because Jesus is himself the offspring and heir of Abraham (Galatians 3:29).
As Christians, we are, all of us, adopted into a Jewish family, into an Israelite story. We, who were once not a people, have been grafted on, in Jesus, to the branch that is Israel (Romans 11:17-18). That’s why the New Testament can speak even to gentile Chrisitans as though the story of their own forefathers were that of the Old Testament scriptures. We have been brought into an Israelite story, a story that started not in first-century Bethlehem but, millennia before, in the promise that Abraham would be the father of many nations."
the article continues
"Whatever our ethnic background, if we are in Christ, we are joined to him. That means the Jewish people are, in a very real sense, our people, too. An attack on the Jewish people is an attack on all of us.
The reason this is critically important to reassert is because the blood-and-soil movements often want to claim the word “Christian.” The way they define this, you will notice, is in opposition to some other group. They are “Christian” instead of Jewish, or “Christian” instead of Muslim or some other religious identity. What they usually mean is “European white identity” defined in terms of “Christendom.” This accused killer had posted social media rants not only against Jewish people but also against Jewish people’s efforts to help refugees and migrants fleeing Latin American persecution.
Such types have long been with us. Notice the way the “German Christian” movement wanted to maintain “the church” and “the Bible” but whitewashed them of their Jewishness. A Bible with its Jewishness wrung out of it is no Bible. A Christ with his Jewishness obscured is no Christ at all. We cannot even say his name, “Jesus,” or “Yahweh saves” without immediately being confronted with our Lord’s Jewishness.
We groan anytime an innocent human life is taken. We weep every time there is a terrorist attack. We should do so this time as well. But we should also make very clear that those who carry out such repulsive attacks on the Jewish people are an attack on the image of God, an attack on Jesus as a son of Adam. But such attacks are, even more specifically, an attack on Jesus as a son of Abraham. When you lash out at a synagogue’s rabbi, you are attacking our rabbi as well.
If you hate Jews, you hate Jesus.
Russell Moore is president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. This piece first appeared on his site, russellmoore.com. "
From www.timesofisrael.com an article is headlined
"Pope Francis: A Christian cannot be an anti-Semite" the article says:
In aftermath of Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left 11 dead, Holy See tells visiting Jews that anti-Semitism contradicts Catholic faith
By JTA
6 November 2018, 5:21 pm
Pope Francis delivers his speech during a Mass for the closing of the synod of bishops in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Oct. 28, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
"Pope Francis lamented anti-Semitic attacks and remarked that “a Christian cannot be an anti-Semite” during an audience with Jewish emissaries on Monday.
The pope received four first time delegates of the World Congress of Mountain Jews at the Vatican.
Two weeks after the attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue that killed 11 worshipers Francis said in a statement: “Sadly, anti-Semitic attitudes are also present in our own times,” during his meeting with the emissaries of the Mountain Jews, the descendants of Jews who left ancient Persia and settled in the Caucasus.
“A Christian cannot be an anti-Semite; we share the same roots. It would be a contradiction of faith and life. Rather, we are called to commit ourselves to ensure anti-Semitism is banned from the human community,” he said.
The day after the Pittsburgh attack, the head of the Catholic Church said in his weekly prayers that “all of us are wounded by this inhuman act of violence.”
The Argentinian-born pope, who formerly was named Jorge Bergoglio and who was the former archbishop of Buenos Aires, was close to the victims of the terrorist attack on a Jewish target in his hometown.
Francis also told the Mountain Jews: “I have always sought to emphasize the importance of friendship between Jews and Catholics. It is based on a fraternity grounded in the history of salvation and it finds concrete expression in concern for one another. Together with you, I would like to offer thanks to the Giver of every gift for the blessing of our friendship, which is a reason and an impetus to mutual dialogue.”
He closed his remarks with “Shalom aleichem!”
From ChristianCentury.org an article is headlined
'Betrayal of Spirit: Jew-Hatred, the Holocaust, and Christianity"
reviewed by Steven Bowman September 21, 2009
IN REVIEW
Betrayal of Spirit: Jew-Hatred, the Holocaust, and Christianity
Thomas A. Idinopulos
Davies Group
BUY FROM BOOKSHOP.ORG the description says
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"Imagine the shock of a young boy growing up in a polyglot, multiethnic neighborhood when confronted with the Jew-hatred of a trusted family acquaintance. This is the experience that propelled Thomas Idinopulos into a career of theological analysis and historical reading designed to help him understand the origins and development of the Holocaust. Betrayal of Spirit gathers a selection of his seminal studies, now updated, and a series of articles written especially for this volume.
The book is divided into four sections. In the first Idinopulos surveys the history of Jew-hatred and discusses the relationship between anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. In part two he explores the theological roots of Jew-hatred. In part three he leaps into the complexity of the Holocaust with essays on the Nazi use of anti-Semitism. In part four he confronts modern theology directly: How do Christianity and Judaism respond to the Holocaust? Was the cross really triumphant over sin and death?"
From ChristianCentury.org an article is headlined
'Anti-Semitism is Christianity’s original sin" the article says
Attacks on Jewish people, like attacks on African Americans, place a mirror in front of our culture and religion.
by Jonathan Grieser
November 2, 2018
"Last week saw two attacks on communities of faith. The first, at an African American church, was thwarted by security measures the congregation had put in place after Charleston. Undeterred, the gunman went to a nearby town and gunned down two African Americans in a parking lot. The second was at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh where 11 worshipers, aged 54 to 97, were brutally murdered. Both assassins were white men filled with hatred.
Jonathan Grieser
@gracerector
Jonathan Grieser is rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Madison, WI. His blog is part of the CCblogs network.
See All Articles
The killings at Tree of Life synagogue have struck a nerve in me and throughout America. World War II and the Final Solution showed us the scale of the horror that human beings could inflict on each other and revealed the end goal of anti-Semitism. At the same time, American Jews assimilated into the mainstream. As many Jews became less observant and intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews became common, Jews seemed to be different from other Americans only in their personal or family histories, or in that they observed Hanukkah as well as Christmas.
The massacre at Tree of Life, like the massacre at Mother Emanuel Baptist Church, places a mirror in front of us, revealing us to be who we are, revealing that anti-Semitism is not a historical relic but a present reality. It demands that we confront it in all of its evil, to expose all the ways our culture and our religion continue to be shaped by it.
Though Christianity began as a movement within Judaism and a movement that sought to maintain a Jewish identity at its center, its theological and institutional development was shaped by anti-Judaism. Paul’s vision that “in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male and female” quickly gave way to a very different perspective, such as that in the Gospel of John, where “the Jews” are depicted as Jesus’ implacable opponents and responsible for his death. Not surprisingly, the Pittsburgh shooter cited a verse from John on his social media profile: “‘Jews [You, the text reads] are the children of Satan’ (John 8:44).”
the article continues
"Theologically, Jews were consistently viewed as obstinate, or stiff-necked, for their resistance to the truth of the gospel. Efforts were even made early on to expunge scripture of its Jewish content or to claim that the Old and New Testaments bore witness to two different Gods—a perspective that persists in popular ideas of the “the angry God of the Old Testament” and “the loving God of the New Testament.”
I won’t rehearse here the history of Christian anti-Judaism or how over time that anti-Judaism, which was based in theological categories, became broader and ultimately developed into anti-Semitism. But there are important elements that are worth noting. For example, the first victims of the medieval crusades were not Muslim or Turkish people, but Jewish people living in German towns and cities of the Rhineland. In the 16th and 17th centuries, after Jews were expelled from Spain, the Spanish Inquisition continued to pursue third and fourth generation descendants of Jewish converts to Christianity.
If racism is America’s original sin, then anti-Semitism is Christianity’s original sin, a symbol of our failure to embrace the full humanity and diversity of our brothers and sisters and to conceive of a God who might extend grace and love to all people without abandoning the covenant established with God’s chosen people. And like our reluctance to confront the racism central to American identity, our refusal to confront the anti-Semitism that has helped to shape and define Christianity has allowed it to linger just below the surface, or to manifest itself in a myriad of subtle ways. It remains persistent and powerful enough to enter our political discourse in language of “globalists” or profiteering, in attacks on Jewish philanthropists or humanitarian organizations, and in images in campaign mailers that draw on medieval depictions of Jewish moneylenders.
As Christians, we must do more than mourn the dead, lament the persistence of anti-Semitism, and shake our fingers at hatemongers. We must confront all the ways Christianity has contributed to the hate and evil in our culture and our history. We must do the hard work of developing resources that provide a basis for constructing a new way of being Christian in our complicated and violent world. Even as we excavate the evil in our past and in our theology, we must acknowledge all the ways that our scriptures, our theologies, and our liturgies offer life-giving alternatives, hope, and joy."
From goodreads.com a good book to read is titled
"After the Evil: Christianity and Judaism in the Shadow of the Holocaust"
by Richard Harries
really liked it 4.00 · Rating details · 3 ratings · 2 reviews, the description says
"The evil of the holocaust demands a radical rethink of the traditional Christian understanding of Judaism. This does not mean jettisoning Christianity's deepest convictions in order to make it conform to Judaism. Rather, Richard Harries develops the work of recent Jewish scholarship to discern resonances between central Christian and Jewish beliefs.
This thought-provoking book offers fresh approaches to contentious and sensitive issues. A key chapter on the nature of forgiveness is sympathetic to the Jewish charge that Christians talk much too easily about forgiveness. Another chapter on suffering in Judaism and Christianity rejects the usual stereotypes and argues for important common ground, for example in the idea that God suffers in the suffering of his people. There are also chapters on the state of Israel and the place of Jerusalem in Christian and Jewish thought.
Richard Harries argues that the basic covenant is not with either Judaism or Christianity but with humanity. These, like other religions, are different, distinctive voices in response to God's primal affirmation of human life, which for Christians is achieved and given in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In the light of this the author maintains--controversially --that Christians should not be trying to convert Jews to Christianity. Rather Jews and Christians should stand together and build on the great amount they have in common to work together for a better world."
Kindle Store $49.99AmazonStores ▾Libraries
Hardcover, 239 pages
Published August 14th 2003 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published July 3rd 2003)
Original TitleAfter the Evil: Christianity and Judaism in the Shadow of the Holocaust
ISBN0199263132 (ISBN13: 0000199263132)
Edition Language English
From barnesandnoble.com another book worth reading is titled
"Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust / Edition 1"
by R. Michael
(0)
PaperbackCurrent price is , Original price is $99.99. You
$99.99
Overview
"Although Christianity's precise influence on the Holocaust cannot be determined and the Christian churches did not themselves perpetrate the Final Solution, Michael argues that two millennia of Christian ideas and prejudices and their impact on Christians' behaviour appear to be the major basis of antisemitism and it's apex, the Holocaust.
Product Details About the Author Table of Contents
Product Details
ISBN-13: 9781403974723
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date: 10/27/2006
Edition description: 2006
Pages: 254
Product dimensions: 5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.02(d)
Editorial Reviews
'A praiseworthy achievement a model of its kind.' Paul R. Bartrop, Honorary Research Fellow, The Faculty of Arts, Deakin University, and Head of History, Bialik College
'Holy Hatred is a masterful, beautifully written study of how Christianity and the churches shaped and sustained a lethal antisemitism for almost two millennia. Future studies of the Holocaust or of antisemitism will have to address Michael's work.' Eunice G. Pollack, University of North Texas
'Following in the footsteps of Poliakov and Flannery, this book offers a powerful description of Christianity's intimate involvement with Judeophobia and anti-Semitism from the gospels forward.' Peter J. Haas, Abba Hillel Silver Professor of Jewish Studies, Chair, Department of Religious Studies, and Director, The Samuel Rosenthal Center for Judaic Studies, Case Western Reserve University
'If anyone still remains ignorant of the Christian origins of anti-Semitism ancient and modern and its contribution to the Holocaust, this book will remedy that bliss:clearly, and in comprehensive detail.' Richard Elliott Sherwin, Professor, Bar-Ilan University
From the Publisher" All Editions of this Holy Hatred book is worth reading
Also from barnesandnoble.com Another book is titled
"Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate / Edition 1"
by William Nicholls
Overview
"In Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate, Professor William Nicholls, a former minister in the Anglican Church and the founder of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of British Columbia, presents his stunning research, stating that Christian teaching is primarily responsible for antisemitism. As Nicholls states, these conclusions 'can now be fully justified by the most up-to-date scholarship, Christian as well as Jewish.' Nicholls writes, 'Many Jewish writers have said, quite simply, that the Nazis chose the Jews as the target of their hate because two thousand years of Christian teaching had accustomed the world to do so. Few Christian historians and theologians have been sufficiently open to the painful truth to accept this explanation without considerable qualification. Nevertheless, it is correct.' Christian Antisemitism traces, over two millennia, the growing domination of Western culture by the Christian 'myth' (as Nicholls calls it) about the Jews, and shows how it still exerts a major influence even on the secularized 'post-Christian world.' Nicholls shows, through scrupulous research and documentation, that the myth of the Jews as Christ-killers has powered anti-Judaism and antisemitism throughout the centuries. Nicholls clearly illustrates that this myth is present in the New Testament and that 'it has not yet died under the impact of modern critical history.' Also included in this remarkable volume is Nicholls' research regarding the Jewishness of Jesus. He writes, 'Historical scholarship now permits us to affirm with confidence that Jesus of Nazareth was a faithful and observant Jew who lived by the Torah and taught nothing against his own people and their faith...the Romans, not the Jews, were the Christ-killers.' In Part I, 'Before the Myth,' Nicholls explores the life of Jesus and his teachings as found in the New Testament. Was Jesus the founder of Christianity? Did he offer teachings against his people? Did he believe himself?"
In addition to the anti-semitic Judensau , another anti-semitic Sculpture from Medieval Europe is
"Ecclesia and Synagoga"
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
this article says:
"The original Ecclesia and Synagoga from the portal of Strasbourg Cathedral, now in the museum and replaced by replicas
Ecclesia and Synagoga, or Ecclesia et Synagoga in Latin, meaning "Church and Synagogue", are a pair of figures personifying the Church and the Jewish synagogue, that is to say Judaism, found in medieval Christian art. They often appear sculpted as large figures on either side of a church portal, as in the most famous examples, those at Strasbourg Cathedral. They may also be found standing on either side of the cross in scenes of the Crucifixion, especially in Romanesque art, and less frequently in a variety of other contexts.[1]
The two female figures are usually young and attractive; Ecclesia is generally adorned with a crown, chalice and cross-topped staff, looking confidently forward. In contrast, Synagoga is blindfolded and drooping, carrying a broken lance (possibly an allusion to the Holy Lance that stabbed Christ) and the Tablets of the Law or Torah scrolls that may even be slipping from her hand.[2] The staff and spear may have pennants flying from them. In images of the Crucifixion, Ecclesia may hold a chalice that catches the blood spurting from the side of Christ; she often holds the chalice as an attribute in other contexts.[3] Attributes sometimes carried by Synagoga include a sheep or goat or just its head, signifying Old Testament sacrifice, in contrast to Ecclesia's chalice which represents the Christian Eucharist. If not blindfolded, Synagoga usually looks down.[4] Ecclesia has an earlier history, and in medieval art Synagoga occasionally appears alone in various contexts, but the pair, or Ecclesia by herself, are far more common. Further subjects where the pair may sometimes be found are the Tree of Jesse, and the Nativity.[5]
The first appearance of such figures in a Crucifixion is in a historiated initial in the Drogo Sacramentary of c. 830, but though Ecclesia already has most of her usual features already present, the figure representing the Jews or the Old Covenant is here a seated white-haired old man.[6] The pair, now with a female Jewish partner, are then found in several later Carolingian carved ivory relief panels of the Crucifixion for book covers, dating from around 870,[7] and remain common in miniatures and various small works until the 10th century. They are then less common in Crucifixions in the 11th century, but reappear in the 12th century in a more strongly contrasted way that emphasizes the defeat of Synagoga; it is at this point that a blindfolded Synagoga with a broken lance becomes usual. The figures continue to be found in Crucifixions until the early 14th century, and occur later in various contexts but are increasingly less common. The surviving portal figures mainly date from the 13th century.[8]
The wikipedia entry continues
Contents
1 Meaning
2 Ecclesia alone
3 Wise and Foolish Virgins
4 Modern developments
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links
Meaning[edit]
Ecclesia, left with chalice, and Synagoga, right, blindfold and holding a goat's head, in a Crucifixion from a German psalter of c. 1260
The medieval figures reflect the Christian belief, sometimes called Supersessionism, that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, and that Judaism as a religion was therefore made unnecessary, by its own tenets, once Christianity was established, and that all Jews should convert. Today opposed by dual-covenant theology, this belief was universal in the medieval church. Synagoga's blindfold reflected the refusal of medieval Jews to "see" this point, which was regarded as stubborn.[9] The Gospel of Matthew (27, 51) related that the Veil of the Temple, covering the entrance to the Holy of Holies, tore at the moment of Christ's death on the cross, which was taken to symbolize the moment of the replacement of Judaism by Christianity as the true religion, hence the presence of the pair in Crucifixion scenes.[10]
The blind covering Synagoga's eyes derived from the letter of Saint Paul at II Corinthians 3:13-16:[11]
We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away. 14 But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. 15 Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. 16 But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
The sculpted portal figures are generally found on the cathedrals of larger cities in northern Europe that had significant Jewish communities, especially in Germany, and apart from their theological significance, were certainly also intended to remind Jews of their place in a Christian society, by projecting "an ideal of Jewish submission within an ideally ordered Christian realm".[12] They are therefore very prominent, but not very common. Many Jews, like Christians, conducted business in churches, and would pass the figures as they came and went. However, Leo Spitzer claimed that unlike many medieval depictions of Jewish figures (other than those from the Hebrew Bible), there is very rarely any element of a hostile caricature in the depiction of Synagoga who, if clearly defeated, is often strikingly beautiful, as at Strasbourg.[13]
There are examples on the portals of the cathedrals at Minden, Bamberg and Freiburg Minster in Germany, as well as Notre Dame de Paris and Metz in France. In England there are remains of pairs, after damage or destruction in the English Reformation, from the cathedrals of Rochester, Lincoln, Salisbury, and Winchester;[14] the cathedrals of the two largest commercial centres, London and York, both date from later periods, but may have had them on earlier buildings. Surviving from the chapter house of York Minster are over life-size paintings on oak from a group of 48 supporting the roof vault and stained glass figures from the vestibule.[15] Châlons Cathedral and the Basilique Saint-Denis have versions in stained glass, respectively large and small. During the 14th century they become much rarer, replaced in Crucifixion scenes by large numbers of figures of soldiers and disciples, but some examples are found in the 15th century and later. A rare carved misericord at Erfurt Cathedral shows the pair jousting on horses; unsurprisingly, Ecclesia is winning. As with many misericords, this was probably intended as a humorous version of iconography treated with full seriousness in more prominent locations.[16]"
"In her book on the pair, Nina Rowe is sceptical of the traditional assumption of art historians that the hostility implicit in later depictions is found in the earliest ones. She relates the figures to Late Antique uses of personifications, including contrasting figures of orthodox Christianity and either paganism or heresy, especially Arianism,[17] and suggests that the identity of "Synagoga" was more variable before the millennium, with Jerusalem or its Temple being alternative identifications.[18] She describes the revival in use of the pair, now couched in more combative terms, as a reaction both to the influx into Western Europe of larger Jewish populations during the late 10th to the 12th centuries, and also to the Twelfth-century Renaissance, which involved contacts between Christian and Jewish scholars, who discussed their different interpretations of the Hebrew Bible. This made Christian theologians, mostly monastic, much more aware than previously of the existence of a vibrant Jewish theological tradition subsequent to the writing of the Hebrew Bible. Previously, Early Medieval Christians had likened the Jews to, as they were described by Augustine, "librarians" or "capsarii", a class of servant that was in charge of carrying books, but did not actually read them.[19] The increased contacts therefore had the paradoxical effect of making monasteries more aware that there was an alternative tradition of exegesis and scholarship, and stimulating them to counter this.
There was also a tradition of dramatized disputations between the two figures, which reached its height somewhat later than depictions in art, but had a similar geographical distribution.[20]
Ecclesia alone[edit]
Ecclesia enthroned, 12th century, Prüfening Abbey, Bavaria
Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins (top registers), Speculum Humanae Salvationis in Darmstadt, c. 1360
The personification of Ecclesia preceded her coupling with Synagoga by several centuries. A number of biblical passages, including those describing Christ as a "bridegroom" led early in the history of the church to the concept of the church as the Bride of Christ, which was shown in art using a queenly personification. The church was in this context sometimes conflated with the Virgin Mary, leading to the concept of Maria Ecclesia, or Mary as the church, which is an element, now usually unrecognised, in the theology behind much of the art showing the Virgin as a queen.[21]
An earlier appearance of two female figures is in the now heavily restored apse mosaic of Santa Pudenziana in Rome (402-417), where two female figures behind a row of apostles hold wreaths over Saints Paul and Peter respectively, and towards an enthroned Christ. These are usually taken to represent the "Church of the Gentiles" and "Church of the Jews" - i.e. groups within the Early Christian Church which still reflected their pre-conversion backgrounds. The figures are hardly differentiated.[22] A mosaic at Santa Sabina in Rome appears to have similar figures, though the Peter and Paul are now missing and only known from an old drawing.
Wise and Foolish Virgins[edit]
High medieval depictions of the New Testament parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins sometimes used the iconography of Ecclesia and Synagoga. This is not done in the German portal sculptures, several on the same buildings that feature figures of Ecclesia and Synagoga, as for example Strasbourg and Minden Cathedrals. It can be seen very clearly in the Darmstadt manuscript of the Speculum Humanae Salvationis illustrated here, from about 1360, where the leading virgins of each group have all the attributes of Ecclesia and Synagoga, and the lamp of the leading Wise Virgin has become a chalice. The interpretation of the parable in terms of wise Christian and foolish Jewish virgins, the latter missing the wedding party, long remained common in sermons and theological literature, and has been argued to be present in Handel's oratorio Messiah (1741).[23]
"Modern developments
Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time, Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia, July 2015.
The pair as a subject has often been avoided by modern artists, but after Napoleon occupied Milan in 1805, he ordered the completion of the façade of Milan Cathedral, to include secularized representations of Synagoga and Ecclesia, symbolizing the legal equality of all religions under the French regime. Synagoga stands upright, holding the Ten Commandments, while Ecclesia is portrayed as the Lady of Liberty, complete with crown and torch.[24]
They each have a painting (1919) by John Singer Sargent in the Boston Public Library, as part of a larger scheme.[25]
In 2015, Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia commissioned a large sculpture by Joshua Koffman showing the pair in harmony.[26] The sculpture is aimed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Declaration Nostra aetate. Both personifications wear crowns and hold their respective Holy Scriptures, the pair suggesting the notion of learning one from another.[27] The final, bronze cast version of the sculpture was blessed by Pope Francis at St Joseph's University in September 2015.[28] Pope Francis was a natural choice to bless the sculpture as only a year or so prior to the installation, Pope Francis wrote:
"We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). ... Dialogue and friendship with the children of Israel are part of the life of Jesus’ disciples. The friendship which has grown between us makes us bitterly and sincerely regret the terrible persecutions which they have endured, and continue to endure, especially those that have involved Christians. God continues to work among the people of the Old Covenant and to bring forth treasures of wisdom which flow from their encounter with his word. For this reason, the Church also is enriched when she receives the values of Judaism." -Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, §247-249
& lastly says
"
[29][30][31]
Notes
See Schiller's Index, or Chapter III, pp. 31–66, in Schreckenburg
Michael, 42
Schiller, II, 159
Schiller, II, 112
Schiller, I, 17, 19, 73–76
Rose, 9; Schiller, II, 110; Rose,9
Rowe, 52, says there are seven late Carolingian ivory book covers, which she discusses, 57–59
Schiller, II, 110–112; Schreckenburg, 31–34; Rose, 9-11
Rowe, 18
Schiller, II, 110–112
Lewis, 548, note 24; II Corinthians, 3 (NIV, UK)
Rowe, 81-83, 81 quoted
Spitzer, 358-359
Ecclesia et Synagoga, Encyclopaedia Judaica
Alexander & Binski, 346-347
Schreckenburg, 61
Rowe, 40–47
Rowe, 58–61
Rowe, 61–62, 62 quote
Spitzer, 357-358
Wechsler, 73, 75–77
Kitzinger, 42
Marissen, 188-191
Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations, St Joseph's University, "Sculpting a New Tradition"
"Boston Public Library, Sargent murals". Archived from the original on 2015-09-03. Retrieved 2015-09-29.
St Joseph's University website
Mariano Akerman, "Acervo e Memória II: Tragédia e Lembrança" (lecture), ASA, Rio de Janeiro, 18 October 2015 (Rio de Janeiro, Consulate of Belgium, Programa Estimulo Vesalius: Anatomia da Arte, August 2015).
Dotty Brown, Pope Francis, Forward, 28 September 2015.
-Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, §247-249.
"The Story of the Sculpture that Enshrines the Institute's Mission | Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations | Saint Joseph's University".
"Evangelii Gaudium : Apostolic Exhortation on the Proclamation of the Gospel in Today's World (24 November 2013) | Francis".
References
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ecclesia and Synagoga.
Alexander, Jonathan & Binski, Paul (eds), Age of Chivalry, Art in Plantagenet England, 1200–1400, Royal Academy/Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1987
Kitzinger, Ernst, Byzantine art in the making: main lines of stylistic development in Mediterranean art, 3rd-7th century, 1977, Faber & Faber, ISBN 0571111548 (US: Cambridge UP, 1977)
Lewis, Suzanne, "Tractatus adversus Judaeos in the Gulbenkian Apocalypse", The Art Bulletin, Vol. 68, No. 4 (Dec., 1986), pp. 543–566, JSTOR
Michael, Robert, A History of Catholic Antisemitism: The Dark Side of the Church, 2008, Macmillan, ISBN 978-0-230-60388-2
Marissen, Michael, "Rejoicing against Judaism in Handel's Messiah", The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Spring 2007), pp. 167–194, University of California Press, DOI: 10.1525/jm.2007.24.2.167, JSTOR
Rose, Christine, "The Jewish Mother-in-law; Synagoga and the Man of Law's Tale", in Delany, Sheila (ed), Chaucer and the Jews : Sources, Contexts, Meanings, 2002, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-93882-1, ISBN 978-0-415-93882-2, google books
Rowe, Nina, The Jew, the Cathedral and the Medieval City: Synagoga and Ecclesia in the Thirteenth Century, 2011, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-19744-9, ISBN 978-0-521-19744-1, google books
Schiller, Gertud, Iconography of Christian Art, (English trans from German), Lund Humphries, London, Vol. I, 1971, ISBN 0-85331-270-2, Vol. II, 1972, ISBN 0-85331-324-5
Schreckenberg, Heinz, The Jews in Christian Art, 1996, Continuum, New York, ISBN 0-8264-0936-9 (this devotes Chapter III, pp. 31–66, to the theme)
Spitzer, Leo, review of Die religiöse Disputation in der europäischen Dichtung des Mittelalters: I. Der allegorische Streit zwischen Synagoge und Kirche by Hiram Pflaum, Speculum, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Jul., 1938), pp. 356–360, Medieval Academy of America, JSTOR
Weshler, Judith Glatzer, "A Change in the Iconography of the Song of Songs in 12th and 13th century Latin Bible", in: Glatzer, Nahum Norbert, Fishbane, Michael A., Mendes-Flohr, Paul R., Texts and Responses: Studies Presented to Nahum N. Glatzer on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday by his Students, 1975, Brill Archive, ISBN 90-04-03980-5, ISBN 978-90-04-03980-3, google books , See Also the Wikipedia entry for Judensau
From the website, thinkclassical.blogspot.com an article worth reading is headlined
"Martin Luther's Hitler: The Real Prophet and his Disciple?" Google It, do a Google Search for this article...
Also from thinkclassical.blogspot.com Another Good Article worth reading is headlined
"Book Review: Blood and Iron by Katja Hoyer
A Review of Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire 1871–1918 by Katja Hoyer
Amazon Kindle eBook edition (the edition used for the review)
ASIN : B08R9DKRV1
Publisher : The History Press (14 January 2021)
Print length : 224 pages
Hardcover : 256 pages
ISBN-10 : 0750996226
ISBN-13 : 978-0750996228
"There is always a reason one reads a book. There is always a path that leads there and a story behind how one set out on the journey that led you there. Readers might know I am still working slowly on a book on Richard Wagner, written more from the perspective of historian than musicologist, art critic, or opera enthusiast. The reason for reading Katja Hoyer's book was simple: because it covered the historical period of Richard Wagner's lifetime (1813-1883), which strongly overlaps with that of Bismarck (1815-1898). Even though Hoyer's book focuses on the period from 1871-1918, a lot of the background starting around the time of the Napoleonic Wars is deftly covered.
A basic tenet of a historian's approach is that people are the product of history and therefore to properly understand 19th-century figures like Wagner or Bismarck, one must place them in historical perspective. Yet for all of that, the focus of discussion tends to get dragged back to the National Socialist era in the next century, which begs the question as to whether that is even relevant to such 19th-century cultural figures. As previous discussions on this have pointed out, the issue at stake in controversies around the so-call Sonderweg ("special path") concept, is whether there is a direct causal link between German social history of the 19th-century (or earlier) and the events of the early 20th-century."
The article continues
"Previous extreme versions of the Sonderweg ("special path") thesis of German exceptionalism have argued that Martin Luther poisoned the German Mind, brainwashing it into a mindset of universal obsequiousness towards authoritarianism and genocidal Jew-hatred, thus making the rise of Hitler a historical inevitability. The arch of the sweep of this extreme Sonderweg was several centuries long. This Luther-to-Hitler thesis originated in 1940s anti-Hun propaganda, and post-war historians have altogether shunned it as being too extreme. That has not stopped pop-historians like William Shirer and Daniel Goldhagen from writing best-sellers that sensationally revive such theories while professional historians struggle to write rival best-sellers that discourage the public from reading such populist narratives. Meanwhile, others have written books that push a rival Wagner-to-Hitler Sonderweg narrative, shortening the arch of the Sonderweg to only the 19th-century. Despite enjoying massive street-cred, this too enjoys precious little support among professional historians for simply being too grotesquely reductivistic.
McGovern's From Luther to Hitler (1941) created a straight line of a Sonderweg leading from the Reformation to the 20th-century. Attempts to defend the Sonderweg thesis resulted in its arch being reduced from a span of centuries to ever shorter periods of time until, eventually, there was nothing left.
Interestingly, pre-20th century British historians did not see German history as a neat teleological straight line of a Sonderweg pointing inexorably to the rise and triumph of a Hitler. A good example is the 1858 biography of Frederick the Great of Prussia by Thomas Carlyle. It was only with the advent of the two world wars of the 20th-century that propagandists suddenly claimed to be able to "see" how the peculiarities of German history "obviously" lead it down the path of an inevitable march towards Hitler. Everything in German social and cultural history from Luther, Frederick the Great, Hegel, Wagner, Bismarck or Nietzsche suddenly became incontrovertible evidence of the spectacular "obviousness" that the German Mind had been brainwashed with "proto-Nazi" ideology for generations, or even centuries before the rise of Hitler. This has cast a long shadow over the study of German history." The Rest of this article can be Found Online
From the website Washingtonpost.com an article is headlined
‘If you hate Jews, you hate Jesus, too’"
A man walks near a memorial outside Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 28, a day after a gunman killed 11 people there. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)
By Russell Moore
October 31, 2018
This article says:
"On the Jewish Sabbath this week, a white-nationalist terrorist killed 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in what is being called the deadliest attack on Jewish people in American history. Sadly, at a time when it seems as though every week brings more bloodshed and terror in this country, we should not let the news cycle move on without a sober reflection of what this attack means for us as Christians.
Such is especially true as we look at a world surging with resurgent “blood-and-soil” ethno-nationalism, much of it anti-Semitic in nature. As Christians, we should have a clear message of rejection of every kind of bigotry and hatred, but we should especially note what anti-Semitism means for people who are followers of Jesus. We should say clearly to anyone who would claim the name “Christian” the following truth: If you hate Jews, you hate Jesus.
Anti-Semitism is, by definition, a repudiation of Christianity as well as of Judaism. This ought to be obvious, but world history, even church history, shows us this is not the case. Christians reject anti-Semitism because we love Jesus.
I will often hear Christians say, “Remember that Jesus was Jewish.” That’s true enough, but the past tense makes it sound as though Jesus’ Jewishness were something he sloughed off at the resurrection. Jesus is alive now, enthroned in heaven. He is transfigured and glorified, yes, but he is still Jesus. This means he is still, and always will be, human. He is still, and always will be, the son of Mary. He is, and always will be, a Galilean. When Jesus appeared before Saul of Tarsus on the Road to Damascus, the resurrected Christ introduced himself as “Jesus of Nazareth” (Acts 22:8). Jesus is Jewish, present tense.
Indeed, much of the New Testament is about precisely that point. Jesus is a son of Abraham. He is of the tribe of Judah. He is of the House of David. Jesus’ kingship is valid because he descends from the royal line. His priesthood, although not of the tribe of Levi, is proved valid because of Melchizedek, the priest’s relation to Abraham. Those of us who are joint-heirs with Christ are such only because Jesus is himself the offspring and heir of Abraham (Galatians 3:29).
As Christians, we are, all of us, adopted into a Jewish family, into an Israelite story. We, who were once not a people, have been grafted on, in Jesus, to the branch that is Israel (Romans 11:17-18). That’s why the New Testament can speak even to gentile Chrisitans as though the story of their own forefathers were that of the Old Testament scriptures. We have been brought into an Israelite story, a story that started not in first-century Bethlehem but, millennia before, in the promise that Abraham would be the father of many nations."
the article continues
"Whatever our ethnic background, if we are in Christ, we are joined to him. That means the Jewish people are, in a very real sense, our people, too. An attack on the Jewish people is an attack on all of us.
The reason this is critically important to reassert is because the blood-and-soil movements often want to claim the word “Christian.” The way they define this, you will notice, is in opposition to some other group. They are “Christian” instead of Jewish, or “Christian” instead of Muslim or some other religious identity. What they usually mean is “European white identity” defined in terms of “Christendom.” This accused killer had posted social media rants not only against Jewish people but also against Jewish people’s efforts to help refugees and migrants fleeing Latin American persecution.
Such types have long been with us. Notice the way the “German Christian” movement wanted to maintain “the church” and “the Bible” but whitewashed them of their Jewishness. A Bible with its Jewishness wrung out of it is no Bible. A Christ with his Jewishness obscured is no Christ at all. We cannot even say his name, “Jesus,” or “Yahweh saves” without immediately being confronted with our Lord’s Jewishness.
We groan anytime an innocent human life is taken. We weep every time there is a terrorist attack. We should do so this time as well. But we should also make very clear that those who carry out such repulsive attacks on the Jewish people are an attack on the image of God, an attack on Jesus as a son of Adam. But such attacks are, even more specifically, an attack on Jesus as a son of Abraham. When you lash out at a synagogue’s rabbi, you are attacking our rabbi as well.
If you hate Jews, you hate Jesus.
Russell Moore is president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. This piece first appeared on his site, russellmoore.com."
the article continues
"JESUS NOT only was a Jew, in a historical sense, but even now, according to Christian belief seated at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, Jesus’s body is one that is still now marked as Jewish. Jesus not only was a Jew, but according to Christian theology, Jesus is a Jew.
This is significant for many reasons, and an important fact upon which for Christians to reflect. But today it is more than just significant, it is essential. Because Jewish bodies are again vulnerable bodies. Within living memory of the genocide of six million, we read ongoing, terrifying streams of reports of Jews being attacked, being threatened, being murdered. Rather than “never again” it seems in fact to be open season on Jewish bodies, all over again. And all this is happening in what is at least nominally, the Christian West.
Christians must take an active place in the fight against this dark, creeping hatred of Jews. A recognition that something acutely Jewish pulsates at the heart of Christianity will help to make antisemitism something truly foreign, unthinkable even, for Christians. Reflecting on Jesus’s Jewishness in a serious way, and on the connection between the circumcised body of Christ and the bodies of the Jews being humiliated, intimidated and slaughtered in homes, in synagogues and in the streets today is a powerful part of that.
The rejection of antisemitism must become a deep and organic reality for Christians, something more than just “the right thing to do.” When rejecting antisemitism also becomes also a matter of protecting of the actual heart, the core of Christianity – that is when truly it will be impossible, as Pope Francis has said, to be a Christian and an antisemite.
So I call on all Christians, on this and each January 1st, as you are sleeping off headaches or enjoying the last days of vacation, to also take the time to reflect deeply on the day, on the circumcision and naming of Jesus (did Mary feel faint and need to be supported by a friend?) on Jesus’s Jewishness, and on the safety and security of the Jews right in front of you, today.
The writer is the director for the Israel Center for Jewish-Christian Relations and a fellow at the Philos Project. She also holds a research fellowship at the Center for the Study of Religions at Tel Hai College and can be contacted at faydra@philosproject.org." Jesus is STILL A JEW !!! Jesus IS STILL A JEW !!!
From Biblicalarchaeology.org an article is headlined
"What Price the Uniqueness of Jesus?" which says:
To wrench Jesus out of his Jewish world destroys Jesus and destroys Christianity
Bible Review, June 1999
by Anthony J. Saldarini
"When I was growing up in St. Kevin’s Parish in the Dorchester section of Boston in the 1940s and ’50s, Jesus was unquestionably a Christian. Even more strangely, in Germany during the Nazi era Jesus was an Aryan Christian. How did a first-century Galilean Jew become a Christian and, for some, an Aryan Christian at that?
Before we laugh at this foolishness, we should remember that we have not one word written by Jesus and not one contemporary account of his activities. Instead, we have four late-first-century interpretations of Jesus: the Gospels. Each demands and has received constant reinterpretation. Though the risk of misinterpreting Jesus is great, every generation has no choice but to try to make sense of the Gospels.
We necessarily interpret as we read, but not all interpretations are created equal, despite the claims of some postmodern thinkers. A Christian Jesus is a parochial, self-serving myth and an Aryan Jesus a perverse one. But why then have Christians so persistently thought of Jesus as a Christian and resisted admitting the obvious, that Jesus was a Jew? Answer: the pervasive problem of uniqueness.
All religious traditions seek to present themselves as somehow special, better or primary, as irreplaceable or unique. For Christians this means that either Jesus as a person or his teachings and actions must stand out from his historical setting. For centuries the theological claim that Jesus is divine sufficed. In our empirical world of science and history, many Christian scholars take another tack; they seek to make Jesus dissimilar from the Judaism of his day and from the Greco-Roman world in which it was set.
As is often the case, contemporary historical and theological conflicts have their roots in the fertile scholarship of 19th-century Germany. The names Ferdinand Baur (1792–1860) and Albrecht Ritschl (1822–1889) may not immediately leap to mind, but a brief sketch of their activities will help illuminate Christian biases then and today."
the article continues
"Baur argued successfully that early Christianity had originated historically within Judaism and, less convincingly, that all of early Christian history reflected a struggle between a Jewish wing (led by Peter) and a gentile wing (led by Paul) until a synthesis was achieved. Subsequent scholarship has established that Paul was much more Jewish, and the conflicts among the early followers of Jesus much more complex, than Baur thought. But his fundamental point, the Jewish matrix of Christianity, endures.
In “Uncovering the Jewish Context of the New Testament,” Amy-Jill Levine reveals what Jews (and Christians) should know about Christian scripture and Jesus the Jew.
A Jesus who taught like a Jew and an early Christian community that looked like a Jewish sect troubled many 19th-century German Lutheran scholars, who preferred to envision a Jesus who taught a new and unique doctrine that overthrew the established tradition. In reaction to Baur, Albrecht Ritschl “solved” the problem by attacking the Jews. For him, Jesus did not reform or transform Judaism, he condemned it. Jesus the Jew, in Ritschl’s view, transcended Judaism by purifying Christianity of its Jewish elements. From the middle of the 19th century until World War II, numerous German scholars, including Adolf Harnack and Rudolf Bultmann, followed Ritschl’s lead in one way or another. None were Nazis, but reading them after the Holocaust leaves us with an eerie sensation.
Ritschl protected the uniqueness of Jesus and extricated him from his Jewish setting by replacing the Jewish Jesus with a Romantic Jesus who had a supernatural, ineffable relationship with God, a relationship that superseded all historical influences. Deep personal relationships are the stuff of modern theology and spirituality, but separated from the weave and grit of historical reality, the personal Jesus quickly devolves into a personal projection disconnected from community and culture.
So we must face the crucial question: Does Jesus the Jew—as a Jew—have any impact on Christian theology and on Jewish-Christian relations? Or is Jesus’ life as a Jew just accidental? After all, he had to be born something: Incan or Ethiopian, Mongolian or whatever. Is Jesus’ Jewishness superseded by his role as Christ, the Messiah (the “Anointed One”), sent by God to save all nations?
To wrench Jesus out of his Jewish world destroys Jesus and destroys Christianity, the religion that grew out of his teachings. Even Jesus’ most familiar role as Christ is a Jewish role. If Christians leave the concrete realities of Jesus’ life and of the history of Israel in favor of a mythic, universal, spiritual Jesus and an otherworldly kingdom of God, they deny their origins in Israel, their history, and the God who has loved and protected Israel and the church. They cease to interpret the actual Jesus sent by God and remake him in their own image and likeness. The dangers are obvious. If Christians violently wrench Jesus out of his natural, ethnic and historical place within the people of Israel, they open the way to doing equal violence to Israel, the place and people of Jesus. This is a lesson of history that haunts us all at the end of the 20th century."
From jesusisajew.org an article is titled "Jesus is a Jew" which says
"Jesus was Born a Jew
Jesus is a real, historical person, born in the Land of Israel, during the Roman occupation, in approximately the year 3 BCE. However, at the time His name was actually pronounced, "Yeshua," (יֵשׁוּעַ) and that is the name used in this article.
That Yeshua was born Jewish is one of the least contested truths of the Bible. The very first verse of the New Covenant reads: The book of the genealogy of Messiah Yeshua ("Jesus Christ"), the son of David, the son of Abraham (Matt. 1:1). Who were Abraham and David?
Abraham was the first Hebrew. God changed his name from Abram (Gen. 17:5). In Gen. 14:13 he is called Abram the Hebrew. So we can see that Yeshua (Jesus) is descended from "Abram the Hebrew." Even to this day, Jews are also called "Hebrews", and the language of the Jews is "Hebrew."
Abraham and his descendants were given the unconditional covenant of the Promised Land (Gen. 17:8) and the covenant of circumcision (Gen. 17:10). Abraham is the father of the Jews (Acts 3:12-25). Isaac was his son and Jacob was his grandson (Matt. 1:2). Thus, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are known as the Patriarchs, the fathers of the Jews.
Jacob's name was changed by God to "Israel" (Gen. 35:10-12) and he had twelve sons (Gen. 35:23-26) from whom come the Twelve Tribes of Israel. All of their descendants are known collectively throughout the Bible as the Children of Israel (Ex. 1:6-7).
One of those twelve sons was Judah (Gen. 35:23, Matt. 1:2) and it is from his name that we get the word 'Jew'. Although Yehudah (Judah) was only one of the twelve, by 700 BCE, because of the course of Israel's history, the word Yehudee (Jew) came to mean any person descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Jer. 34:9). So, for instance, Saul haShaliach (the Apostle Paul) was of the tribe of Benjamin (Romans 11:1) yet he self-identified as a Jew (Acts 22:3)."
the article continues
"Nevertheless, according to the Bible, the Messiah must be descended from the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10) as King David was (1Sam. 17:12, 1Ch. 28:4) and descended from King David himself (2Sam. 7:12-13, Isa. 9:6-7, Jer. 23:5-6). That is why the Messiah is called Son of David (Matt. 21:9).
Yeshua (Jesus) is from the Tribe of Judah (Heb. 7:14). His earthly father was descended from David (Matt. 1:6-16) and His mother was as well (Luke 1:27, 32-34, 3:23-31).
In addition, Yeshua was born King of the Jews (Matt. 2:2). The King of the Jews must Himself be Jewish (Deut. 17:15). His aunt Elizabeth was Jewish (a descendant of Aaron, Moses' brother) and His uncle Zacharia was a Kohen, i.e., Jewish priest (Luke 1:5, 36). Yeshua was circumcised according to Jewish law (Luke 2:21, Lev. 12:2-3), and redeemed according to Jewish law (Luke 2:22-23, Num. 18:15). His mother atoned according to Jewish law (Luke 2:24, Lev. 12:6-8). He is called The Consolation of Israel (Luke 2:25) and The Glory of Thy People Israel (Luke 2:32). Jesus was born a Jew.
Jesus lived as a Jew
Although He was born in Bethlehem (Matt. 2:1, Micah 5:2), Yeshua was raised in Nazareth (Luke 2:39-40). Both were Jewish towns at the time, according to archeologists and historians. Bethlehem is just south of Jerusalem while Nazareth is north, in the Galilee section. Both of Yeshua's parents were from Nazareth (Luke 1:26-27, 2:4, 39) and they returned there with the Child when they had done everything according to the Law of the Lord that His birth required (Luke 2:39). His aunt and uncle were also Torah observant Jews (Luke 1:6) so we can see that probably the whole family took their faith very seriously.
Yeshua's parents made the 140 mile (225 m.) round trip to Jerusalem every Passover (Luke 2:41) in observance of Deut. 16:16. It was at the age of twelve that Yeshua stayed behind an extra three days to learn from the Temple teachers (Luke 2:46). Although He already understood the Torah well (Luke 2:47), His attitude of listening and questioning indicates love of the Hebrew scripture and respect for the teachers. He also respected the Temple itself, calling it His Father's (Luke 2:49). Near the end of His life, He praised a widow for giving all she had to the Temple (Luke 21:1-4).
In adult life, His disciples were Jews (John 1:47, Matt. 20:25-26) and they called Him 'Rabbi' (John 4:31). Mary called Him 'Rabboni' (John 20:16). They sought Him because they believed the Torah and the Prophets (John 1:45).
A Pharisee who had not yet come to faith in Him also addressed Yeshua as 'Rabbi' (John 3:2), as did a crowd of people (John 6:25). A Samaritan woman easily recognized He was a Jew (John 4:9).
Yeshua's disciples spoke Hebrew (John 1:38, 41) and so did He, as well as Chaldean, a closely-related language brought back by the Jews from their captivity in Babylon (Matt. 27:46). In the sermon on the mount He affirmed the authority of the Torah and the Prophets (Matt. 5:17) even in the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 5:19-20). He regularly attended synagogue (Luke 4:16) and His teaching was respected by the other congregants (Luke 4:15). He taught in the Jewish Temple (Luke 21:37) and if He were not a Jew, His going into that part of the Temple would not have been allowed (Acts 21:28-30).
Although He differed with some of His contemporaries on how to keep the commandments (Matt. 12:12), He did not disagree on whether to keep them, saying such things as,"if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments," (Matt. 19:17). When He healed someone of leprosy, he instructed him to,"show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded..." (Matt. 8:4, Lev. 14)."
& Continues "Yeshua not only taught others how to live a Jewish life, He lived it Himself. The outward signs of this were such things as wearing tzitzit (tassles) on His clothing (Luke 8:43, Matt. 14:36, Strong's # 2899) to serve as a reminder of the commandments (Num. 15:37-39). He observed Passover (John 2:13) and went up to Jerusalem (Deut. 16:16). He observed Succot (John 7:2, 10) and went up to Jerusalem (John 7:14). He also observed Hanukah (John 10:22) and probably Rosh haShanah (John 5:1), going up to Jerusalem on both those occasions as well, even though it isn't required by the Torah.
The inward sign of His Judaism was a circumcised heart (Deut. 10:16, 30:6).
When faced with temptation, Yeshua answered from the Hebrew Scripture (Matt. 4:2-10, Deut. 8:3, 6:16, 6:13). When teaching, He taught from the Hebrew Scripture (Matt. 22:42-45). When admonishing, He quoted from the Hebrew Scripture (Mk. 7:6-13).
Yeshua self-identified as a Jew (John 4:22) and as King of the Jews (Mk. 15:2). From His birth to His last Passover seder (Luke 22:14-15), Jesus lived as a Jew.
Jesus died a Jew
When Yeshua was taken prisoner by a Roman captain, his cohort, and some Jewish officials (John 18:12), He was delivered into the custody of the Jewish priests, elders, and scribes (Mk. 14:53). The Roman soldiers would not have placed Him under Jewish jurisdiction if He were not Jewish.
Later, Yeshua was brought before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish council (Luke 22:66). He was charged with an offense against Jewish Law (Matt. 26:65-66, Lev. 24:13-14, John 19:7). Pilate, head of the Roman occupation, also recognized Jewish jurisdiction over Yeshua (John 18:31). This was because Yeshua was a Jew (John 18:35).
He unequivocally identified Himself as the Messiah (Mk. 14:61-62) and as we have seen above, the Messiah must be Jewish. He said He is the King of the Jews (Matt. 27:11) and, as we have also seen above, the King of the Jews must Himself be Jewish. The Jewish crowd also called Him 'King of the Jews' (Mk. 15:12). He was mocked, spat on and beaten by the Roman soldiers as 'King of the Jews' (Mk. 15:16-20) and when they crucified Him, their charge was 'King of the Jews' (Matt. 27:37).
The place of judgment had a Hebrew place-name (John 19:13) and the place of crucifixion had a Hebrew place-name (Mk. 15:22).
Joseph of Arimethea, who took custody of Yeshua's body, was Jewish (Luke 23:50-52) and he laid the body in his own new tomb (Matt. 27:59-60). Therefore, Yeshua was buried in a Jewish cemetery. He was also buried according to Jewish custom of the time (John 19:40). Without doubt, Jesus died a Jew.
Jesus was resurrected a Jew
Yeshua the risen Jew told his Jewish disciples to go out and teach all the Gentiles (Matt. 28:19, Strong's # 1484).
Then, after eating, talking and walking with His disciples, Yeshua, "lifted up His hands and blessed them" (Luke 24:50). What blessing is spoken with lifted hands? The Aaronic Benediction (Num. 6:24-26) is given in Synagogues and in Churches even to our day, and in the Synagogues it is still given as it was more than a thousand years before the resurrected Jew Jesus gave it: with lifted hands. In fact, another name for the Aaronic Benediction is "The Lifting up of Hands." (see Sketches of Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christ. Ch.XVII. A. Edersheim. Eerdmans pub.)"
& lastly says
"Rav Sha'ul (the apostle Paul) tells us that while he was on the road to Damascus Yeshua spoke to him from heaven in Hebrew (Acts 26:14). Sha'ul, a Jew who was born a Roman citizen (Acts 22:27-28), was fluent in Greek (Acts 21:37) and possibly many other languages, but Yeshua spoke to him in Hebrew, the language of the Jews.
Sha'ul did not become a believer until well after Yeshua's death and resurrection, yet an important part of his message is that Yeshua is a descendant of the Jewish king David (2Tim. 2:8).
Many years after His resurrection, Yeshua Himself testified that He is the root and offspring of king David (Rev. 22:16), and in a time yet future, two of His titles will be Lion of the tribe of Judah, and Root of David (Rev. 5:5).
In Matt. 24:20 He told us to pray concerning the coming tribulation, that we would not have to flee on the Sabbath. And in Matt. 26:27-29 Yeshua told the disciples that He will celebrate the Passover seder anew with us in His Father's kingdom.
The standard He will use at the judgement is the Law God gave the Jews. To those who do not do the will of God, He will say, "Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness" (Matt. 7:22-23, Strong's # 458, 459).
In (Heb. 13:8) we are told Yeshua the Messiah is the same yesterday, today and forever. So, if He ever was a Jew He was resurrected a Jew, and He is one to this day.
He was born a Jew, He lived a Jew, He died a Jew, and He was resurrected a Jew. He is alive and Jewish now, and forevermore the same.
Back to index"
From www.barnesandnoble.com a good book worth reading is
"Our Hands Are Stained with Blood: The Tragic Story of the "Church" and the Jewish People" by Michael L. Brown First Published in 1992, A Superb book worth reading, A Must read for all Christians & Jews
The Overview says
"From the first "Christian" persecutions of the Jews in the fourth century to the horrors of the Holocaust, from Israel-bashing in today's press to anti-Semitism in today's pulpits, this shocking and painful book tells the tragic story that every Christian must hear."
In 2019 Michael L. Brown wrote an Revised & Expanded Edition of his 1992 book
"Our Hands Are Stained With Blood"
The 2019 Revised & Expanded edition is titled
"Our Hands are Stained with Blood: The Tragic Story of the Church and the Jewish People
by Michael L. Brown PhD"
The Overview of this book from www.barnesandnoble.com says
"Every Christian must read this shocking account of the Churchs history.
The pages of church history are marked by countless horrors committed against the Jewish people.
From the first persecutions of the Jews in the fourth century to the horrors of the Holocaust, from Israel-bashing in today's press to anti-Semitism spouted from the pulpit, this painful book tells the tragic story that every Christian must read.
In a freshly updated and expanded edition of this pivotal work, Dr. Michael Brown exposes the faulty theological roots that opened the door to anti-Semitism in Church history, explaining why well-meaning believers so often fall into the trap of hate... and showing how you can bring an end to the cycle of violence.
This generation can make a difference. Now is the time for change! Discover the important role you play in helping to shape a Church that will bless Israel rather than curse Israel."
Both the 1992 Edition & the 2019 Revised & Expanded Edition are Worth reading ,
the 1992 Edition has Information Not in the 2019 Revised & Expanded Edition, while the
2019 Revised & Expanded Edition has Information Not in the 1992 Edition. Both the 1992 & 2019 Editions are Must Reads for all Christians & Jews alike
Also by Michael L. Brown, another Superb book Published in 2021 is titled
"Christian Antisemitism: Confronting the Lies in Today's Church"
by Michael L. Brown Ph.D.
From www.barnesandnoble.com
The Overview says:
"Hate isn’t a thing from history.
The Jewish people and Israel have been described as “a dominant and moving force behind the present and coming evils of our day”; “a monstrous system of evil…[that] will destroy us and our children” if not resisted; and a group that seeks “the annihilation of almost every Gentile man, woman, and child and the establishment of a satanic Jewish-led global dictatorship.” What’s worse is that these comments were all made by professing Christians.
Respected Messianic Bible scholar Michael L. Brown, PhD, documents shocking examples of modern “Christian” antisemitism and exposes the lies that support them. Carefully researched, this book shows that church-based antisemitism is no longer a thing of the past. Rather, a dangerous, shocking tide on the rise, and it could be present in your church today. Dr. Brown shows you how to stem this tide now and overcome its evil with the powerful love of the cross!
This book will show you how to confront everyday antisemitism in all areas of your life and become a champion for the people of Israel."
From the website SixMillionCrucifixions.com it says about the book "Six Million Crucifixions"
"SIX MILLION CRUCIFIXIONS
How Christian Teachings About Jews Paved the Road to the Holocaust"
BY GABRIEL WILENSKY
The root causes of antisemitism
"Six Million Crucifixions examines the root causes of antisemitism in Christianity and how that prepared the soil for the secular antisemitism that culminated in the Holocaust. The book covers the last two thousand years of history, from the origins of this hatred all the way to the advent of modern antisemitism. It also covers the role of the Churches during the Holocaust, and the role of the Vatican in setting up escape routes for wanted war criminals after WWII. Six Million Crucifixions concludes by making the point that after the Holocaust the Allies should have set up an international trial and put any and all clergymen who may have had a role in the defamation of and incitement against the Jewish people, as well as those who helped wanted Nazis escape Justice and other charges, on the dock
Antisemitism since the Holocaust
Antisemitism is on the rise again. Never since the end of the Holocaust have there been so many antisemitic incidents worldwide. The world suffers from amnesia and disregarding the lessons from the past looks the other way. Film director Mel Gibson releases The Passion of the Christ, a passion play watched by more people than all the previous passion play productions put together, and equally if not more damning of the Jewish people. A senior Vatican cardinal compares the Gaza Strip with a big concentration camp. A Swedish newspaper updates the old Christian Ritual Murder canard and accuses the Israeli Defense Forces—as a proxy for “The Jew”— of killing young Palestinians to harvest their organs. Holocaust denial has become more common, and no amount of lawsuits and debunking seem to make it disappear. Even a shunned, excommunicated Catholic bishop who Pope Benedict XVI brought back into the Catholic fold continues to openly deny the extent of the Holocaust. A pope who believes Pope Pius XII “spared no effort in intervening in their [the Jews’] favour either directly or through instructions given to other individuals or to institutions of the Catholic Church” during the war. And this is the same pope who seems to be interested in eroding the progress made by the Second Vatican Council and reverting to a more traditional version of Catholicism, a version that taught for almost two millennia that Jews were Christ-killers and the enemies of Christianity."
The webiste SixMillionCrucifixions.com also says
"The Church on trial
Six Million Crucifixions provides an overview of the historical background of key events in the history of antisemitism spanning the time between the death of Jesus up to the end of the Holocaust and beyond. The second part of the book focuses on various specific aspects of Christian antisemitism, followed by the role of the Catholic and Protestant Churches during the Nazi era and its aftermath. The fourth part provides an overview of the criminal activities that individual clergy as well as the Churches as such may have been guilty of and makes a legal study of what a potential indictment may have looked like.
Clearly, most if not all the people involved in the crimes discussed in Six Million Crucifixions are now dead so an indictment and trial as discussed in the book could not happen today. This fact only makes the injustice even worse, as the clergy who were part of the crimes committed back then got away with impunity. What we are seeing now are the consequences of what happens when crimes go unpunished and the record is not properly established.
Fighting Antisemitism
The objective of this book is to present the historical background to explain how the Holocaust could have happened, and raise awareness of where antisemitism comes from and why it has not disappeared yet. Ultimately, it is up to courageous and good-hearted Christians to take a hard look at the past of their religion—as unsavory as it may be—and take what will surely be painful measures to redress the wrongs from the past.
A MESSAGE FROM
THE AUTHOR
Table of Contents
PART 1
Historical Background
Chapter 1: Laying the Foundation
Chapter 2: The Middle Ages
Chapter 3: Emancipation and the Rise of Modern Antisemitism
Chapter 4: Modern Views
PART 2
Christian Antisemitism
Chapter 5: Christian Attitude Towards Jews
Chapter 6: Christianity in Print
Chapter 7: Antisemitism in Sermons, Liturgy, and the Christian Bible
PART 3
The Role of the Churches During the Nazi Era
Chapter 8: Dealing With the Enemy
Chapter 9: The Church’s Positive Attitudes Towards the War
Chapter 10: What the Churches Said. What the Churches Failed to Say.
Chapter 11: Smuggling Nazis Out of Europe
PART 4
The Quest for Justice
Chapter 12: What the Pope and the Churches Should Have Done
Chapter 13: Legal Background
Chapter 14: Indictable Material
Chapter 15: Conclusions
Epilogue
Chapter 16: Cleaning Up the Ashes
Appendices
Appendix I: In Their Own Words
Appendix II: Pontifical Bulls"
The website SixMillionCrucifixions.com also says
"
SIX MILLION CRUCIFIXIONS
How Christian Teachings About Jews Paved the Road to the Holocaust
BY GABRIEL WILENSKY
Did Christianity play any role in the millenarian hatred towards Jews that led to the paroxysm of murder known as the Holocaust?
Six Million Crucifixions provides an answer to the question, “What could have possibly motivated ordinary Germans and their helpers throughout Nazi-occupied Europe to hate Jews so much as to drag thousands of Jewish men, women and children to a forest, and shoot them in the head at close range one by one, getting blood, pieces of brain and splinters of cranial bone splattered all over them after each victim, and continue to do it all day long, day after day?”
firstthings.com has an article headlined
"SINGLING OUT ISRAEL ISN’T CHRISTIAN"
by William Doino Jr. This article says:
10 . 26 . 10
"Several days ago, an article from the Associated Press appeared, with the provocative headline, “Vatican Meeting of Mideast Bishops Demands Israel End Occupation of Palestinian Lands.” Concerned that headline might be a little-one-sided, I read on, only to find this:
In a final joint communiqué, the bishops also told Israel it shouldn’t use the Bible to justify ‘injustices’ against the Palestinians . . . . While the bishops condemned terrorism and anti-Semitism, they laid much of the blame for the conflict squarely on Israel. They listed the ‘occupation’ of Palestinian lands, Israel’s separation barrier with the West Bank, its military checkpoints, political prisoners, demolition of homes and disturbance of Palestinians’ socio-economic lives as factors that have made life increasingly difficult for Palestinians.
Still alarmed, and unsatisfied, I read the Synod’s full statement but, alas, the AP story accurately summarized it. Although there are many fine Christian affirmations in it, the statement is damaged by an undue animus against Israel. No other country comes in for the kind of blame dished out against its policies. The bishops raise concerns about Iraq and Lebanon, but only in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, for which, they suggest, Israel bears almost sole responsibility.
Like many who proclaim the need for peace, the bishops naively believe that once the Palestinians have a homeland, Israel “will be able to enjoy peace and security” too, and many other conflicts in the region will disappear. In part, the statement reads like a utopian projection”its boundless faith in the United Nations being just one example. The statement does condemn fanaticism and intolerance, but in a generalized, politically-correct way:
We condemn violence and terrorism from wherever it may proceed as well as all religious extremism. We condemn all forms of racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Christianism and Islamophobia and we call upon the religions to assume their responsibility to promote dialogue between cultures and civilizations in our region and in the entire world.
Note that these condemnations do not specify exactly who might be guilty of these evils, and to what degree. Note also the moral equivalence. Is “Islamophobia,” for example, anywhere near as dangerous or intense as anti-Semitism, not to mention anti-Christianism, in the Middle East, and “the entire world”?
And if Israel should be criticized by name, for its failures and abuses, why not countries with far more horrendous records, like Iran and Syria? Why not organizations like the PLO and Hezbollah?
And have the bishops forgotten about al Qaeda? In a recent commentary on al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Thomas Joscelyn noted that “the ideology that fuels al Qaeda’s hate . . . relies on a paranoid and delusional view of the world in which an imaginary ‘Zionist-Crusader’ conspiracy seeks to impose its will on Muslims.” In this, he continues, “al Qaeda’s paranoia is not all that different from the insanity of Nazism or the anti-capitalist ranting of Communists. In each case, the ideologues pretend that a dastardly cabal threatens humanity and they are the last hope for redemption.”
the article continues
"Are the bishops aware of just how entrenched this poisonous world view is among Israel’s opponents (and actually part of indoctrination programs for the young); and if so, why were they not more explicit in describing and condemning it, and assigning specific blame to those who promote it?
If it is argued that the bishops, representing an endangered Christian minority in the Middle East, have to be very careful about what they say against extremist governments and movements, lest more Christians become targets themselves, fair enough. But isn’t the reverse also true: don’t the bishops need to be extremely careful about what they say about Israel, lest more Jews become targets?
Israel’s deadly enemies will surely exploit the Synod’s final declaration, using it as a propaganda weapon, giving it the widest possible publicity”which is not to say that’s what the bishops intended, at all. On the contrary, and to their credit, they cited Vatican II’s Nostra aetate , on the non-Christian religions, stressing Christianity’s bond with Judaism, and its abhorrence of religious prejudice. But the bishops should realize the power of words, and unintended consequences, especially in that part of the world.
It is right and proper for the Middle East’s bishops to stand on the side of those who are suffering”often desperately so”and it is natural that they would be particularly anxious about the quality of life for Christians in the Middle East. The Catholic Church is right not to be uncritical of everything Israel does in the name of security, any more than it should be about America’s war on terror.
But fair’s fair. Why has Israel applied some (admittedly debatable) security measures? Because Israelis have been under attack”fierce and fanatical attack”for years and years and years. Do the bishops have a better strategy which can guarantee peace and security for all, and if so, what is it? The Synod’s final declaration addresses these concerns only sparingly, and with idealistic platitudes”not with anything approaching a healthy Christian realism.
Ironically, the very fact the bishops are making these “bold” statements is a testament to Israel’s essential decency and humanity”the bishops know there will be no serious consequences or massive reprisals against Christians in Israel for “speaking out,” whereas any similar Christian criticism”or even questioning”of an Arab government in the region, or Islamic extremism, would”well, we all saw what happened after Regensburg.
In a statement meant to be fully and intensely Christian, Israel was singled out for blame and criticism. That’s not fair, much less Christian. "
William Doino Jr. is a contributor to Inside the Vatican magazine , among many other publications, and writes often about religion, history and politics. His annotated bibliography on Pius XII appears in The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII (Lexington Books, 2004). His most recent articles for “On the Square” were Pius XII and the Distorting Ellipsis and Pope Benedict Confounds His Critics
From the Wall Street Journal website wsj.com an article is headlined
"Christians Need to Confront Anti-Semitism" the article says:
It begins with the Jews but never ends with them. Their problems are our problems too.
By Andrew Doran
Feb. 3, 2022
A memorial stands outside the Tree of Life Synagogue in the aftermath of a deadly shooting in Pittsburgh, Oct. 29, 2018.
PHOTO: MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
"Anti-Semitism and violence against Jews are on the rise in the U.S. For many Americans this reality has been lost in a two-year-long dystopian fog, but anti-Semitism was resurgent even before the pandemic. The 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and the recent Texas hostage standoff shock us, yet they have become customary.
The pretext of the “new” anti-Semitism is hatred of Israel, which justifies Jew hatred anywhere. Other forms, like the popularity of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” endure. Jews are said to have a plan to dominate the world, spread drugs and venereal diseases, and much else. The crimes of capitalism and communism alike are blamed on Jews. Anti-Semitism is resurgent on the political right, which feels alienated from governing institutions. And the most refined anti-Semitism continues to be taught on university campuses.
By rejecting the right of the Jewish people to exist in political community—that is, the modern state of Israel—campus anti-Semitism implicitly rejects the humanity of Jews everywhere. (Israel would pull out of the West Bank tomorrow, but the Palestinian Authority will never let it, as the Israel Defense Forces remain to protect the authority from Hamas.) Countless dollars have been donated from governments and individuals for not terribly subtle anti-Semitic programs on campus, with little transparency.
Anti-Semitism at a more primitive level finds its roots in the scapegoating mechanism, the impulse in humans to seek a culprit for communal ills. As the French historian René Girard (1923-2015) explained, once the mob’s lust for violence is satiated by the sacrificial victim, communal health is restored—an evolutionary adaptation that seems nothing short of diabolical. Girard believed that Christ’s sacrifice should deliver Christians from the scapegoat urge. Yet too many Christians have descended into scapegoating and anti-Semitism over the centuries, and sadly even today. To confront anti-Semitism, the Christian should first confront some unpleasant facts in church history.
It is said that Irish history should be remembered by the British and forgotten by the Irish. The same could be said of Jewish history, but too many Christians show insufficient interest in our part in anti-Semitism. As George Orwell wrote, “it is partly the fear of finding out how widespread anti-Semitism is that prevents it from being seriously investigated.”
the article continues
"I was well into my 20s when a Jewish professor shared with me a piece in First Things magazine by a priest and Jewish convert to Catholicism who wrote about the pain caused by “a one-sided Catholic apologetic that minimizes the injustice done by Christians to Jews in history, or seeks to relegate it to oblivion. I am especially aware of the Jewish sensitivity to topics that Catholics often pass over either too quickly or in silence.” The extent of the church’s institutional anti-Semitism was a painful revelation. Much history continues to be passed over in carelessness and silence—lay and clerical defenders of Nazism, pogroms, centuries of essential dhimmitude, Rome’s Jews forced into a ghetto and humiliated, conspiracy theories, blood libels and scapegoating—all with contemporary consequences.
Some on the left and right question U.S. aid to Israel—though, curiously, I haven’t seen anyone seeking to ban imports of medical technology from Israel. Meanwhile U.S. financial assistance flows to numerous countries that refuse to recognize Israel, although an overwhelming majority of Americans still have favorable views toward the Jewish people and Israel.
A friend who traveled to the Vatican recently left encouraged. “The problems of the Jews are our problems,” a cardinal told him. Those words have been followed by some action, including greater access to Vatican archives to study the Catholic Church’s conduct during the Holocaust. But there still is much more to do. The Vatican has diplomatic relations with numerous states that don’t recognize Israel’s right to exist and some that spread anti-Semitic propaganda, and its talented diplomats can use their sway to meet both challenges.
America’s Catholic bishops should instruct Catholics about the church’s unfortunate history of anti-Semitism, including in the U.S. Catholic universities should likewise not simply cave in to anti-Zionism but instead examine the history of anti-Semitism in the early church and Middle Ages, and the Holocaust and rebirth of Israel.
It is often said that anti-Semitism begins with the Jews but never ends with them. There is much evidence for this. Yet Christians shouldn’t be spurred to action only because we might be next but simply because anti-Semitism is evil—not an abstract evil but very much in our midst. The problems of the Jews are Christian problems. The Christian response to this moment should begin with an honest inquiry into Christian anti-Semitism, without any fear of how widespread it may be.
Mr. Doran, a senior research fellow with the Philos Project, served on the policy planning staff at the State Department (2018-21).
From www.barnesandnoble.com a good book worth reading is
"Jacob's Younger Brother: Christian-Jewish Relations after Vatican II"
by Karma Ben-Johanan
Overview
A revealing account of contemporary tensions between Jews and Christians, playing out beneath the surface of conciliatory interfaith dialogue.
A new chapter in Jewish-Christian relations opened in the second half of the twentieth century when the Second Vatican Council exonerated Jews from the accusation of deicide and declared that the Jewish people had never been rejected by God. In a few carefully phrased statements, two millennia of deep hostility were swept into the trash heap of history.
But old animosities die hard. While Catholic and Jewish leaders publicly promoted interfaith dialogue, doubts remained behind closed doors. Catholic officials and theologians soon found that changing their attitude toward Jews could threaten the foundations of Christian tradition. For their part, many Jews perceived the new Catholic line as a Church effort to shore up support amid atheist and secular advances. Drawing on extensive research in contemporary rabbinical literature, Karma Ben-Johanan shows that Jewish leaders welcomed the Catholic condemnation of antisemitism but were less enthusiastic about the Church’s sudden urge to claim their friendship. Catholic theologians hoped Vatican II would turn the page on an embarrassing history, hence the assertion that the Church had not reformed but rather had always loved Jews, or at least should have. Orthodox rabbis, in contrast, believed they were finally free to say what they thought of Christianity.
Jacob’s Younger Brother pulls back the veil of interfaith dialogue to reveal how Orthodox rabbis and Catholic leaders spoke about each other when outsiders were not in the room. There Ben-Johanan finds Jews reluctant to accept the latest whims of a Church that had unilaterally dictated the terms of Jewish-Christian relations for centuries."
The entry continues for "Jacob's Younger Brother"
" Product Details About the Author
Product Details
ISBN-13: 9780674258266
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 05/17/2022
Pages: 352
Sales rank: 1,127,756
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.40(d)
Editorial Reviews
02/14/2022
Ben-Johanan, a professor of religion at Humboldt University of Berlin, debuts with a scholarly survey of “the paradoxes, asymmetries, and discrepancies of the Christian-Jewish relationship” since the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Contending that the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel forced a reckoning over Christianity’s failure “to save Europe from the abyss of cruelty” and brought into question whether Jews must “play by the rules formulated by those who had only yesterday been their murderers,” Ben-Johanan focuses on the “internal discourses” of Roman Catholics and Orthodox Jews. He notes that Vatican II repudiated the belief that Jews were collectively responsible for Jesus’s crucifixion, but left unresolved the question of whether “Jews need the church to be saved,” and documents the differing approaches Pope John Paul II and his successor, Benedict XVI, took to the Christian-Jewish relationship. Elsewhere, Ben-Johanan discusses the revitalization of “ancient anti-Christian polemics” by modern-day followers of Rabbi Avraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935) and describes debates within Modern Orthodox circles over the implications of interfaith dialogue. Though Ben-Johanan incisively analyzes the sticking points to rapprochement, readers without a deep background in Christian and Jewish theology may find themselves at sea. Still, this is an astute and evenhanded study of how both faiths view themselves and each other. (Apr.)
Publishers Weekly
This is a groundbreaking book and a must-read for all interested in contemporary Jewish-Christian dialogue. The Jewish Orthodox perspective is thoughtfully explained and brilliantly integrated, for the first time, alongside its Catholic counterpart.
Christoph Markschies
Hard-hitting and groundbreaking, Jacob’s Younger Brother will have a long‐lasting impact on Jewish-Catholic relations.
Gavin D’Costa
A new and bold contribution to an often stereotyped and petrified discourse. Indispensable for anybody engaged in the Jewish-Christian dialogue.
Peter Schäfer
An illuminating and important new book…An intellectual, cultural and political challenge…[F]or anyone for whom the Jewish-Christian story is an important element in defining his or her identity.
Haaretz - Israel Jacob Yuval
Karma Ben-Johanan is the first scholar to ask how Catholics and Jews found a language to speak to each other after the Holocaust. As a theologian and a historian, she knows well the difficulty they faced: building bridges to one another while carefully guarding the boundaries of their own traditions. In this fascinating and sobering book, she uncovers why—despite the best of intentions—church and synagogue continue to perplex one another.
John Connelly
A refreshingly honest and deeply thought-provoking book on the mutual perception of Jews and Christians in the late twentieth century. Ben-Johanan provides new interpretations of John Paul II and Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s writings. She also guides her readers through the ongoing heated debates among Orthodox Jewish thinkers confronted with a newly friendly Christian community. Jacob’s Younger Brother is required reading for anyone interested in Jewish-Christian relations today.
Etienne Vetö
An illuminating and important new book ... An intellectual, cultural and political challenge ... [F]or anyone for whom the Jewish-Christian story is an important element in defining his or her identity.
Haaretz Israel Jacob Yuval
The Website theconversation.com has an article headlined
"Before Martin Luther, there was Erasmus – a Dutch theologian who paved the way for the Protestant Reformation"
Published: October 29, 2019
Katherine Little
Desiderius Erasmus, a Dutch humanist and theologian. Quentin Matsys , the article says
"Martin Luther, a German theologian, is often credited with starting the Protestant Reformation. When he nailed his 95 Theses onto the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany on Oct. 31, 1517, dramatically demanding an end to church corruption, he split Christianity into Catholicism and Protestantism.
Luther’s disruptive act did not, however, emerge out of nowhere. The Reformation could not have happened without Desiderius Erasmus, a Dutch humanist and theologian.
As a scholar of medieval Christianity, I have noticed that Erasmus does not get much attention in conversations on the Reformation. And yet, in his own time, when Christianity was facing many controversies, he was accused of paving the way for Martin Luther and even of being a heretic. His contemporaries charged him with “laying the egg that Luther hatched.”
Who was Erasmus?
Born in A.D. 1467, about 20 years before Luther, Erasmus grew up in the Netherlands. The world of his youth, like that of Martin Luther’s, was almost entirely defined by medieval Christianity. Educated by monks, Erasmus joined the religious life. He studied Christian theology at the University of Paris and followed this interest even after he left the university.
Analysis of the world, from experts
At the same time, Erasmus was greatly inspired by the classics. For Erasmus, ancient Greek and Roman authors – while technically pagan – were “the very fountain-head” of “almost all knowledge.”
Because of his love of the ancients, he is often called a Renaissance humanist, or, more appropriately, a Christian humanist. At a time when training in Greek and Latin was highly valued, Erasmus’ remarkable abilities made him much sought after.
Hans Holbein’s portrait of Erasmus. Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
With the support of wealthy patrons, he traveled around Europe, teaching at universities, writing books and meeting many prominent people. In England, he formed a close, intellectual friendship with the English author and fellow humanist Thomas More, whose book “Utopia” was about an imaginary society.
Together with More, Erasmus helped launch the career of one of the greatest artists of the 16th century, Hans Holbein, who painted both of their portraits. Erasmus’ portrait, along with many other masterpieces by Holbein, is now held at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Erasmus paves way for Luther
Luther famously used the printing press to publish polemical tracts that attacked the church and called for changes. The rapid and broad distribution of his ideas accelerated the Reformation."
The article about Erasmus continues
"It was Erasmus, however, who provided a model for Luther in how to take advantage of this new technology, how to use print as “an agent of change.”
Erasmus began publishing his books widely beginning in 1500, about 50 years after the first printed books appeared in Germany. He helped create an audience for Luther’s writings by popularizing Christian topics, such as how to be a good Christian and how to interpret the Bible. Many of his books were best-sellers during his lifetime.
Martin Luther nails his 95 Theses. Ferdinand Pauwels
Erasmus also prepared the way for one of Luther’s most radical ideas: that the Bible belongs to everyone, including common people. Luther translated the Bible into German in 1534 so that everyone could read it for themselves.
This idea can be found in Erasmus’ guide to reading the Latin Bible, “Paraclesis,” which he published in 1516 in Latin. Here he vividly describes his own dream of the future, that common people would use the Bible in their everyday lives.
“I would to God the plowman would sing a text of scripture at his plow and that the weaver at his loom would drive away the tediousness of time with it,” he wrote.
Not a supporter of radical change
Although Erasmus was sympathetic to Luther’s critique of church corruption, he wasn’t ready for the kind of radical changes that Luther demanded.
Erasmus wanted a broad audience for his books, but he wrote in Latin, the official language of the church. Latin was a language that only a small number of educated people, typically priests and the nobility, could read.
Erasmus had criticized the church for many of the same problems that Luther later attacked. In one of his most famous books, The “Praise of Folly,” he mocked priests who didn’t read the Bible. He also attacked the church’s use of indulgences – when the church took money from people, granting them relief from punishment for their sins in purgatory – as a sign of the church’s greed.
When Luther started getting into trouble with church authorities, Erasmus defended him and wrote him letters of support. He thought Luther’s voice should be heard.
But he did not defend all of Luther’s teachings. Some, he felt, were too divisive. For example, Luther preached that people are saved only by faith in God and not by good deeds. Erasmus did not agree, and he did not want the church to split over these debates.
Throughout his life, Erasmus forged his own approach to Christianity: knowing Christ by reading the Bible. He called his approach the “Philosophia Christi,” or the philosophy of Christ. He thought that learning about Jesus’ life and teachings would strengthen people’s Christian faith and teach them how to be good.
Erasmus’ ability to defend different points of view, the church’s and Luther’s, seems to have been particular to him. He wanted concord and peace within the church. Scholar Christine Christ von-Wedel describes him, therefore, as a “representative and messenger of a free and open-minded Christianity founded on scripture.”
After his death in 1536, his reconciliation of different views became impossible. The Reformation began a splintering that persists today."
From the website washingtonpost.com an article is headlined
"What About That Anti-Semitic Pig on Martin Luther’s Church?"
Analysis by Andreas Kluth
June 5, 2022 at 8:40 a.m. EDT
13th-century media bias. This article says
"However enlightened or bigoted you may think we are nowadays, we ought to be able to agree that our forebears really were god-awful prejudiced in the past. The reminders are all around.
Statues, monuments and other bits of public architecture teem with images of people who held views or committed acts we consider vile. Some fought to preserve slavery or became rich trading slaves. Others did, said or wrote things that were racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, or chauvinistic in some other way.
The question is what to do about all those relics today. Can we remove them and scrub our past clean? Should we even try? Or is there a better way to confront the vestiges of the bad old times in the here and now?
If you happen to find yourselves on the frontlines of America’s culture wars, these debates sometimes get too heated to be edifying. So a better case study — still loaded with historical and emotional baggage, but currently subject to a refreshingly rational debate — may be medieval anti-Semitism in Germany and Christianity.
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A German federal court this week held hearings in a case about a stone relief carved into the facade of a church in Wittenberg where Martin Luther once preached (though not the church with the door on which he allegedly nailed his 95 theses). The plaintiff is Michael Dietrich Duellmann, an elderly German who converted to Judaism in the 1970s. He wants the masonry removed because it’s obviously anti-Semitic and offensive.
Nobody is arguing with that assessment. The ornament dates to the 13th century, which wasn’t exactly the heyday of open-mindedness. It depicts a pig which is suckling two people who would have been identifiable at the time (by their headgear) as Jews, while a third person, meant to look like a rabbi, lifts the sow’s tail and looks into its anus.
Everything loathsome about medieval Europe and Christianity is in plain view. This was a culture of discrimination, persecution and pogroms. And the Wittenberg relief is the kind of smutty graffiti that served as the mass and social media of the time, propagating all that prejudice. Luther, who preached in that church more than two centuries after its masonry was chiseled, was notoriously anti-Semitic.
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And yet, Duellmann already lost his case in two regional courts, and got to the federal level only by appealing. So what’s the argument against whacking the imagery off the wall?
One objection is that lots of other churches and cathedrals — about 50 just in Germany, and many more in the rest of Europe — depict similar filth, if you look closely enough. To be thorough, you’d be destroying much of Western heritage."
The article continues
"That’s not the reasoning of the lower courts so far, however. Instead, the judges took into account the changed context of the “Jew’s Sow,” as the carving is called. Since the 1980s, a brass plaque in the ground has explained the historical background. Another pedagogic sign was added later. In a subtle way, the texts connect the medieval anti-Semitism on display to the Holocaust. Overall, the courts decided, the ensemble is no longer insulting to Jews but rather educational to all.
That rationale won’t satisfy Duellmann — and the many others who, all over the world, want to get rid of similar shameful monuments. But it’s worth pondering an approach to the tainted art of the past that explicitly embraces it by draping it in our own cultural context.
Obviously, there are some remnants of past evil that would be too charged to keep around. With good reason, there are no more public busts of Adolf Hitler. The bunker in Berlin where he took his life lies demolished and buried in the ground, marked only by a small explanatory plaque. It’s actually hard to find next to the vast Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which it abuts.
But that, too, is tantamount to context. In the same way, reinterpreting the setting around monuments — to slave traders, Confederate generals, imperialists, even Christopher Columbus — may be preferable to just tearing down the stone and metal.
Why lose it, when you can use it? These artifacts from the past could be invitations to teach and learn, to reflect on how far we’ve come in becoming tolerant and humane, and how much further we still have to go.
The fact is that people at the time — like the medieval Germans gazing at the Jew’s Sow in Wittenberg — thought nothing of this art, except that it was surely normal. That should be the real lesson to us. Of this we can be sure: We today do, say and think some things that our own descendants, too, will be ashamed of. But we can also leave them evidence that we tried to become self-aware and open to progress. That might even make them proud of us."
From the website macleans.ca an article is headlined
"The Reformation at 500: Grappling with Martin Luther's anti-Semitic legacy"
Opinion: On the Reformation's 500th anniversary, what lessons have been learned from the virulent but influential hatred of a foundational church figure?
By Michael Coren October 25, 2017
An antique print of Martin Luther in his study at Wartburg Castle in Eisenach (lithograph), 1882. (GraphicaArtis/Getty Images)
An antique print of Martin Luther in his study at Wartburg Castle in Eisenach (lithograph), 1882. (GraphicaArtis/Getty Images)
Michael Coren is a journalist and broadcaster and the author of 16 books. This article says
"It’s party time in the religious world. On Oct. 31, Christians—or, to be more precise, Protestant Christians, with a surprising amount of support from the Vatican—celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, when legend has it that German monk and professor Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, thus lighting the fuse that blew European Christendom apart.
It matters far more than one might think, because it was not only religion but politics, culture, and economics that would change in that hammering’s wake. In the document, Luther made public his condemnation of the sale of indulgences—money paid to reduce the time spent in purgatory, a sort of waiting room before heaven, by relatives and loves ones. But this academic disputation went further than that, and it was a manifesto of criticism aimed at Roman Catholicism. History, as it were, was given a reboot.
There is much that is positive about Luther. He liberated people from rigid church control, gave impeccable energy to the idea of the individual’s relationship with God, and worked to eliminate corruption and superstition. In many ways, he was a pioneer not just of religious change, but of modernity.
But behind his undeniable genius was a gritty nastiness. He could be crude, abusive, angry, and, perhaps most tragically, profoundly anti-Semitic—a legacy that needs to be grappled with, even 500 years later.
He started as a supporter of the Jewish people, arguing quite rightly that they had been badly treated by the Roman Catholic Church, and quite wrongly that they, if presented with what he regarded as a more authentic Christianity, would surely convert. In 1523 he wrote an essay, entitled “That Jesus Was Born a Jew,” condemning the fact that the church had “dealt with the Jews as if they were dogs rather than human beings; they have done little else than deride them and seize their property.”
But the Jews did not convert, and Luther reacted appallingly. In 1543, he published “The Jews and Their Lies,” which today is shocking in its venom, and even for its time stood out as particularly cruel and intolerant. In the 65,000-word treatise, he calls for a litany of horrors, including the destruction of synagogues, Jewish schools and homes; for rabbis to be forbidden to preach; for the stripping of legal protection of Jews on highways; for the confiscation of their money. The Jews are, wrote Luther, a “base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth.”
Some of his defenders have claimed that Luther was old and ill when he wrote this, ignoring the fact that he lived another three years after the essay and that most of us become mildly grumpy when we feel unwell, not genocidal. Plus, Luther had also managed to have the Jews expelled from Saxony and some German towns as early as 1537."
& continues
"And regardless of his intentions, Luther’s thinking on the Jewish people had a direct impact on history: The Nazis amplified Luther’s anti-Semitism from the earliest days of the National Socialist movement. It helped in the creation of the heavily Nazified and racist faction of Deutsche Christen, or German Christians, within the German Lutheran church, but perhaps more significantly, partly enabled the culture of anti-Semitism that made the Holocaust possible.
One especially repugnant case is that of Martin Sasse, the Bishop of the Evangelical Church of Thuringia during Kristallnacht in 1938. He feted the pogroms and the mass destruction of synagogues and Jewish businesses, and even tied it explicitly to Luther himself; just days after what was in effect the beginning of the organized slaughter of the Jews, he distributed a pamphlet entitled Martin Luther on the Jews: Away with Them! in which he claimed the Nazis were acting as Christians in their violent anti-Semitism, and that this was precisely what Luther would have wanted.
Yes, there was also a powerful anti-Nazi movement within Lutheranism, and the sacrifice and even martyrdom of those pastors and laypeople must never be forgotten. The Confessing Church, for example, was formed in opposition to the regime’s attempt to unify all German Protestants into a single pro-Nazi church. Leaders like Martin Niemoller and Heinrich Gruber were sent to concentration camps but survived; writer and activist Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was accused of being part of a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, did not.
But Luther was not unique in his Christian anti-Semitism. It’s such a grotesquely paradoxical reaction, of course; Jesus and most of the founders of Christianity were Jewish, but many of those claiming to love Him have hated His race and people. St. John Chrysostom, a major influence on the Eastern Orthodox Church, was virulently anti-Semitic; in 1555, Pope Paul IV issued a bull removing the rights of the Jews and subjecting them to communal humiliation. The examples are, alas, legion. Christians deliberately expunged the Jewishness of their faith and thus distorted it and shamed the teachings and life of that 1st-century Jewish preacher from Galilee. It’s a birth defect of the historic church, and it didn’t take very long for early Christian leaders to join the club—and while Luther did not codify his hatreds into tangible church policy, he left a heritage of antagonism and hostility all the same.
But 500 years later, have lessons been learned and wounds healed? Is the world a better and kinder place now because Christians have realized their colossal failures, stemming from one part of the church’s founding figures? It’s a layered answer. The Roman Catholic Church formally rejected its doctrinal anti-Semitism at the Second Vatican Council in 1965, and Catholics have worked diligently and genuinely to build bridges with the Jewish world since then. And outside of fringe conservative movements within the church, Rome has been largely successful. Protestantism is diverse by its very nature. Evangelical conservative Christians frequently adopt a Christian Zionist stance and are passionate supporters of Israel, even if often for mangled reasons; the underlying theology looks to the world’s Jews moving to Israel en masse, thus hastening the second coming and the end times. Lots of fire and mayhem to come—sinners beware."
& lastly says
"Liberal Protestantism, including most Lutherans, is less absolute. In 1994, the 5-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America spoke publicly of Luther’s “anti-Judaic diatribes” and denounced “the violent recommendations of his later writings against the Jews.” The Central Council of Jews in Germany had long asked for a formal statement from Lutherans on the subject of anti-Semitism, and just last year, the Lutheran Church in Germany obliged, condemning Luther’s writings on the Jews and “the part played by the Reformation tradition in the painful history between Christians and Jews.” The state Lutheran churches in Norway and the Netherlands have followed suit.
Other Lutheran churches reacted earlier; the American Lutheran Church, for instance, acknowledged it as early as 1974. In 1998, on the 60th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria issued a declaration that “it is imperative for the Lutheran Church, which knows itself to be indebted to the work and tradition of Martin Luther, to take seriously also his anti-Jewish utterances, to acknowledge their theological function, and to reflect on their consequences. It has to distance itself from anti-Judaism in Lutheran theology.”
The situation is confused by the situation in the Middle East. Progressive churches have been some of the first to admit and condemn past anti-Semitism, but have been equally bold in criticizing Israel, sometimes stridently. Informed critiques of certain Israeli policies is certainly not the same as anti-Semitism, in spite of what some zealots might have us believe, but there are times when attacks on Israel by Lutherans, the United Church and other liberal Protestants do seem to lack historical context and sensitivity to the Jewish experience, and seem more angry at the Jewish state than committed to a greater social and international justice. There have, for example, been numerous motions and even decisions to boycott and disinvest from Israel while at the same time brutal Muslim theocracies have been largely ignored.
Put simply, one of the prime reasons for the creation of Israel in 1948 was because European Christians had acted against their faith and persecuted the Jewish people. It’s imperative that Christians understand that, but it’s unclear that enough of them do. But for all that, the twin solitudes of Jews and Christians were broken down long ago. William Temple, for example, became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1944 and helped co-found the Council of Christians and Jews; in 1943, he spoke out in the House of Lords about the Nazi persecution of the Jews, insisting that, “We at this moment have upon us a tremendous responsibility. We stand at the bar of history, of humanity and of God.” That type of stance has been replicated and applauded myriad times since then and now, thank God, flows through the bloodstream of contemporary denominations. When in 2008 Lord Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of the Commonwealth, publicly referred to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York as “beloved colleagues,” he meant it. When in 1986 John Paul II entered Rome’s Great Synagogue, the first Pope since St. Peter to enter a Jewish place of worship, the emotion was genuine.
As a Christian with three Jewish grandparents, I have hardly ever experienced any anti-Semitism in the church. But as I celebrate this 500th anniversary, I will do so with reservations. Not because I regret the Reformation—far from it—but because the otherwise sparkling lens that Luther provided is not, for me and I know for many others, completely clear. And that’s so terribly sad."
usatoday.com has an article headlined
"Tiny Martin Luther toy triggers claims of anti-Semitism" on January 4, 2017
by Tom Heneghan ,
Religion News Service , this article says
"Playmobil’s toy figure of Martin Luther, in its trademark style aimed at children up to 12 years old. The word “Ende” (End) at the bottom of the left page of the Bible raised objections that the toy could be anti-Semitic.
When it comes to Martin Luther and anti-Semitism, even popular toys in Germany can’t escape theological scrutiny.
Playmobil, one of Germany’s leading toy manufacturers, rolled out a 3-inch plastic figure of Luther back in 2015 to promote this year’s 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
Cloaked in black robes, the Luther figure holds a quill in one hand and his German translation of the Bible in the other.
It’s been a huge hit.
About 500,000 have been sold, mostly in Germany — especially in cities where Luther lived and worked — but also in the U.S. and other foreign countries.
That makes it the most popular figure ever produced by the Bavarian company, which also makes little spacemen, pirates, workers and even Christmas crib sets among the thousands of different Playmobil toys it has turned out since 1974.
All was apparently going fine until Micha Brumlik, a retired Frankfurt University education professor and respected Jewish commentator, wrote last June that the popular toy was “anti-Jewish, if not even anti-Semitic.”
The problem, he said, was the inscription on the open pages of the Bible that the Playmobil Luther holds. On the left is written in German: “Books of the Old Testament. END.” The right page says: “The New Testament, translated by Doctor Martin Luther.”
Why was the word “END” written so prominently, Brumlik asked. “Theologically, there can be no other reason than that the ‘Old Testament’ and its validity should be seen as ended and superseded,” he wrote in the Berlin newspaper tageszeitung."
The article continues
"“Is the Old Testament, the Scripture of the people of Israel common to Jews and Christians, outdated and overtaken, as many Nazis — the so-called German Christians — wanted to see it, or is it just as important as the Gospels for Christian denominations?”
The regional Protestant church in Hesse and Nassau, the area where Frankfurt is located, soon seconded Brumlik’s criticism and said the wording could be misunderstood.
In an open letter, a group of progressive theologians said the toy presented a questionable view of the Bible “in a political and social context in which anti-Jewish views are again on the rise.”
This was not at all supposed to be what the cute little figure was about.
The German National Tourist Board and tourist officials in Nuremberg — center of Germany’s toy industry — developed the toy with Playmobil as a marketing gimmick to promote visits to Reformation-themed events in cities linked to Luther.
The Nuremberg tourism office sells it on its website for 2.39 euros (about $2.50). Amazon in Germany has three dozen rave reviews from delighted customers.
It’s one of countless souvenirs on sale for the anniversary, on top of Luther beer, Luther noodles, Luther socks, Luther refrigerator magnets, a Luther board game and, of course, a wide variety of new books about the man, his life and the Reformation.
A Protestant theologian acted as an adviser to the Playmobil project, which modeled the toy on a famous statue of Luther that stands in Wittenberg, the eastern German city where tradition says he nailed his 95 Theses to a church door on Oct. 31, 1517.
The Evangelical Church in Germany, the country’s main association of Protestant churches, quickly adopted the figure, even commissioning a life-size model to show at events promoting the Reformation commemoration.
While it initially had no objection to the inscription Brumlik criticized, the association, known by its German initials EKD, has been dealing in recent years with other aspects of the embarrassing legacy of Luther’s anti-Semitism as part of preparations for the anniversary.
At the group’s annual synod in 2015, it passed a resolution saying “Luther’s view of Judaism and his vilification of Jews are, according to our understanding today, in contraction to the faith in the one God who revealed himself in the Jew Jesus.”
In November, the EKD’s 2016 synod officially renounced the “Mission to the Jews,” an evangelism project that most regional churches had given up in the decades after the Holocaust but that retained some support among more conservative congregations.
In his article, Brumlik reminded his readers that Luther was “one of the founding fathers of modern anti-Semitism” and author of the infamous book On the Jews and Their Lies, in which the former Catholic monk urged his followers to burn down Jews’ homes and synagogues and confiscate their money.
Playmobil toys have made so many children happy that the company cannot possibly belong to this tradition, Brumlik said. Recalling all the Luther figures was not the answer, but maybe the company could remove “END” from the book page, or at least write it smaller.
After discussions among its sponsors, the Nuremberg tourist bureau announced that the word “END” would be removed from all future copies of the toy. The theologically more correct model will be available in March.
The Playmobil Luther has become so well-known in Germany that Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, chairman of the EKD, mentioned it in his New Year’s sermon in Berlin.
“In this jubilee year, it’s not primarily about Luther Playmobil figures, Luther socks and Reformation candies,” he said Sunday. “They only open the door so the message can be heard. And it is clear and more relevant than ever — rediscover Christ!”
Tom Heneghan is a correspondent based in Paris.
From timesofisrael.com an article is headlined
"Martin Luther 500th anniversary marred by anti-Semitism row"
Controversy erupts over ‘Judensau’ carving on church showing Jews suckling the teats of a sow as a rabbi looks under its leg and tail
By Yannick Pasquet 31 October 2017,
A picture taken on October 28, 2016 shows a bronze statue of German theologian Martin Luther outside the Marktkirche (Market Church) in Hannover, Germany. (AFP PHOTO / dpa / Holger Hollemann) this article says
"BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — A bitter row over a medieval anti-Semitic carving on a church wall risks overshadowing Germany’s celebrations on Tuesday to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the seismic theological shift started by German theologian Martin Luther.
The bas relief sculpture at the heart of the dispute dates from around 1300 and is one of Germany’s last remaining examples of vulgar anti-Jewish folk art that was common in Europe during that era.
The graphic stone image shows Jews suckling the teats of a sow as a rabbi looks intently under its leg and tail. The hateful symbolism is that Jews obtain their sustenance and scripture from an unclean animal.
Many churches in the Middle Ages had similar “Judensau” (Jewish pig) sculptures, which were also aimed at sending the stark message that Jews were not welcome in their communities.
This file photo taken on February 07, 2017 shows the Wartburg Castle in Eisenach, eastern Germany, which is known as the place where German church reformer Martin Luther translated the New Testament of the Bible into German.(AFP PHOTO / dpa / Jens Kalaene)
However its prominence on the facade of the Stadtkirche (Town Church) in the eastern German town of Wittenberg derives from the importance of the building, where Luther, himself a notorious anti-Semite, preached two centuries later.
It was in Wittenberg that Luther is said to have nailed his 95 theses to another church’s door in 1517, leading to a split with the Roman Catholic Church and the birth of Protestantism.
The theologian argued that Christians could not buy or earn their way into heaven but only entered by the grace of God, marking a turning point in Christian thinking."
the article continues
"But Luther also came to be linked to Germany’s darkest history, as his later sermons and writings were marked by anti-Semitism — something that the Nazis would later use to justify their brutal persecution of the Jews.
Marking the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, herself the daughter of a Protestant pastor, said it was essential that Luther’s anti-Semitism never be scrubbed from his theological legacy.
“That is, for me, the comprehensive historical reckoning that we need,” she said in her weekly video podcast Saturday.
Tens of thousands of Christians from around the world have descended in recent months on Wittenberg, the town of 47,000 inhabitants 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Berlin.
Meanwhile a loose coalition of activists has seized on the anniversary to argue that the sculpture in its current location, where Luther first preached in German, remains a dangerous symbol of intolerance.
A petition started by British theologian Richard Harvey calls for the sculpture to be removed from the public sphere and displayed in a museum.
“It’s so outrageous, obscene, insulting, fear-making — it is something that I protest in the strongest possible terms and if there’s any way — human, physical, spiritual or whatever — to change it, let’s do it,” Harvey, a self-described Messianic Jew, said in a video posted online.
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The appeal has collected more than 8,000 signatures so far.
However the Wittenberg church’s own congregation and the city council argue that it should be maintained and adopted a resolution to that effect in June.
They note that a bronze plaque laid in 1988 in the pavement next to the church points to the horrific legacy of virulent anti-Jewish sentiment, making the ensemble a vital historical relic.
“We are convinced that history means not forgetting the dark side of the past but confronting it,” the church’s pastor Johannes Block told ZDF public television."
& lastly says
"“It would be historically incorrect to remove the sculpture,” agreed professor of education Micha Brumlik, who is leading a local movement to maintain the image.
He told AFP the best solution would be to expand the adjacent memorial against anti-Semitism, which was installed under communism, to more fully place the “Judensau” sculpture in context.
“Out of respect for what happened later to the Jews, you have to provide a more complete explanation,” he said.
To call attention to their cause, Brumlik and fellow activists have held rallies on Wittenberg’s main square and read out anti-Semitic texts penned by Luther.
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The protest followed silent weekly gatherings at the same site in Wittenberg over the past year in which participants held up signs against the sculpture including one reading: “After Auschwitz, is it necessary to have the ‘Judensau’?”
While similar sculptures have gradually vanished in Europe, “Judensau” remains a common anti-Semitic slur used by neo-Nazis in Germany.
The controversy comes against the backdrop of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) winning nearly 13 percent of the vote in last month’s general election and entering parliament for the first time.
The Islamophobic and anti-immigration party’s local branch has seized on the debate to advance its own agenda.
In its own petition calling for the status quo to be maintained, the AfD wrote that “those who have a problem with Jews today” are primarily people “of Arab-Muslim origin.”
From tabletmag.com an article is headlined
"Amid Celebrations of Martin Luther, Some Want to Talk About His Anti-Semitism"
On the anniversary of the Reformation, we can’t forget what Luther thought about Jews
by
Verónica Zaragovia
October 31, 2017 this article says
"In Wittenberg, Germany, right now, walking around without a city map in one hand and camera in the other makes you stand out. The Protestant Reformation began, one could argue, 500 years ago this month, and tourists have been coming in droves to its birthplace. Martin Luther did not begin the Reformation but gave it a major kick in the pants here, and just about everything here is named after him, including the city’s official name, which in 1938 became Lutherstadt Wittenberg.
Outside the central train station, a billboard advertises the Luther-Hotel’s “Luther Burger and Käthe Nuggets”—Käthe for Katharina von Bora, Luther’s wife. Shops lining old town Wittenberg’s cobblestone streets sell cookie cutters shaped like Luther’s head and Playmobil’s special-edition Luther figurine. The city’s free public Wi-Fi network pays tribute, too: +LutherWLAN.
According to legend, on Oct. 31, 1517, Luther nailed a copy of his 95 Theses to the wooden doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. In his theses, Luther criticized the pope and Catholic Church practices like the selling of indulgences for redemption (when in reality, Luther wrote, the money was for renovations of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome). The doors burned down in 1760, but because of the printing press’s advent, copies of Luther’s work went viral, and he helped splinter the Catholic Church.
But Luther wrote more than just the 95 Theses. He’s also the author of a corpus of virulent anti-Jewish writings. Over the next 30 years, as Protestantism took root, Luther evolved from being tolerant of Jews, hopeful they could become good Christians, to being disgusted with them. He described Jews as blasphemous, contaminators and murderers who should be expelled by Protestant authorities.
***
Helena Fuentes, a nun with the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary in Darmstadt, near Frankfurt, wants people to acknowledge this dark side of Luther before celebrating the Reformation. On Wednesdays, she joins other members of the Sisterhood who stand by Wittenberg’s main square with Pastor Thomas Piehler of the Andreas Church in Leipzig. Together, they’ve been hosting silent vigils calling for an anti-Semitic stone relief on a historic Wittenberg church to come down.
The Wittenberg Judensau. (Photo: Flickr/Susanne Tofern)
The Wittenberg Judensau. (Photo: Flickr/Susanne Tofern)
The relief is called a Judensau, or Jewish sow, high up on an exterior wall of St. Mary’s Town Church, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where Luther preached.
“Praise of God and Jew hate do not belong together,” Piehler added. He and the nuns hold banners with statements, in German, like “Luther used the Judensau for his anti-Semitism” and “Let’s call it Luthersau. Then would you take it down?”
Luther wrote about this relief in 1543 in On the Schem Hamphoras. The title of his work refers to the nonsensical name of the Wittenberg relief, apparently a play on the Hebrew term shem ha-meforash, which refers to God’s name. Luther describes the rabbi as looking under the sow’s tail into the Talmud, insinuating that the ancient writings on Jewish law and tradition were in her bowels.
Earlier this year, the Wittenberg city council voted to keep the Judensau on the church, arguing that to do so preserves history. Piehler, though, hopes the attention paid to this Judensau could renew the debate. “So many articles have been published in Germany and this question has once again come to the table,” Piehler said. “That is very important to me—that the discussion does not stop there, and of course, our hope is that the Judensau is taken down in the Jubilee year.”
the article continues
"Historian Mirko Gutjahr, of the Luther Memorials Foundation, points out the downside of taking it down. Gutjahr is a curator of the Wittenberg exhibit “Luther 95 Treasures 95 People,” which includes pieces related to Luther’s anti-Judaism. If a museum displays the Judensau within its walls, only people “coming to the museum to learn things,” would see this stone relief, Gutjahr said. He doesn’t think that’s an effective way to combat anti-Semitism.
Instead, everyone should have access to the Judensau. It should stay exposed in the city “like an open wound,” Gutjahr said. But he, like Piehler, believes the topic, and Luther’s anti-Judaism more generally, should be debated. “Parts of the world are taking up ideas which we thought would be now in the backdrops of history again,” Gutjahr said, referring to current anti-immigrant sentiment—in medieval Germany, a Judensau was supposed to deter Jews from settling in an area. You should not leave it out, he believes, “since it’s part of the history as well, part of the Reformation and part of Martin Luther.”
Another question, still unresolved, is how much to blame Luther for Nazism, centuries later. Julius Streicher, who published some of the most hateful propaganda against Jews in his anti-Semitic newspaper, Der Stürmer, brought up Luther during his trial before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.
“Dr. Martin Luther would very probably sit in my place in the defendants’ dock today if this book had been taken into consideration by the prosecution,” Streicher said in the morning session on April 29, 1946. “In the book The Jews and Their Lies, Dr. Martin Luther writes that the Jews are a serpent’s brood, and one should burn down their synagogues and destroy them…” Later that year, the tribunal convicted him of crimes against humanity, and he was hanged."
& lastly says
"Others ask whether this is an anachronistic reading of history. Luther certainly was not the only one of his time to bash Jews. Plus, Luther also attacked Turks, Islam, and the papacy.
“This is precisely the opportunity to ask those kinds of questions,” said Dean Bell, professor of history at Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago, who’s been speaking at and attending recent events on Luther.
***
Luther didn’t start off writing so spitefully of Jews. In 1523 he wrote the essay “That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew,” hopeful that Jews would see the ties between the Old Testament and Jesus’ doctrines, prompting them to convert. He lamented that Jews had been exposed to the wrong teachings.
About 20 years later, though, he had lost sympathy. “Even now they cannot give up their inane raving boast that they are the chosen people of God, after they have been dispersed and rejected for 1,500 years!” he wrote, in 1543, in The Jews and their Lies.
Luther didn’t have much actual contact with Jews. During his lifetime, Jews were restricted in where they could live and what jobs they could keep. They often worked as money lenders, since they could charge interest on loans, a practice forbidden to Christians at the time. He did meet some Jews who had converted, and he welcomed them into his fold.
In 2015, the German Protestant Church expressed official guilt over Luther’s Jew hate. “The horror at such historical and theological aberrations and the awareness of our share of guilt in the continued suffering of Jews give rise to a special responsibility to resist and oppose all forms of enmity and inhumanity towards Jews today,” it said, in a statement.
Still, some Germans remain in a kind of denial. In September, Gutjahr had a phone conversation with a woman who called him to say the Nazis must have written Luther’s anti-Jewish texts. “She couldn’t believe that this intelligent man was able to write those bad things,” he said. Although he tried for two hours to convince her that Luther wrote them, he failed. “This shows that people still hold up Martin Luther as an important figure and kind of hero, if you will. They try to conceive Luther only in a special light.”
On Oct. 31, though, the spotlight will be on Luther’s positive contributions. This is the first time Germany has made the Reformation anniversary a national public holiday, and Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected in Wittenberg that day. Piehler says that he and the nuns will also hold their banners on that day, and will continue their vigils through early November."
From the New York Daily News website, nydailynews.com an article is headlined
"Martin Luther, T.R. and the rest of us"
By Richard Cohen
Oct 30, 2017 , this article says
"It's always the anniversary of something or other. In November, we have the Russian Revolution and the Balfour Declaration, and this week marks the 500th year since Martin Luther challenged the Catholic Church with his 95 theses. Given the loopy Zeitgeist of our times, I should rush into the street and mark the occasion by defacing Protestant churches with the customary red paint of protest. Luther, after all, was more than the creator of Protestantism. He was also a rotten anti-Semite.
The red paint has in recent days been splashed on the statue of Theodore Roosevelt that stands before the Upper West Side's American Museum of Natural History. The old Rough Rider is accused of championing colonialism (guilty) and embracing much of the racism of his times (guilty). For example, he was fond of saying, "I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of 10 are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the 10th."
A bit farther downtown, the statue of Christopher Columbus has been similarly assailed, he for his brutal, genocidal treatment of the Arawak Indians, of whom there are few left. Chris long ago got his holiday, but he is finally also getting his due. The same applies to the many statues of Civil War figures, extolled in bronze or whatever for their gallant defense of slavery and racism. Some of these got the red-paint treatment and have come down. It's about time. Treason can sometimes be noble; racism never is.
But does Luther also deserve a splash of red? The evidence is pretty shocking, not to mention definitive. In 1543, he published "On the Jews and Their Lies," in which he called my ancestors "base and whoring people" full of the "devil's feces . . . they wallow in like swine."
He had all sorts of ideas for what to do with the Jews, including the wholesale liquidation of their synagogues, even homes, and a ban on the teaching of their rabbis "on pain of loss of life and limb."
To be sure, Luther's Jew-hatred was typical for the time, but Luther himself was hardly typical. He was a powerful, colloquial writer, and his words surely had some effect. He was the founder of a church, or a movement, that now numbers nearly 1 billion.
But more pertinently, he provided a religious imprimatur to German anti-Semitism, which culminated in the Holocaust. Luther was often cited by the Nazis, but it would be wrong to blame him alone for the murder of 6 million souls."
The article continues
"As far as I'm concerned, Luther is a flawed figure. I can appreciate — even applaud — his reforms, but they mean little to me. Nevertheless, I spare him the red paint because I know his Jew-hatred is hugely negligible compared with the Reformation he initiated and, not insignificantly, the role he played in encouraging literacy. He wrote in German, not Latin, and like the Hebrews he so despised, he interposed no one between man and God. One had to read the Bible.
I apply the same rule to ol' T.R. and Christopher Columbus, as well as Woodrow Wilson (no doubt a racist) and the countless personages who lent their names and often ill-gotten fortunes to various institutions. Roosevelt, too, was a man of his times, but he was also the first President to have a black person as a guest in the White House. In 1901, Booker T. Washington came to dinner. As Roosevelt's biographer Edmund Morris points out, it was an astonishing act of racial tolerance for the era.
So, I listen to J.S. Bach, even though some of his sacred works soar on words of jarring anti-Semitism (it helps not to understand German), and I read Hemingway even though his depiction of Robert Cohn in "The Sun Also Rises" as a "kike" is just plain ugly. I make no allowance for Charles Lindbergh because his anti-Semitism endangered lives and because flying solo across the ocean was a stunt. (In a sense, so was Columbus' voyage; someone was going to do it.)
I pick and choose, my symbolic can of red paint always at the ready. But when it comes to those Confederate generals, they unambiguously stand for slavery, racism and the vile nostalgia for the so-called Lost Cause that prompted the erection of so many memorials. I cherish my Bach, feel bully about T.R. and acknowledge the immense importance of Martin Luther. He did more good than bad.
Happy anniversary, Martin!"
From www.barnesandnoble.com a good book to read is titled
"Luther and the Jews: Putting Right the Lies" Published in 2017
by Richard S. Harvey
The Overview says:
"Luther and the Jews: Putting Right the Lies is a timely and important contribution to the debate about the legacy of the Protestant Reformation. It brings together two topics that sit uncomfortably: the life, ministry, and impact of Martin Luther, and the history of Jewish-Christian relations to which he made a profoundly negative contribution. As a Messianic Jew, Richard Harvey considers Luther and his legacy today, and explains how Messianic Jews have a vital role to play in the much-needed reconciliation not only between Protestants and Catholics, but also between Christians and Jews, in order for Luther's vision of the renewal and restoration of the church to be realized.
""A fascinating account of Luther and the Jews which seeks to provide a thought-provoking framework for reconciliation between Christians and the Jewish people.""
--Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Emeritus Professor of Judaism, University of Wales
""Prepare to be shocked. Prepare to be grieved. Prepare to be challenged to the core. . . . Harvey's timely book exposes with documented clarity the horrid truth of what Luther thought, said, preached, and wrote. . . . But Harvey's . . . goal is much higher. . . . As a man of peace, he records also the efforts that have been made by Lutheran communities to confront and repent of this part of Luther's legacy . . . and as a devoted follower of Yeshua . . . he longs for the deepest reconciliation that the one Lord of Jew and Gentile died and rose again to accomplish.""
--Christopher J. H. Wright, Langham Partnership
Richard Harvey is a British Jewish believer in Jesus (Yeshua). He taught Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies at All Nations Christian College, UK, is a past president of the International Messianic Jewish Alliance, and is now a Senior Researcher with Jews for Jesus. He is author of Mapping Messianic Jewish Theology (2009)."
From forward.com an article is headlined
"Martin Luther: Hater of The Jews
By Benjamin Ivry August 09, 2012 , this article says
"The Austrian Jewish psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl (1905-1997), author of “Man’s Search for Meaning”, an inspiring account of his concentration camp experiences, enlightened many generations of students. None more so than a budding Austrian theologian Eric Gritsch, who in 1950 was mentored by Frankl, as the former described in a 2009 memoir.
Now a distinguished historian of Lutheranism, Gritsch published his latest book in January “Martin Luther’s Anti-Semitism: Against His Better Judgment,” citing Frankl’s humanistic search for life’s meaning in the preface to his study. Gritsch implies that failure to seek meaning can be a sin of omission. He notes that, since 1956, The International Congress for Luther Research has studied every possible topic about the 16th century German monk Martin Luther, who launched the Protestant Reformation, except his rapport with Jews.
“Martin Luther’s Anti-Semitism” cites another historian, Stefan Schreiner, to the effect that Luther knew “practically nothing that was authentic” about Jews. Yet Luther published such violent tracts as 1543’s “The Jews and Their Lies,” calling for anti-Semitic repression and labor camps which to a modern reader seem to prefigure Nazi policies. Luther’s biographer Roland Bainton wrote that “one could wish that Luther had died before” this unfortunate tract was written. Only in 1994 did the Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America explicitly repudiate Luther’s anti-Semitic ravings, and this delay, Gritsch implies, may have been due to embarrassing confusion about how anti-Semitism was an “integral part of [Luther’s] life and work… [but not] in harmony with the core of his theology.”
In Freudian terms, Luther the man allowed his visceral hatred of the Jews to emerge ferociously from his id, despite the efforts of the superego of his rational mind to suppress it. Some of Luther’s writings are clearly pathological, as when he analyzes the phrase “he put them to disgrace” from Psalm 78 (in his “Lectures on the Psalms”) as referring to Jews being punished for not accepting Jesus. For Luther, the term “disgrace” refers to his own perennial ailment of constipation, so that Jews’ “recta, their innermost bowels, are sticking out through the rear…[meaning] that their will to harm and do evil appears, since they are not able to vomit the feces of evils against [Jesus].”
Even Viktor Frankl might have been unable to cure Luther’s mental and digestive problems, but it is useful to have Gritsch’s sanely candid assessment of his derangement.
**Watch an interview with Dr. Viktor Frankl here."
From the Jerusalem Post, jpost.com an article is headlined
"Foundations of the Holocaust: Martin Luther, Theologian of Hate"
By DAVID TURNER
Published: SEPTEMBER 22, 2012 03:25
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“At his trial in Nuremberg… Julius Streicher… argued that if he should be standing there arraigned on such charges, so should Martin Luther.”
(Problems with uploading resulted in no hyperlinks this edition.)
Background: In what appear to have his “last straw” of grievances, the Vatican encouraging fundraising through the sale of indulgences (remission of punishment for the buyer’s sins), Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the Wittenberg Castle Church on 31 October, 1517. By his act of defiance the Great Reformer played a part in changing the course of history. Already a period of social unrest the conservative Augustinian monk became the symbol of religious radicalism and reform and would weaken the authority of the Church, a step towards the 17th century emergence of the secular nation state. It also inspired the transformation of religious anti-Judaism into modern secular antisemitism.
Accused of “being a Jew at heart” by his Catholic critics for his “kinder, gentler” approach to converting the Jews he chides past Church efforts,
“speaks of the Jews and of the way to convert them to Christianity. "Our fools, the popes, bishops, sophists, and monks, these coarse blockheads, dealt with the Jews in such a manner that any Christian would have preferred to be a Jew. Indeed… If the Apostles had dealt with the heathen as the Christians deal with the Jews, none ever would have been converted to Christianity"
The issue that defines Luther’s “empathy” for “the Jews,” that which most explains his eventual rage at “this damned, rejected race of Jews” is his failure at himself having failed as well. Luther was determined to succeed where, “[o]ur fools, the popes, bishops, sophists, and monks” had failed. A thousand years earlier Paul experienced failure to convince Palestinian Jewry of the mission of Christ Jesus, and similarly expressed his frustration. Luther’s writings reflecting even less tolerance for failure than Paul, rages at “the Jews” for rejecting his “tolerant” invitation to salvation through conversion.
Of the five “Jewish” works, those that would prove most fateful to the future of Jews were his last two, On the Jews and Their Lies (JTL) and Of The Unknowable Name and The Generations of Christ (UNC) written months apart in 1543, just two years before his death.
“If we wish to find a scapegoat on whose shoulders we may lay the miseries which Germany has brought upon the world -- I am more and more convinced that the worst evil genius of that country is not Hitler or Bismarck or Frederick the Great, but Martin Luther.” Reverend William Ralph Inge, 1944." Read the rest of this article online
From scholarship.rollins.edu a good article to click on and read in the pdf format is headlined
"Luther and Hitler: A Linear Connection between Martin Luther and Adolf Hitler’s Anti-Semitism with a Nationalistic Foundation"
Daphne M. Olsen, Rollins College
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Date of Award
2012
Thesis Type
Open Access
Degree Name
Master of Liberal Studies
Advisor(s)
Patrick Powers
Second Advisor
Dr. Barry Levis
Abstract
"Two of the most notoriously unshakable Anti-Semitics were the Protestant reformer Martin Luther and German Chancellor-turned dictator Adolf Hitler. But who exactly were Martin Luther and Adolf Hitler? Although four centuries apart, both Martin Luther and Adolf Hitler had a remarkable impact on both Germany and the world. Luther is renowned still today as the initiator and leader of the Protestant Reformation. Centuries later, Lutherans and Germans alike admire and honor him for his bold and daring actions against the Catholic Church in the 1500s. Hitler remains one of the most hated men in history. The similarities shared between Luther and Hitler were not limited to their hatred for anything Jewish, however. Both men were led by a strong sense of German nationalism and a yearning for unity among their fellow Germans.
What exactly was it about these two men that allowed them to start a rebellion and garner support from their fellow Germans? More importantly, what led them to live a life filled with rage and hatred, and why was it directed toward the Jews? Was there something about the German people in particular that allowed them to be susceptible to the leadership of Luther and Hitler? Martin Luther and Adolf Hitler are inseparably linked with their extreme anti-Semitism and nationalism. It is impossible to assume that Luther did not have any influence on Hitler and his views, for it cannot be mere coincidence that Hitler’s anti-Jewish sentiment of the 1930s and 1940s mirrors that of Luther’s anti-Semitism of the 1500s. This paper will explore the connection between Luther and Hitler; it will attempt to illustrate the similarities between their German nationalism and anti-Semitism, and explain how Luther laid the foundation for Hitler’s holocaust."
Recommended Citation
Olsen, Daphne M., "Luther and Hitler: A Linear Connection between Martin Luther and Adolf Hitler’s Anti-Semitism with a Nationalistic Foundation" (2012). Master of Liberal Studies Theses. 20.
https://scholarship.rollins.edu/mls/20
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From digitalcommons.liberty.edu an article to click on and read is headlined
"Redeeming Hitler's Luther"
About the Tragic Disturbing Anti-Semitic Legacy of Martin Luther, who is indeed directly to blame for the Nazi Holocaust
On November 12, 2014
shamelesspopery.com has an article headlined
"The Dark Side of Martin Luther"
by Joe Heschmeyer the article says
"Yesterday was Martin Luther’s 531st birthday, and today is the Feast Day of St. Martin. It seems like a fitting time to give an honest assessment of some of the darker parts of Luther’s legacy, and consider their implications.
There’s a popular Luther narrative that plays out a little like Star Wars. A humble son of the Church rises up to overthrow the Dark Side, the Evil Empire, the Roman Catholic Church, all while coming to see his true identity. We love an underdog story, so it’s easy to root for Luther. And this narrative is an important one, both for Protestants (to show why the Reformation was “necessary”) and atheists (to show why Catholicism/Christianity/fundamentalism/religion is dangerous and evil).
But no matter how attractive it may be, this Luther narrative is a fundamentally false one. It relies on two sets of falsehoods: (1) distortions and exaggerations of the evils done on the Catholic side; and (2) a whitewashing of the real history of Luther and the early Protestants. I’ve addressed (1) before, and I’d like to address (2) head-on today.
The real-life Luther was a man passionately convicted of his own rightness, so convinced that he thought anyone who disagreed with him was either ignorant, stupid, or evil. It was this overconfidence that I would suggest is the root behind some of the shockingly evil things he advocated. I’m going to lay them out here, letting them speak for themselves, before considering the implications of these facts.
I. Luther’s Darker Side: the German Peasants
A few years after Luther’s break from the Catholic Church, the revolutionary momentum that he had helped to unleash culminated in a massive popular (and bloody) uprising called the German Peasants’ War. I’ll let James Stayer, a historian of the German Reformation, paint the scene:
Rudolf Schiestl, Peasant Warrior and Death, 1525 (20th c.)
When the Roman court stumbled into condemning Luther in 1520, many of the younger generation of German-speaking theologians and biblical scholars turned against it [Rome / the papacy]. Certainly there were elements here of German cultural rebellion against the Latinate clerical caste that had dominated northern Europe throughout the Middle Ages. […] Now the revolt of German against Latin merged with a revolt of the commonrs against the clergy and aristocracy. Such a revolt was climaxed in wide areas of South Germany by the German Peasants’ War of 1525-26. This so-called war united the unprivileged in towns and rural districts, and it was the high-water mark of the Reformation as a spontaneous popular movement."
The article continues
"Having accidentally sparked a bloody revolution, Luther was in an unpleasant position. He was quickly associated with the revolutionary peasants both by the peasants themselves (to expand their popularity) and by his Catholic opponents (to show the danger of his ideas). This lead him to respond to the revolution in two very different ways.
Initial Position: Call for Peace
Luther’s initial response was to criticize both sides of the feud in his Admonition to Peace. To the Christian princes and lords, he wrote:
We have no one on earth to thank for this disastrous rebellion, except you princes and lords, and especially you blind bishops and mad priests and monks, whose hearts are hardened, even to the present day. You do not cease to rant and rave against the holy gospel; even though you know that it is true and that you cannot refute it. In addition, as temporal rulers you do nothing but cheat and rob the people so that you may lead a life of luxury and extravagance. The poor common people cannot bear it any longer. The sword is already at your throats, but you think that you sit so firm in the saddle that no one can unhorse you. This false security and stubborn perversity will break your necks, as you will discover.
(As an aside, notice how Luther is convinced that his opponents know that he is right, and just refuse to accept it: it can’t be an honest difference of opinion or Biblical interpretation.)
But Luther also addressed the revolting peasants, admitting the validity of some of their arguments, but calling them to moderation:
Nevertheless, you, too, must be careful that you take up your cause justly and with a good conscience. If you have a good conscience, you have the comforting advantage that God will be with you, and will help you. Even though you did not succeed for a while, or even suffered death, you would win in the end, and you would preserve your souls eternally with all the saints. But if you act unjustly and have a bad conscience, you will be defeated. And even though you might win for a while and even kill all the princes, you would suffer the eternal loss of your body and soul in the end."
& continues
"Later Position: Call for Massacre
Luther’s Admonition to Peace was published in early 1525. Shortly after this, Luther toured the war-torn area, seeing both the severity of the peasants’ actions, and the ineffectiveness of his own preaching. His admonition to peace having failed, Luther’s new position can fairly be characterized as an admonition to massacre.
In May of 1525, he published a work originally titled Against the Rioting Peasants, the title of which was quickly changed to Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, in which he called on everyone to kill the peasants, en masse:
Besides, any man against whom it can be proved that he is a maker of sedition is outside the law of God and Empire, so that the first who can slay him is doing right and well. For if a man is an open rebel every man is his judge and executioner, just as when a fire starts, the first to put it out is the best man. For rebellion is not simple murder, but is like a great fire, which attacks and lays waste a whole land. Thus rebellion brings with it a land full of murder and bloodshed, makes widows and orphans, and turns everything upside down, like the greatest disaster. Therefore let everyone who can, smite, slay and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful or devilish than a rebel. It is just as when one must kill a mad dog; if you do not strike him, he will strike you, and a whole land with you.
His new message was to offer the prospect of martyrdom to those fighting for the aristocracy, but only hellfire for all the slain peasants:
Thus it may be that one who is killed fighting on the ruler’s side may be a true martyr in the eyes of God, if he fights with such a conscience as I have just described, for he is in God’s Word and is obedient to him. On the other hand, one who perishes on the peasants’ side is an eternal brand of hell, for he bears the sword against God’s Word and is disobedient to him, and is a member of the devil. […] Strange times, these, when a prince can win heaven with bloodshed, better than other men with prayer!
As Dr. Mark U. Edwards, Jr. notes, “Luther had his way” and the “peasants were brutally suppressed.” Estimates of those slaughtered range from 100,000 to 300,000."
& continues
"Later Position: A Call to Destroy the Jews
As with the German peasants, Luther was quickly disappointed. The Jews didn’t en masse convert to Lutheranism. So Luther turned against them, becoming increasingly antagonistic towards the Jews throughout his life. One of the last works Luther ever wrote was his 1543 book On the Jews and Their Lies, published just three years before his dead. The book is chock full of the standard anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and black legends about all the evil things the Jews allegedly do when Christians aren’t around. This leads Luther, in Chapter 11 of the book, to present his Jewish problem:
What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we convert the Jews.
Luther offered a seven-fold solution to his Jewish problem:
Johann Michael Voltz, Hep-Hep Riots (1819)
“First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians.”
“Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them the fact that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God.”
“Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.”
“Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb.”
“Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let them stay at home.”
“Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other means of earning a livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us an they possess. […] Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest. With this he could set himself up in some occupation for the support of his poor wife and children, and the maintenance of the old or feeble.”
“Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen. 3 [:19]). For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting., and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.”
& countless
"In other words, burn down all the synagogues, burn down the houses of the Jews, deprive the Jews of their employment (and take all their money for “safekeeping”), and kill their rabbis and any Jews who leave home. Since the Jews weren’t going to simply stop practicing their religion, Luther’s proposal would require murdering an endless series of rabbis and their successors.
III. Germany’s Darker Side?
It’s probably worth mentioning the influence Luther’s ideas had on the spread of German anti-Semitism and the rise of Nazism. No less a figure than William L. Shirer, in his famous book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, draws a line from Luther to Hitler:
Synagoge of Siegen, Germany, burning during Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany (November 9, 1938)
It is difficult to understand the behavior of most German Protestants in the first Nazi years unless one is aware of two things: their history and the influence of Martin Luther. The great founder of Protestantism was both a passionate anti-Semite and a ferocious believer in absolute obedience to political authority. He wanted Germany rid of the Jew and when they were sent away he advised that they be deprived of “all their cash and jewels and silver and gold” and furthermore, “that their synagogues or schools be set on fire, that their houses be broken up and destroyed… and they be put under a roof or stable, like the gypsies… in misery and captivity as they incessantly lament and complain to God about us” – advice that was literally followed four centuries later by Hitler, Goering and Himmler.
In what was perhaps the only popular revolt in German history, the peasant uprising of 1525, Luther advised the princes to adopt the most ruthless measures against the “mad dogs,” as he called the desperate, downtrodden peasants. Here, as in his utterances about the Jews, Luther employed a coarseness and brutality of language unequaled in German history until the Nazi time. The influence of this towering figure extended down the generations in Germany, especially among the Protestants. Among other results was the ease with which German Protestantism became the instrument of royal and princely absolutism from the sixteenth century until the kings and princes were overthrown in 1918. The hereditary monarchs and petty rulers became the supreme bishops of the Protestant Church in their lands. Thus in Prussia the Hohenzollern King was the head of the Church. In no country with the exception of Czarist Russia did the clergy become by tradition so completely servile to the political authority of the State. Its members, with few exceptions, stood solidly behind the King, the Junkers and the Army, and during the nineteenth century they dutifully opposed the rising liberal and democratic movements. Even the Weimar Republic was anathema to most Protestant pastors, not only because it had deposed the kings and princes but because it drew its main support from the Catholics and the Socialists. During the Reichstag elections one could not help but notice that the Protestant clergy – Niemoeller was typical – quite openly supported the Nationalist and even the Nazi enemies of the Republic. Like Niemoller, most of the pastors welcomed the advent of Adolf Hitler to the chancellorship in 1933."
& continues
"The idea that the Nazis were initially successful because of the groundwork that Luther laid is an intriguing hypothesis, and Shirer presents several strong arguments for it. But it’s worth noting in Luther’s defense that the situation is more complex than this. First, Luther hated Jews on account of their religion, rather than their race: he was willing to let the Jews live off of a tiny allowance if they would sincerely convert to Christianity. Hitler’s opposition to the Jews was based more on racial lines, and so even a great many Hebrew Christians died in the Holocaust. Second, as alluded to above, anti-Judaism predates Luther. That said, it is undeniable that Luther recognized the dangers of this hatred of the Jews, and yet fueled the fires nonetheless.
IV. Why This Matters
The question of how much Luther is to blame for the Holocaust is an intriguing one, but I want to go a few different directions, instead.
1. The Sin of Pride
I mentioned before that Luther was so passionately convinced of his own rightness that he thought his opponents must necessarily be ignorant, stupid, or evil. This is the spirit consistently animating Luther’s writings. When he’s writing to someone who agrees with him, or who he thinks will agree with him, we get Dr. Jekyll. When he realizes that the other person actually thinks he’s wrong, Mr. Hyde appears. We see it from the first with his writings to the papacy, sweetly promising to obey whatever the pope should decide, and then denouncing him as the Antichrist when the pope doesn’t decide in his favor.
We see that play out time and again in the above passages: he’s convinced that the Christian rulers who disagree with him secretly know the truth about the “Gospel,” but just refuse to acknowledge it. He’s gentle to the peasants until he realizes that they’re not listening to them; then he calls for their mass slaughter. Likewise, he defends the Jews, when he thinks that they’re open to hearing his version of the Gospel; when he fails, he calls for their destruction, as well.
This has all the marks of the sin of pride, the sin said to have caused the fall of Lucifer. And none of us, regardless of Church affiliation, are immune from these temptations. It’s so easy to fall into a mindset where your political or religious opponents are idiots or monsters. Let Luther’s life be a cautionary tale in that regard.
2. Less Catholic, Less Christian
Martin Luther at the time of his death.
When Catholics point out that several of Luther’s early writings sound pretty Catholic, the standard Protestant response (and a quite reasonable one, I might add), is that Luther wasn’t completely reformed yet. Even after he went into schism, he spent another quarter-century slowly divesting himself of his Catholic beliefs. But what’s remarkable is that, as Luther became less and less Catholic, he became less and less Christian. "
& lastly says
"Compare the before-and-after you see above to see what I mean. There are countless other examples that point in the same direction, too. For example, Hosanna Lutheran Church notes that Luther’s language in Against the Papacy at Rome Founded by the Devil, written in 1545 (a year before his death), was “the most vehement and vulgar Luther ever wrote. To accompany it Luther commissioned a series of political cartoons by Lucas Cranach defaming the pope and Rome.”
The man praised for taking a bold stand for freedom of conscience was positively bloodthirsty towards those whose consciences disagreed with his own. And he became crueler and more bloodthirsty, the longer he spent away from the Church.
3. Was Protestantism Founded by a Saint?
This is one of the most important questions that I think we can take away from this: do we have any reason to conclude from the evidence that Martin Luther was a Saint?
Within the same year, 1525, he both cautiously encouraged the peasant’s revolt as possibly of God, and called for everyone involved in the revolt to be killed, saying that they were all going to hell. Does that sound like someone being led by the Holy Spirit, or like those that St. Paul warns (Eph. 4:14) are “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles”?
I understand that even Saints make mistakes, and that even Saints sin. I get that, really. Nobody is expecting that Luther be perfect. But it does seem to me that there’s a far cry from that platitude to saying that the guy who goes to his grave crying out for mass murder is a Saint.
I understand also that many modern Protestants feel no need to defend Luther (particularly if they’re not themselves Lutheran). But I’d challenge this. It seems to me that question ought to be massively important for those defending the Reformation. If the Reformation was started by someone led by intellectual pride, rather than the Holy Spirit, why trust it?
Protestant ecclesiology tends to hold that the Church is only the collection of the saved (we Catholics disagree, but that’s a question for another day). By this reasoning then, if Luther isn’t a Saint, he’s not even a member of the Church. So what does that make the denomination he started? How can Protestants count on someone outside the Church to reform and recreate the Church?
So these are the reasons that I raise these unpleasant bits of history. In doing so, I hope that I’ve been fair to Luther, while raising questions worthy of serious examination."
One person typed as a comment in reply to this article on
shamelesspopery.com that
"Many Lutherans wrestle with this problem. Luther gets more angry, vulgar, and anti-Semitic as he gets older. The way I explain this is that Luther is like Elvis. Lutherans love the young Luther, just as Americans love and remember the young Elvis. We forget the older, bloated, and drugged up Elvis. (If you see that image of Luther above, then the comparison hits at the truth in many ways) Lutherans do not want to think about the older and angry Luther. His writings force us to remember the man for who he was and the place he came from (Luther is a product of his time and also shaped his time). That is not to justify him or let him off the hook, but we need to remember people in their actual historical locations. If there is hope for the Holy Spirit to work through a vulgar man like Luther, then there is hope that the Holy Spirit can work through me.
My branch of Lutheranism (ELCA) will acknowledge this ugly truth and state that he was wrong in being so vulgar and hateful toward Jews. There are some branches of Lutheranism that embrace this hate and embrace the Anti-Roman ideas as well, which brings a bad name to all Christians. The Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation have come together on these topics to express regret over words and polemics used in the 16th century.
We want to take an honest look at Luther, the late medieval world, and the church of that day. We do not want to whitewash history to make ourselves look better! Lutherans are the first people to step up and state the wrongs that our ancestors did, and we will be the first ones today to fight against oppression and abuse in our own church and in our culture. Matthew 7:3-5 Just Sayin’!"
Another person typed the following comment in reply to the article
"Luther is likely in hell for his brutal pride (Whoever opposes me is in hell for my thoughts are the thoughts of God) and perverse hatred just as many Catholic hierarchs and clerics are in hell for similar perversions. He trashed the Scriptures and twisted doctrine in utterly demonic fashion."
Another article related to Germany and the Holocaust is from the website
ynetnews.com headlined
"Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to visit Israel"
Former NBA star, who is making film about WWII, to meet Rabbi Lau whom his father liberated from Nazi concentration camp
Itamar Eichner|Published: 04.17.11 , the article says
"American basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will visit Israel in July and meet with Rabbi Israel Meir Lau to discuss a film that he is making about World War II, the rabbi said recently.
The film is based on the book "Brothers in Arms", which Abdul-Jabbar co-authored and deals with the American troops who liberated Nazi concentration camps in the end of World War II. Abdul-Jabbar's own father served on the 761st Tank Battalion, which liberated the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Germany.
Among the Jews rescued from the camp were two children: Rabbi Lau and his brother, Naftali Lavie. Abdul-Jabbar and Lau met for the first time 14 years ago, during the former's first visit to Israel.
"The fact that such a famous basketball player, and a Muslim, is about to attach himself to the Holocaust issue is very exciting," he said. "I will certainly give my blessing to this initiative."
The retired athlete will arrive early in July as a guest of the Foreign Ministry and the Israeli Consulate in New York, and will participate in the Jerusalem Film Festival, where he will present the basketball documentary that he produced, "On the Shoulders of Giants."
His father's dying wish
Lau said that Abdul-Jabbar's father, Ferdinand L. Alcindor, had a dying wish: "That his son visit Israel, and meet the little boy that he rescued from Buchenwald and turned into a prominent rabbi."
Lau said he clearly remembers how an African American solider came up to him during the liberation, picked him up, and told the residents of the German city of Weimer: "Look at this sweet kid, he isn't even eight yet. This was your enemy, he threatened the Third Reich. He is the one against whom you waged war, and murdered millions like him."
Decades later, Lau said, his rescuer's son found him.
"I think that what he is about to do is a very significant contribution to human solidarity. It comes to say that there is no discrimination between white and black people," Lau said. "They were among the liberators as well, and they understand better what it is like to go from slavery to freedom."
Abdul-Jabbar, who towers at 7' 2'' (2.18 m), was born in 1947 in New York as Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. He became known as one of the best basketball players of all time, and retired in 1989 after 20 seasons. In 1971 he converted to Islam and changed his name. After retiring from basketball he became a historian, writer, actor and producer."
The article continues
"Yet rabbinic teaching was madness and blindness that blasphemed Christ, Mary, and the Holy Trinity. Luther could not “have any fellowship or patience with obstinate [Jewish] blasphemers and those who defame this dear Savior.” Blasphemy was a civil crime. To allow it to continue, Luther feared, meant Christians would share in the guilt for it.
Thus, Luther now proposed seven measures of “sharp mercy” that German princes could take against Jews: (1) burn their schools and synagogues; (2) transfer Jews to community settlements; (3) confiscate all Jewish literature, which was blasphemous; (4) prohibit rabbis to teach, on pain of death; (5) deny Jews safe-conduct, so as to prevent the spread of Judaism; (6) appropriate their wealth and use it to support converts and to prevent the lewd practice of usury; (7) assign Jews to manual labor as a form of penance.
Luther advised clergy, their congregations, and all government officials to help carry out these measures. Since most Jews had been expelled from Germany before 1536, Luther’s counsel was implemented by few officials. Yet a harsh anti-Jewish measure in 1543 mentioned Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies.
Both Luther’s friends and his foes criticized him for proposing these measures. His best friends begged him to stop his anti-Jewish raving, but Luther continued his attacks in other treatises. He repeated as true the worst anti-Semitic charges from medieval literature. Jews killed Christian babies; they murdered Christ over and over again by stabbing Eucharistic hosts; they poisoned wells.
Luther now thought what he had accused Catholics of thinking in 1523: Jews were dogs. “We are at fault for not slaying them,” he fumed shortly before his death.
Violating His Own Method
As a biblical theologian, Martin Luther struggled with the relationship between Jewish (Old Testament) and Christian (New Testament) Scriptures—a struggle not yet resolved. But when Luther concluded that God had rejected the people of Israel, he violated his own theological method.
The Wittenberg professor had taught his students that one cannot and should not speculate about the will of the hidden God, for what God has not revealed cannot be known. A student once asked Luther, “What did God do before he created the world?” Luther responded, “He created hell for people who ask this question.” Yet when the question was “Why do Jews refuse to convert to Christianity?” Luther’s response was, “Because God hardened their hearts and deserted them because of their stubbornness.”
Luther was not an anti-Semite in the racist sense. His arguments against Jews were theological, not biological. Not until a French cultural anthropologist in the nineteenth century held that humankind consisted of “Semites” and “Aryans,” were Semites considered inferior.
Alfonse de Gobineau’s views were quickly adopted by European intellectuals and politicians, and Jews became the scapegoats of a snobbish colonialist society in England, France, and Germany. The rest is history—including the Jewish holocaust perpetrated by Adolf Hitler and his regime. National Socialists used Luther to support their racist anti-Semitism, calling him a genuine German who had hated non-Nordic races.
Luther was but a frustrated biblical scholar who fell victim to what his friend Philipp Melanchthon called the “rabies of theologians”: drawing conclusions based on speculations about the hidden will of God. Luther erred because he presumed to know God’s will."
By Eric W. Gritsch
[Christian History originally published this article in Christian History Issue #39 in 1993]
Dr. Eric W. Gritsch is Maryland Synod Professor of Church History at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and director of the Institute for Luther Studies.
From
thegospelcoalition.org an article is headlined
" Luther’s Jewish Problem"
OCTOBER 19, 2017 | Bernard N. Howard this article says
"Nuremberg, 1946
In 1946, Julius Streicher was on trial for his life. He had published the antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer, and had been captured at the end of World War II. The Allies put him on trial alongside 23 other prominent Nazis at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. During the trial Streicher was asked: “Witness, what aims did you pursue with your speeches and your articles in Der Stürmer?” Streicher replied:
I did not intend to agitate or inflame but to enlighten. Antisemitic publications have existed in Germany for centuries. . . . In the book The Jews and Their Lies, Dr. Martin Luther writes that the Jews are a serpent’s brood and one should burn down their synagogues and destroy them. Dr. Martin Luther would very probably sit in my place in the defendants’ dock today, if this book had been taken into consideration by the Prosecution.
Streicher was a propagandist who devoted his life to spreading slander and falsehood, but on this occasion he was telling the truth.
Wittenburg, 1543
The book Streicher mentions, The Jews and Their Lies, was written by Luther in 1543, three years before his death. It was closely followed by another antisemitic treatise: Vom Schem Hamphoras (On the Ineffable Name). Oxford University historian Lyndal Roper summarizes the content of these two works in her recent highly acclaimed biography, Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet [review]:
The Jews, he alleges, look for biblical truth “under the sow’s tail,” that is, their interpretation of the Bible comes from looking in a pig’s anus. . . . They defame Christian belief, “impelled by the Devil, to fall into this like filthy sows fall into the trough.” If they see a Jew, Christians should “throw sow dung at him . . . and chase him away.” Luther calls for the secular authorities to burn down all the synagogues and schools, and “what won’t burn should be covered over with earth, so that not a stone or piece of slag of it should be seen for all eternity.” The Jews’ houses should be destroyed and they should be put under one roof, like the gypsies. The Talmud and prayer books should be destroyed and Jewish teachers banned. They should be prevented from using the roads, usury banned, and the Jews forced to undertake physical labor instead. Assets from moneylending should be confiscated and used to support Jews who converted. This was a program of complete cultural eradication. And Luther meant it."
The article continues
"Luther’s anti-Semitism then reached a crescendo of physical revulsion. He imagined Jews kissing and praying to the Devil’s excrement: “the Devil has emptied . . . his stomach again and again, that is a true relic, which the Jews, and those who want to be a Jew, kiss, eat, drink, and worship.” In a kind of inverted baptismal exorcism, the Devil fills the mouth, nose, and ears of the Jews with filth: “He stuffs and squirts them so full, that it overflows and swims out of every place, pure Devil’s filth, yes, it tastes so good to their hearts, and they guzzle it like sows.” Whipping himself into a frenzy, Luther invokes Judas, the ultimate Jew: “When Judas hanged himself, so that his guts ripped, and as happens to those who are hanged, his bladder burst, then the Jews had their golden cans and silver bowls ready, to catch the Judas piss (as one calls it) with the other relics, and afterwards together they ate the shit and drank, from which they got such sharp sight that they are able to see such complex glosses in Scripture.”
This summary provides only a sampling of Luther’s hate-filled vitriol. Multiple passages in his 1543 writings against the Jews are just as abhorrent.
America, 2017
October 31, 2017, marks the 500th anniversary of the publication of Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses. Exasperated by the widespread selling of indulgences—pardons for sin sold by the Roman Catholic church to fund clerical debt and architectural projects in Rome—Luther bravely declared that Christ’s merits are “freely available without the keys of the pope.” Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses set in motion the Europe-wide revival of biblical faith we call the Reformation. Luther has accordingly been the historical figure placed front and center in this year of commemoration known as Reformation 500.
As a Jewish believer in Jesus, however, Reformation 500 puts me in a strange position. Luther’s gospel service cannot be denied; I myself have benefited from it greatly. But his attitude toward my own race was one of unrestrained hostility. How should I think about such a man? To frame the question more broadly, how should Luther’s antisemitism affect his legacy?
I have three proposals.
1. Luther’s antisemitism should be acknowledged without qualification.
I’ve noticed a pattern when Christians address the subject of Luther’s hostility to the Jews. First there’s acknowledgement; then comes an attempt to dial down the awfulness and make it less troubling. The desire to defend Luther is understandable—we owe him so much. But the excuses don’t stand up to scrutiny.
For example, at one recent conference a speaker said this: “Luther was wrong . . . but this isn’t necessarily antisemitism. That’s really a 20th-century phenomenon. . . . It wasn’t an ethnic motivation that prompted Luther to this; it was a theological one.” You can almost hear the audience’s sigh of relief. But the notion that antisemitism is a modern phenomenon is a fallacy. Although the term itself is relatively recent (according to the Anti-Defamation League it was first used in 1873), the reality it describes dates back to the 5th century B.C., when Haman “sought to destroy the Jews” simply because they were “the people of Mordecai,” his enemy (Est. 3:6). Whenever Jews are singled out for hostile treatment, that behavior can rightly be described as antisemitism. In any case, there’s ample evidence that Luther’s theological opposition to Jews was paired with ethnic hatred. Why else would he repeatedly picture them smeared with pig manure? To take a people’s distinctive feature—in this case Jewish avoidance of pigs—and maliciously turn it against them is textbook racism."
& continues
"Others attempt to defend Luther by stressing that in his younger days he had been much friendlier to Jewish people. In his 1523 tract, That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, he reminded readers that “the Jews are of the lineage of Christ” and called for better treatment of Jews than they’d received from the popes. While it’s true Luther wasn’t antisemitic throughout his life, it’s a serious mistake to make too much of the point. Imagine suffering vicious racial persecution. Would you gain any comfort from knowing your persecutor hadn’t always been a racist? What’s more, Luther’s friendliness to Jews in the early 1520s seems to have been predicated on the progress he expected them to make toward faith in Christ. So from the Jewish perspective, he wasn’t necessarily offering them safe harbor, come what may.
A third way people try to reduce the horror of Luther’s antisemitism is by presenting him as a person of his time, a fellow traveler in a generation given over to Jew-hatred. According to this argument, while Luther should be faulted for failing to overcome his culture, we shouldn’t be too quick to condemn, because every culture, including our own, has its blind spots. The problem with this argument is that Luther had in fact overcome his culture’s blind spots, at the time of the 1523 tract mentioned above. It’s like a white pastor in 1930s Mississippi calling for a radical easing of Jim Crow laws, only to double down on segregation two decades later. The one thing you couldn’t say in that pastor’s defense, given his earlier record, is that he simply went along with his generation’s blind spots.
I would advise anyone addressing Luther’s antisemitism to say it was evil, and the more closely you look at it, the worse it gets. Any temptation to sugarcoat this bitter pill should be resisted.
2. Luther’s antisemitism should—as far as possible—be understood.
The inevitable question raised by Luther’s antisemitism is how someone who did so much to glorify Jesus could disobey him so flagrantly in this area. The New Testament describes Jewish people who reject Jesus as “natural branches” broken off the “olive tree” of God’s people. It says to Gentiles, “Do not boast over those branches. . . . They were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. . . . And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again” (Rom. 11:18–23). Luther knew those verses. He translated each of those words from Greek into German! Why did he put them to one side, and others like them, in order to pour forth his white-hot hatred?"
& continues
"Our urge to understand shouldn’t lead us too quickly to rational explanations. Sin is profoundly irrational, as all of us know from our own hearts and actions. Explanations can easily morph into excuses like the ones discussed above. But insofar as they’re possible, explanations can help us avoid the same evils by revealing the missteps that take a person down dark paths.
Our urge to understand shouldn’t lead us too quickly to rational explanations. Sin is profoundly irrational, as all of us know from our own hearts and actions.
The main factor leading Luther toward antisemitism was his longing for a unified Protestant society. He wanted the “two kingdoms” of church and state to create a community that crushed or banished all threatening groups. In this way he sought a kind of Protestant medievalism. The theological changes he introduced were enough for him; in every other respect he wanted to preserve the medieval order.
So when the 1525 Peasants’ War threatened the medieval political settlement, Luther urged the German princes to “smite, slay, and stab.” When Anabaptists threatened Protestant unity, Luther and his colleague Philip Melanchthon accused them of sedition and blasphemy, and in a 1531 memorandum they argued such offenses merited the death penalty. Luther’s comment on this action is telling: “Although it seems cruel to punish them with the sword, it is crueler that they condemn the ministry of the Word and have no well-grounded doctrine and suppress the truth and in this way seek to subvert the civil order.” Luther’s unwillingness to see the civil order subverted either politically or theologically meant he ran out of patience with the Jews and could no longer endure their presence in Protestant territory."
& continues
"He felt he had a God-given right to live in a unified society in this world, and that error fueled his antisemitism. Surely there are lessons here for Christians in America today.
3. Luther’s antisemitism should harm his reputation.
The essence of the Reformation is that we’re saved not on the basis of our own deeds, but through faith in Jesus. That is why, in the brilliant novel The Hammer of God, a Lutheran pastor joyfully says, “I go about my duties as might a prison warden who carries a letter of pardon for all his criminals.” The pardon Jesus offers through his atoning death covers all our sins, even those as vile as Luther’s. To use Luther’s own formula, the believer is simul justus et peccator (simultaneously righteous and a sinner).
And yet Luther himself writes, in his 1520 tract The Freedom of a Christian, “The inner man, who by faith is created in the image of God, is both joyful and happy because of Christ in whom so many benefits are conferred upon him; and therefore it is his one occupation to serve God joyfully and without thought of gain, in love that is not constrained.” That is indeed the Bible’s vision for the Christian life (see Romans 6:15–23), and why we should particularly celebrate those Christians who, by the Spirit’s power, live out that vision most comprehensively.
With that in mind, it seems to me Luther is a man we should honor but not celebrate. Let’s honor him for confronting the hollow deceptiveness of the Roman Catholicism of his time. Let’s honor him for translating the Bible into the language of ordinary people, so they could read for themselves the words of eternal life. Let’s honor him for releasing countless monks and nuns across Europe from lives of cloistered ritual and mandated celibacy. Luther was a mighty instrument of awakening, deserving honor in this anniversary year. But this honor shouldn’t rise to the level of celebration. Our memory of Luther must be tempered with sadness because of his sin and its consequences.
Luther is to me both hero and anti-hero; both liberator and oppressor. Spiritually speaking, he has been my teacher, but in relation to my family he has acted as persecutor. Soon after Kristallnacht (when the Nazis destroyed Jewish synagogues and businesses), Bishop Martin Sasse published a tract titled Martin Luther on the Jews: Away with Them! Sasse quoted from Luther’s 1543 writings and argued Luther’s goal was finally being achieved. Through Sasse and others, Luther’s name and work were used to prepare the ground for the Holocaust, in which my own great-grandmother was murdered and my great-uncle and great-aunt were brutally incarcerated. The Holocaust was fully underway by 1943—exactly 400 years after Luther shut his ears to the Bible and unleashed his antisemitic furies. As we commemorate Reformation 500, we do well to remember that other anniversary."
From divineheartofgod.org an article is headlined
"Judas Iscariot is in Hell forever"
PUBLISHED ON December 13, 2019 This article says
"Let us be loud and clear:
Jesus answered: He it is to whom I shall reach bread dipped. And when he had dipped the bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the morsel, Satan entered into him (Jn 13:26-27).
[Christ]: Holy Father, keep them in Your name, whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are one. While I was with them, I kept them in Your name. Those You gave me, I have kept and none of them is lost, but him who was destined to be lost, that Scripture may be fulfilled (Jn 17:11-12).
Judas Iscariot, the spiritual son of his ‘father,’ Satan – the betrayer of Christ, just as Satan was the original betrayer of the Almighty Father – is in Hell for eternity. Not because the Father and the Son did not continually present him with Their mercy, but because Judas wilfully rejected this until his last dying breath. Even though Our Lady also tried to save him with her prayers.
Judas betrayed Christ, but what led to his eternal damnation was pride, the same original sin of Satan. Judas thought he ‘knew it all.’ He was too proud to humble himself and accept the mercy of Him who did not come to be an earthly king, or to accept the help of the Woman.
Anyone who claims, or attempts to claim, otherwise either has insufficient knowledge of the Faith or is a wolf of the revisionist kind.
Judas Iscariot is in Hell. Together with Martin Luther and Adolf Hitler."
The website
reformation21.org has an article headlined
"A Legacy of Shame: Luther and the Jews"
by John Ross on
August 30, 2010 , this article says :
"Some years ago I was standing at a pedestrian crossing in the town of Echterdingen, near Stuttgart in Germany. It was a Sunday morning. The crossing light was at red. I looked quickly left and right, there was no car in sight and so I crossed. An elderly couple, probably coming from the same Lutheran service that I had been attending, audibly tut-tutted their disapproval at my anarchic initiative and remained stolidly where they were until the green light gave them permission to cross the deserted street. Was I unfair to see in this suspension of private judgement a vestige of what may, for better or worse, be called 'Erastianism'; the belief widely held in pre-war Germany that to disobey the State was to disobey God? I think not. In that moment I gained an insight into how a monster such as Adolph Hitler might hold sway over such a decent and civilized people as the Germans, and how something so inherently evil as the Final Solution might be possible in a state with so great a Christian heritage, given that that state had acquired such extensive powers over religious and cultural life. And for that Martin Luther carries a share of the blame.
As Carl Trueman has pointed out, during the early part of the Reformation Luther entertained the hope that Jews who were disgusted by the idolatry of medieval Catholicism and had endured mistreatment at the hands of the papacy would speedily join him in working for religious reform. To win them for the Reformation he wrote, in 1523, an appealing tract entitled That Christ was born a Jew, and stated his hope that:
if one deals in a kindly way with the Jews and instructs them carefully, many of them will become genuine Christians and turn again to the faith of their fathers, the prophets and patriarchs.
Luther's naivety was, however, soon disabused. His well meaning overtures were rebuffed and he, being infamously irascible responded with the summary harshness contained in his malevolent 1543 tirade, On the Jews and Their Lies. Attempts have been made to show that an older wiser Luther returned to his gentler original attitude, but they are not altogether convincing.
Not all the Reformers approved of Luther's attitude. There is a letter from Bullinger of Zurich to Martin Bucer in which he likened Luther's stance on the Jews to the Inquisition. Calvin's attitude too was generally benign, although his remarks could at times be acerbically medieval and his Geneva had no room for Jewish residents. But to give Calvin his due, it was he not Luther, who restored the Law to its rightful place in Christian life and it was Calvinists, such as the Jewish Christian John Immanuel Tremellius (1510-1580), who took part in the compilation of the Heidelberg Catechism, who were among the foremost Christian Hebraists in the succeeding two centuries. In addition, the post-Reformation rapprochement between Protestants and Jews may be substantially credited to Calvin's influence in the socio-economic and political realms, which, in turn, inspired a generally philo-Semitic attitude among the English Puritans and provided a rationale for Oliver Cromwell's granting Jews permission to resettle in England, from which they had been banished since 1290. It was Calvinism that made Scotland a country where Jews have always been treated as 'aboriginal Presbyterians,' as Chaim Bermant once put it. In the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries Calvinism contributed to pioneering missions to the Jews, and in the twentieth century influenced the production of the Balfour Declaration and the proclivity of British and American politicians to favour the formation of the State of Israel. "
& lastly says
"Whilst the first Assembly of the World Council of Churches meeting in Amsterdam in 1948 resolutely condemned anti-Semitism it affirmed Christian witness to Jewish people. But since 1948 the guilt-ridden continental European churches have sought either to play down or reject Jewish missions. The Dutch Reformed Church (GKN) abandoned mission in favour of dialogue and endorsed the Christian kibbutz Nes Ammim's renunciation of any pretension to engage in missionary proselytism. In 1980 the Synod of Protestant Churches of the Rhineland stated: 'We are convinced that the Church has the testimony to bring its mission to other people - but not to the Jewish people.' The following year, the Church of Scotland abandoned its traditional and honourable history, and, influenced by Two Covenant theory, affirmed the priority of theological dialogue over mission to the Jewish people.
Of course, the church owes a incalculable debt to Luther, a great, though sinful and seriously flawed man, and it would be arrant folly to deny it. As Berthold Schwarz, of the Freie Theologische Akademie, Giessen, Germany has commented, 'Gordon Rupp had it right when he wrote about Luther: "I confess I am ashamed as I am ashamed of some letters of St. Jerome [and] some paragraphs in Sir Thomas More ...and must say that their authors had not so learned Christ, and that, thank God, this is not the major part of what they had to say."' We need, therefore, to take an honest and thoughtful, not a naive, approach to the problems he has bequeathed to us.
Instructively, the Jewish Christian writer, Jacob Jocz was of the view that Luther 'with all his venom was not an anti-Semite in the modern sense.' And I find it interesting that William Cunningham, renowned for his love of the Jewish people and his commitment to their evangelisation - he was a member of the first Church of Scotland Jewish missions committee and, after 1843, its Free Church counterpart - considered that it was Luther's notorious attitude to the bigamous marriage of Philip of Hesse, rather than his vituperation against the Jews, that was "probably the darkest spot in his history." [2] Of course, had he lived in our post-Holocaust age, he may have seen things differently. We shall never know. But this suggests to me that Cunningham might have corroborated Trueman's inclination to see Luther's hostility to the Jews as a repugnant moral aberration rather than a systemic theological weakness.
Notwithstanding Luther's unchristian cruelty in his attitude to the Jews - and the Anabaptists and peasants too, for that matter - we cannot but thank God for this man who clarified for the church the cardinal doctrine of justification by faith alone. There is, surely, a wise example to follow in Augustine's sage advice concerning Platonism, "separate these truths from their unfortunate associations, take them away, and put them to their proper use for the proclamation of the gospel." Finally, let us not forget that any failure of ours to proclaim the gospel of justification by faith alone to the Jewish people of our time is a form of religious anti-Semitism as inherently evil as the philosophy of the Nazis."
The website
michaelrydelnik.org has an article headlined
"The Tragedy of Martin Luther’s Anti-Semitism"
By Dr. Michael Rydelnik October 22, 2017 , this article says:
"It’s been 500 years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Church. Next week we’ll be commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. But for now, I want to address the most difficult aspect of the Reformation for me—Martin Luther’s unexpected anti-Semitism.
Most people are surprised to hear of Martin Luther’s hatred of the Jewish people. Here’s what he wrote in his book, Of the Jews and their Lies (1543). “What then shall we Christians do with this damned rejected race of Jews, since they live among us and we know about their lying and blaspheming and curses? We cannot tolerate them if we do not wish to share in their lies, curses and blasphemy. We must set their synagogues on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it . . . in order that God may see that we are Christians. Their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed . . . They should be deprived of their prayer books and Talmuds, in which idolatry, lies, cursings, and blasphemy are taught . . . their Rabbis must be forbidden to teach on pain of death. Let us drive them out of the country for all time, for . . . God’s rage is so great against them that they only become worse through mild mercy and not much better with severe mercy. Therefore, away with them.”
These words are contrary to what Luther had written 20 years earlier in his book, That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew. In that work, he called for sympathy, love and concern for Jewish people. His goal was to win them to faith in Jesus and join his Reformation. However, the Jewish community responded by saying, now that you’ve rid yourselves of all the traditions of the Church, why not abandon the One that they’re all based on, Jesus. This infuriated Luther and caused him to turn on the Jewish people, proving that his previously professed concern for Jewish people was merely manipulation. True love would be unconditional.
So what should we do with Luther, since he is such a hero of the Reformation and the man who recovered the doctrine of justification by faith? In a recent blog titled Luther’s Jewish Problem, posted on the Gospel Coalition website, Pastor Bernard Howard gives three suggestions.
First, Luther’s anti-Semitism should be acknowledged without qualification. Howard notes that often Luther’s hostility is recognized but then rationalized. I have found the same to be true. One professor I know states that Luther was justified in his hostility. He claims Luther’s words are not anti-Semitic but merely an expression of theological hostility. In his view, this is justified because Jewish people are closed to the gospel. The theological rationalization is patently false because Luther expressed ethnic hatred even to Jewish children who had not yet come to a theological perspective. This is distinct from Luther’s expressions of hostility to Roman Catholic clergy but not to Roman Catholic laymen. With Catholics he distinguished between the deceivers and the deceived—not so with Jewish people. All Jews were condemned."
The article continues
"Then I’ve heard, “Sure, Luther hated the Jews. But Luther hated everyone that opposed him.” Yet his hatred of Jews seemed distinct, since he even hated Jews who did not yet have a chance to disagree with him. Another rationalization is that Luther was just a product of his times, so he didn’t know any better. Yet, since his previous tract expressed such love and concern for the Jewish people, he surely did know better. Yet another rationalization of Luther’s hatred is to say look how successful Jewish people are—Luther didn’t do such damage. Yet when we realize that the Nazis honored Luther and saw his anti-Semitism as foundational to their views, we realize how damaging Luther indeed was. So, when we recognize Luther’s hatred of the Jewish people, let’s not rationalize it away.
Second, Pastor Howard suggests, Luther’s anti-Semitism should—as far as possible—be understood. This means recognizing that Luther, although a profound theological thinker and a brave defender of the gospel, still was fallen. A number of years ago, a rabbinical student spoke with me and based his objection to the gospel on Martin Luther’s anti-Semitism. Then he said, “I suppose you’ll say that Luther wasn’t a real Christian.” My response was, “Of course Luther was a genuine Christian. But the Bible teaches even genuine Christians struggle with sin, have blind spots and need to repent.” Luther’s anti-Semitism was a reflection of his depravity. It was Luther’s sinful nature that caused his hatred of the Jewish people.
Third, Howard proposes that Luther’s anti-Semitism should indeed harm his reputation. Certainly Luther should be honored for what he accomplished. Nevertheless, we need to see him not as a perfect hero but a deeply flawed one. His work in the Reformation should be commemorated but his life should not be celebrated. Pastor Howard states this better than anyone when he writes: “Luther is to me both hero and anti-hero; both liberator and oppressor. Spiritually speaking, he has been my teacher, but in relation to my family he has acted as persecutor. Soon after Kristallnacht (when the Nazis destroyed Jewish synagogues and businesses), Bishop Martin Sasse published a tract titled Martin Luther on the Jews: Away with Them! Sasse quoted from Luther’s 1543 writings and argued Luther’s goal was finally being achieved. Through Sasse and others, Luther’s name and work were used to prepare the ground for the Holocaust, in which my own great-grandmother was murdered and my great-uncle and great-aunt were brutally incarcerated. The Holocaust was fully underway by 1943—exactly 400 years after Luther shut his ears to the Bible and unleashed his anti-Semitic furies.” I fully agree with Howard and I identify with the loss of his family. I lost my four half-brothers and my half-sister. I lost my grandparents, aunts and uncles. Both my parents were slaves in Nazi concentration camps. This suffering can in a sense be attributed to the foundation of German anti-Semitism laid by Martin Luther. How can anyone think that this should not harm his reputation?
Luther gloriously understood justification by faith as revealed in Romans 4-5. Sadly he misunderstood or ignored God’s faithful love for the Jewish people and God’s eternal choice of them despite their unbelief as revealed in Romans 9-11. As we commemorate Reformation 500, it’s crucial to remember all the truths taught in the book of Romans, the truths Martin Luther recognized and the truths he ignored as well."
Some comments in reply to the article on
michaelrydelnik.org are
"D. Chris Brown
November 1, 2017 at 1:22 pm
"In order to appreciate Luther fully, I think you have to have a realistic awareness of both his strengths and weaknesses. Luther saw himself as a protector and spokesman for the emerging Protestant movement, and he sought to denounce legalism wherever it appeared. As a result, he directed strongly worded attacks against Roman Catholics, Anabaptists and Jews, all of whom he considered to be entrenched legalists. Without attempting to defend Luther’s antagonism toward the Jews, I think it’s important to point out that he was not an anti-Semite in the sense of harboring racial animosity toward the Jewish people. Instead, Luther’s hostility was directed toward the Jewish religion, with its rejection of Christ. While Luther’s behavior toward the Jews cannot be excused, it’s not accurate to depict him as a predecessor of later anti-Semitic movements that developed in Germany."
Reply
AvatarDr. Michael Rydelnik
November 4, 2017 at 2:00 pm
"Your comment says you do not seek to excuse Luther for his anti-Semitism, and then you proceed to do so. In fact, yours is one of the most common rationalizations for Martin Luther. Your statement that Luther did not bear racial hatred towards the Jewish people, only theological opposition to “entrenched legalism” is incorrect. Luther’s antagonism to those other groups was directed at those who taught and advanced the theological views with which he differed. Not so with Jewish people. He did not reserve his hateful bile for Rabbis, teachers or even just adults. He spewed his hatred even against Jewish children and cited alleged “ethnic traits,” not merely theological differences. This demonstrates that he did indeed hate Jewish people apart from their views of the Law or Jesus. Moreover, as opposed to your comment, it is accurate to depict him as a predecessor to Nazi anti-Semtism, since the Nazis themselves repeatedly stated that they were following Luther."
From the Gateway Center for Israel website
centerforisrael.com an article is headlined
"Is There Unknown Antisemitism in Your Theology?" This article says:
"Many scholars conclude that Hitler’s violent antisemitism was enabled by a wake of anti-Jewish theologies of church heroes like Calvin and Luther. Living in a post-Holocaust world, it is difficult for modern Christians to believe that antisemitism was flowing in the lifeblood of the Church for thousands of years. Yet, it was. Why?
By Gateway Center for Israel
“Their rotten and unbending stiff-neckedness deserves that they be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end and that they die in their misery without the pity of anyone.”
Can you imagine a pastor saying this from their platform today? What if one of the modern leaders of the Christian community wrote a book and said this? Worse yet, what if sentiment like this informed the theologies of a majority of Christians for centuries?
Shockingly, the author of this quote was John Calvin, the famous 16th century Reformer. And the people he is so wincingly attacking are the Jewish people.
For many followers of Jesus, this type of glaring antisemitism comes as an alarming surprise. How could one of the most respected theologians in Christian tradition spout off something so toxic? Others might wonder if I am simply framing Calvin unfairly, taking his quote out of context. With that in mind, here’s one of the many quotes of Calvin’s contemporaries – Martin Luther:
“Set fire to their synagogues or schools and bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians.”
The article continues
"Brutal. You can read more here, if you can stomach it.
Though Luther and Calvin were terribly misguided on Israel, we do not disqualify them for the many other contributions they made to Christian thinking. The entire Christian Church’s relational history with the Jewish people is marred by wounds and atrocities. But many scholars conclude that Hitler’s violent antisemitism was enabled by a wake of anti-Jewish theologies of church heroes like Calvin and Luther. Living in a post-Holocaust world, it is difficult for modern Christians to believe that antisemitism was flowing in the lifeblood of the Church for thousands of years. Yet, it was. Why?
The basis of Christian antisemitism begins with the simple idea that the gentile-majority Church has “replaced” the Jewish people as God’s redemptive people. This is, aptly, called Replacement Theology. If I polled 100 pastors today and asked them if they believed this, 90 of them would say “no way.” Since World War II and the reestablishment of the State of Israel, it’s become harder to accept that one group of people simply “replaced” another."
Unfortunately, Replacement Theology has spawned numerous offshoots. All are equally as destructive and unbiblical. Here’s the bottom line: Replacement Theology – or any derivative of it – turns Israel and the Jewish people into “God’s ex-wife.” Think about it…God chose one group of people – the Jewish people – and made an eternal covenant with them. (Gen. 17:7) If He simply changes His mind due to shortcomings on the part of His “spouse” (Israel), and then takes a new covenantal partner (the gentile Church), it’s an absolute assassination of His faithful character.
At this point, you might be thinking “glad I don’t buy into that garbage!” I want to encourage you to ask the Holy Spirit to dig around in the soil of your heart. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
Am I okay with my personal savior being Jewish?
Is my theology haughty in any way towards the Jewish people?
Have I ever asked God to give me His heart for the Jewish people?
Do the Jewish people concern me at all?
In 2003, I had to ask myself the first question above. Sadly, my initial answer was “He’s not Jewish!” As soon as I had this thought, the Holy Spirit told me, “You have antisemitism in your heart.” I was shocked. There was no way! I didn’t hate anyone.
Immediately, God reminded me of a conversation I had when I was young. Someone I looked up to told me that “Christians are the new Jews.” I innocently agreed, and this became a seedbed for unhealthy theology, which took the form of innocent antisemitism.
I’m not accusing you of this. I simply want to provoke you to dig in the soil of your heart, and mine out any places that have anti-Jewish sentiment. The Apostle Paul saw antisemitism on the horizon when he penned the book of Romans:
“Do not be arrogant toward the branches (Jewish people); but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you.” Romans 11:18 NASB
At Gateway Center for Israel, we have numerous resources available to you as you discover God’s heart for Israel and the Jewish people. I invite you to join me on this lifetime journey of rooting out any anti-Jewish sentiment in your theology and heart, and to replace that with a vibrant, sincere love for God’s covenantal people – Israel."
Many good articles are on this website centerforisrael.com that Refute Replacement Theology
The article continues
"Luther’s writings incited violence against Jews for the next half-millennium; this culminated in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1933, pro-Nazis in the Lutheran Church formed the German Christian’s Faith Movement. This virulently anti-Semitic movement adhered to the Nazi doctrine of a German super race and the inferiority of all other races, especially the Jews. This “Reich Church” banned the use of the Hebrew Bible because of its Jewish origins, barred Christians with “Jewish blood” and eventually replaced the cross with the swastika. On December 17, 1941, seven Lutheran regional confederations issued a statement supporting the laws that forced Jews to wear a yellow star writing that “Luther had strongly suggested [such] preventive measures against the Jews.” Deeply devoted to Martin Luther’s anti-Judaism, this church dominated German Protestantism and Lutheranism throughout World War II.
The ideas and writings of Martin Luther impacted Hitler’s regime well beyond the “Reich Church.” According to historian Robert Michael, almost every anti-Jewish book published in the Third Reich referred to, and quoted from, Martin Luther. Similarly, British historian Diarmaid MacCulloch argues that Luther’s 1543 pamphlet was the “blueprint” for Kristallnacht, noting that Lutheran Bishop Martin Sasse in his published compendium of Luther’s writings rejoiced in the coincidence that Kristallnacht took place on Luther’s birthday. The Nazi Party forcefully asserted that Adolf Hitler was continuing the work of Luther. Bernhard Rust, the Nazi Minister of Education, echoed this when he wrote, “I think the time is past when one may not say the names of Hitler and Luther in the same breath. They belong together—they are of the same old stamp.”
The Judensau on the Wittenberg Church (onnola / Flickr)
After the end of World War II and the revelations of the horrors of the death camps, a slow process of reconciliation began. The Roman Catholic Church renounced its theological anti-Semitism at the Second Vatican Council of 1965, but took another 50 years to withdraw its official support of missionary work aimed at converting Jews. In 1994, the 5-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in American recognized and renounced Luther’s “anti-Judaic diatribes” and rejected “the violent recommendations of his later writings against the Jews.” The European branches of the Lutheran church have gradually followed suit. After Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, called upon the Protestant church to disavow Luther’s anti-Jewish writings, in November of 2016 the Lutheran Church in Germany issued a statement condemning Luther’s anti-Semitism and acknowledging, “the part played by the Reformation tradition in the painful history between Christians and Jews.” The state Lutheran churches of Norway and the Netherlands have since made similar declarations.
Today, two images displayed on the outside wall of Castle Church in Wittenberg, German aptly reflect the complex legacy of the protestant Reformation. The first is a Judensau or “Jew-Pig,” a sculpture from the late 14th century that disparagingly depicts a rabbi pulling up the tail of a female pig and looking into its backside while other Jews kneel down to suckle on the animal’s teats—Martin Luther praised the sculpture in one of his pamphlets. Directly below the Judensau is a Holocaust memorial plaque. The Castle Church installed it on the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht to counteract the anti-Semitic sculpture. There have been demonstrations and repeated calls for the removal of the Judensau and 30 other similar “Jewish pig” sculptures on churches around Germany, but local Jewish leaders in Wittenberg want the Judensau to remain as a testimony to the anti-Semitism of Germany’s past. When viewed together, they contend, the two images ensure that today’s Germans will recognize and grapple with the totality of their troubling past."
From the website
Rachelheldevans.com an article is headlined
"The day I found out Martin Luther Hated Jews"
October 18, 2010 Rachel Held Evans , this article says:
"So on Saturday I learned that the great Reformer, Martin Luther, was an anti-Semite.
And I mean a real, burn-down-their-houses-and-cut-off-their limbs anti-Semite. He called for violence, dismemberment, arson, expulsion, and death, and provided material that would later be used by Nazis to stir up anti-Jewish sentiment among the German people.
In a book entitled On Jews and Their Lies, Luther wrote:
“My advice, as I said earlier, is: First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire...Second, that all their books-- their prayer books, their Talmudic writings, also the entire Bible-- be taken from them, not leaving them one leaf, and that these be preserved for those who may be converted...Third, that they be forbidden on pain of death to praise God, to give thanks, to pray, and to teach publicly among us and in our country...Fourth, that they be forbidden to utter the name of God within our hearing. For we cannot with a good conscience listen to this or tolerate it…The rulers must act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set in proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this instance. Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them. If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs."
I had no idea.
I know, I know. I’ve been a Protestant all my life and a politically correct progressive for the past five years, so this is something I should have known about.
But I didn’t, and the news hit me hard.
I fumed.
I cried.
I ate an entire plate of leftover pasta at 3:00 in the afternoon.
I had to put five pennies in the jar.
It’s a bit like finding out that your favorite uncle deals drugs, or that your most beloved poet killed herself, or that your childhood pastor defrauded the congregation for years. It throws off your equilibrium, rocks your sense of security somehow.
I already knew that Luther had some skeletons in his closet. I’d read his strong words about women, Catholics, and those “fools” who proposed that the earth moved around the sun, but I chalked all that up to context and figured he was ahead of his time in every other way. "
The article continues & lastly says
"But the kind of hate found Luther’s writings about the Jews is so visceral, so contrary to the teachings of Jesus, it made me wonder. Didn’t the Apostle John teach that “he that loves not knows not God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8)?
So I mentioned this on Facebook (because that’s how I roll), and was a little surprised by how quickly many of my friends rushed to defend Luther’s reputation. They said that everyone was anti-Semitic in those days, that Luther was frustrated after trying to convert the Jews, that this was all based on a misinterpretation of Scripture. Luther should not be remembered for this “flaw,” they said, but for his great contribution to Christian theology.
The response was so dismissive at times, it sounded like the familiar evangelical refrain—“Oh we’ve already figured this one out. It’s got an easy answer. No big deal”—to which I wanted to plead, “Please remember, if just for a moment, the horror you felt upon learning this for the first time, before all the scholarly articles dulled the blade and blurred the faces of actual human beings into flat, emotionless ideas. Please, if just for a moment, remember the tension and admit that this sucks.”
Because once again I am living in the tension—my compassion, my conscience, and my convictions in tact—and I’m not so sure I want to get talked out of it again.
The Apostle Paul said: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
How can we say that Luther had good theology when he failed to love?
And what about the Anabaptists? Doesn’t their legacy prove that followers of Jesus do not have to be violent in a violent culture? Luther had as much access to the Gospels and the history of the early church as they did, and yet he chose violence while the Anabaptists practiced peace.
Maybe I just need a little time to process this—to file it away in that same part of my brain where I keep Joshua 6:21 and Psalm 137:9.
But for now I have a heavy heart, a disquieted spirit…and yet another plate of pasta to consume.
But I’d rather live in the tension that pretend that it doesn’t exist.
So how do you process information like this? Does it affect the way you feel about Protestantism or Christianity? Is there a constructive way to talk about this skeleton in Luther’s closet?"
From the website
jhvonline.com an article is headlined
"A sober study of Martin Luther’s anti-Semitism"
By AARON HOWARD•Thu, Apr 12, 2012 this article says
"Martin Luther’s attitude toward Jews was so fanatic that the Nazi leadership enthused he was one of them. “What Hitler did, Luther advised, with the exception of murder through gas chambers,” summed up philosopher Karl Jaspers on the link between Luther and Hitler. Radical anti-Semites such as Julius Streicher, editor of Der Sturmer, did not have to reach to interpret Luther.
Luther was a theologian who was central in bringing about the Reformation and perhaps modern Western civilization. The same theologian wrote “On the Jews and Their Lies” in 1543. Luther was a theologian who wrote “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott” (“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”). The same theologian also wrote a program urging German secular rulers to burn all synagogues and Jewish schools, raze all Jewish property, set up labor camps for young Jews and expel the remaining Jews from Germany and not allow them safe conduct on highways.
How does one “reconcile” the two sides of Martin Luther – particularly if one is, like Eric Gritsch, a Christian theologian, a scholar in Luther Studies, a Lutheran and German-born and raised? Does one ignore, rationalize, apologize, contextualize or oppose? If anti-Semitism was the cornerstone of Luther’s thinking, what does that say about Luther’s theology?"
The article continues
"Gritsch argues that Luther’s anti-Semitism was an integral part of his life and work, in “Martin Luther’s Anti-Semitism” (Eerdmans). As a Christian theologian, Gritsch argues that Luther’s anti-Semitism was basically discordant with the core of his theology – particularly in the context of Paul’s views on the relationship between Christians and Jews. Therefore, Gritsch concludes, Luther’s attitude toward Jews was, as he puts it, “against his better judgment.”
“Luther’s anti-Semitism represents the dark underside of his life and work,” writes Gritsch, “because it dimmed the light of the gospel he rediscovered as part and parcel of the ancient covenant between G-d and Abraham. The riddle of anti-Semitism seemed to overwhelm Luther. Although he struggled out of a slanderous medieval ecclesiastical system, he became the victim of a virulent anti-Semitism and manifested some of its worst features. … With Paul, and despite Luther, Christians and Jews must try again and again to be reconciled on the way toward the full realization of the one and only divine covenant.”
Gritsch divides his book into three parts before coming to his conclusion. Part one offers an excellent portrait of anti-Semitism in its various presentations. Part two offers a chronological presentation of Luther’s anti-Semitic texts with the Gritsch’s interpretations. Luther’s view of Jews was grounded in mainstream, traditional Church ideology: the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) prefigured the coming of Jesus and his promise of salvation. The role of biblical (faithful) Israel was to link the faith of Abraham to faith in Jesus. But, then there were “the rejected people of G-d” – the real flesh and blood Jews who rejected Christ and therefore were cursed by G-d.
Pauline theology begins with the same assumption. Paul saw solidarity between unconverted Jews and non-Jews who would be united on the Last Day as believers in Jesus. Luther, in contrast, concluded that since Jews continued to reject Jesus as messiah, they were – and always would be – divinely cursed.
At one point, in the 1520s, Luther expected the end of days to be imminent. During what has been described as Luther’s “evangelical stage,” he expected Jews to convert. Luther saw himself as a pastoral minister to the Jews. But, obviously, German Jews rejected Luther’s efforts to “liberate” them. By the late 1530s, there was no more Mister Nice Guy. From Luther’s belief that “to seek G-d outside Jesus is the devil,” Luther made the short jump to paint Jews as followers of the devil. Luther’s advice to secular authorities – complete with biblical citations as support – was to implement a radical program against the local Jewish population that included “killing the blasphemers.”
Part three of Gritsch’s book discusses the aftereffects of Luther’s attack. The immediate effect, says the author was minimal. But, by the 1570s, Luther’s radical anti-Semitism was revived. Jews were expelled from a number of German cities. In the main, says Gritsch, Lutheran interpreters historically hoped for Jewish conversion but ignored Luther’s anti-Semitic writings. Instead, beginning in the 1880s, German nationalists, romantics and anti-Semites (mis)appropriated Luther.
Real reconciliation between Christians and Jews only can be based on the kind of honesty demonstrated by Gritsch. A Jew is a full human being, not a caricature as Luther painted us. I’m not sure whether I could share Gritsch’s Pauline view. It’s difficult to reconcile Paul’s negative view of Halakha that “all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse” (Gal. 3:10). But, I know I could listen to Gritsch and have a conversation with him. I could not do that with Martin
Luther."
From the website
thejc.com an article is headlined
"Luther's debt to the Jews"
The role of Hebrew should not be overlooked in the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation
by
Dr Harry Freedman
OCTOBER 30, 2017
Martin Luther nails his 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg in 1517 , this article says
"This year marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. The story of Martin Luther nailing his theses to a church door, said to have taken place on October 31, 1517 , is well known. What is far less known is the role of Hebrew, and particularly Kabbalah, in the events leading up to the Reformation.
When the Reformation began, the Italian Renaissance was in full swing. One of its main themes was humanism, a revived interest in the literature and philosophy of the ancient world. Old Greek and Latin texts, which had lain undisturbed for centuries, were suddenly the focus of renewed attention. As were many other literary works, some of which were believed to be far more ancient than they actually were.
In 1486 a young, wealthy and erudite Italian Count, Pico della Mirandola, announced he had researched all the ancient wisdoms of the world and reduced them to a set of 900 principles, all of which would prove the teachings of Christianity.
Among his principles were 72 which he had derived from Kabbalah. Seventy-two was not a random number; in Kabbalah the most intricate of the divine names comprises 72 letters.
Pico was the first Christian scholar to take an interest in Kabbalah. He asserted that of all the sources he used, Kabbalah was the one that most clearly offered an indisputable proof of Christianity. The discipline he founded, known unsurprisingly as Christian Kabbalah, became an object of serious study. Newton, Milton, Liebnitz and Shakespeare were all familiar with its principles. As was Martin Luther.
But Luther was less interested in Kabbalah than in the language that lay behind it. Hebrew was to play a central role in his Reformation, largely due to the work of Johannes Reuchlin, a German lawyer. Reuchlin had met Pico della Mirandola in 1490 and come away inspired by his infectious enthusiasm for Kabbalah. Reuchlin began to study Hebrew, to better his understanding of Kabbalah. He engaged Jewish teachers, including the great Bible commentator, Ovadiah Sforno, to help him.
In 1506 Reuchlin published his Rudiments of Hebrew, the first Hebrew grammar and dictionary written for Christians. He then wrote two books on Kabbalah. The study of Hebrew became so fashionable in German humanist circles that Reuchlin proposed that every German university should engage two professors dedicated to the language. This sudden turn to Hebrew opened up new ways of thinking for the emerging Protestant Reformers.
One of Luther’s main complaints was that the Roman church had misrepresented the Bible. Superstition was rife and corruption was everywhere. Ordinary people were weighed down with the fear of things not mentioned in the Bible, notably the punishments of hell and purgatory. Sins could be remitted in exchange for indulgences; payments were often used to build fabulously endowed churches and to support the privileged lifestyle of the bishops."
The article continues
"The Church justified their practices on the basis of the Bible, which they claimed could only be understood through interpretation. Only the Pope could explain Scripture’s meaning correctly. Luther disagreed. He argued that even Popes could make mistakes. The only authority which could be relied upon was the unmediated word of the Bible.
This idea, of inexorable faith in the word of the Bible, became known as sola scriptura, “only by scripture”. Understanding the Bible in accordance with its plain Hebrew meaning became a defining principle of the Reformation. Rather than being told what the Bible said, people were encouraged to study it themselves, from a translation faithful to the original Hebrew text. In 1532, Luther published his German translation of the Tanach, made directly from Hebrew.
Sadly, this did nothing to ameliorate the position of the Jews in Christian Europe. Indeed, Luther ensured it made things worse. For he had a serious methodological problem.
Jews had been analysing and interpreting the Hebrew Bible for centuries, based on a thorough understanding of the language and its grammar. Luther feared that if he encouraged people to read the Bible in the way that Jews read it, they may end up believing what Jews believed.
To overcome this, Luther created an artificial distinction between grammatical and spiritual Hebrew. Grammatical Hebrew was what Jews used; but in relying on it, he claimed, they missed the spiritual connotations of the language. In Luther’s eyes Hebrew could only be a tool for understanding the original sense of the Bible if one transcended the simple grammatical meaning of the language and understood the spiritual context, which he believed to be its Christian message.
It was this need to detach himself from the Jewish understanding of the Bible which led Luther to the virulent antisemitism for which Jews remember him today, an antisemitism which, it has been argued, foreshadowed the Shoah. Unable to acknowledge any element of truth in Judaism, he turned against the religion with a viciousness of language that has rarely been recorded, even in the utterings of the most unpleasant antisemites.
Hebrew was one of several essential ingredients of the reformation. Sadly, in using the language for his own ends, Martin Luther was unwilling to acknowledge his debt to the Jews."
From the website
www.theolafmessenger.com an article is headlined
"Lutherans need to stop glorifying Martin Luther"
By Iain Carlos
on
November 30, 2017 , this article says
"The St. Olaf College Mission reads as follows: “St. Olaf College challenges students to excel in the liberal arts, examine faith and values, and explore meaningful vocation in an inclusive, globally engaged community nourished by Lutheran tradition.” As Oct. 31 marked the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and St. Olaf seems to have entered a much needed moral renaissance as of late, it is probably a good idea for every member of the St. Olaf community to reevaluate what exactly we think of Martin Luther and the implications of being “nourished in Lutheran tradition.”
To begin, it’s fine for St. Olaf, as a private institution, to hold on to quite a bit of what Martin Luther said and believed. It’s fine for St. Olaf to believe that a clergyman should be able to marry. It’s fine for St. Olaf to be against paying money for the reduction of God’s punishment. It’s fine for St. Olaf to believe that one’s salvation is attained by believing Jesus Christ redeems all sin. So long as St. Olaf does not try to force these viewpoints on its student, faculty or staff, they are not directly harming anybody. However, there is a problem with putting Martin Luther himself on a pedestal and holding him up as the apex of morality."
The article continues
"Why? Because Martin Luther really hated Jewish people. He wrote a treatise called On the Jews and Their Lies (a very subtle title) in which he accused the Jewish people of being children of the devil. In it, he also states that it would be a good idea to burn down Jewish synagogues, schools and houses, that Jewish religious texts should be confiscated and that rabbis should be forbidden to teach on pain of death. He goes on to add that Jewish people should not be protected on highways, they should be forbidden from practicing usury, strong Jewish people should be made to do hard physical labor and that if the Germans ever feel seriously threatened by the Jewish people, they should consider permanently exiling them and plenty of other horrific suggestions. Luther’s writing influenced future German and greater European anti-semitism, culminating in nazism. It seems quite clear that Luther contradicts the idea of a progressive, tolerant society and certainly is not compatible with multiculturalism.
Now to be fair to St. Olaf, Martin Luther’s anti-semitism has been addressed. I heard one of the St. Olaf pastors condemn Luther’s wrath against the Jewish people at Reformation Sunday, and I heard that there have been talks about it given by some of the religion department’s Luther experts. This is a good thing. Luther’s anti-semitism should be acknowledged and it is great that St. Olaf has professors who dedicate their careers to studying the life and thinking of Luther. The problem is, even though they acknowledge Martin Luther’s anti-semitism, St. Olaf still thinks that it is okay to glorify Luther.
For a while, there was a giant Playmobil Martin Luther hanging around campus. Is it really the best idea for St. Olaf to promote the forerunner to nazism in toy form? Now, for a moment, picture the repercussions on campus had there been a giant Playmobil Adolf Hitler. One might think that this is a false equivalency. After all, Luther did some good if you’re into Protestantism and he didn’t actually kill Jewish people like Hitler did. But by the same token there was plenty of rapid scientific development because of Nazi Germany. That does not excuse the nazis for the terrible atrocities they committed. While Luther did not kill any Jewish people himself, he did not hesitate to refer to the Spanish inquisition as “common sense.” Luther was a brutal, heartless monster.
We should be ashamed of posing for pictures with a giant Playmobil Luther. We should be ashamed of passing out Playmobil Luther sets as prizes for raffles during a religion department party. We should be ashamed of sharing Martin Luther memes presenting him in a positive light. We should be ashamed of posters celebrating the life of Luther. We should be ashamed and seriously consider where our heads are at when a poster is put up comparing the mortality and life of Martin Luther with Martin Luther King Jr.
Unfortunately, St. Olaf cannot let go of Luther the man because of tribalism. Too many of us still derive our identities from the image of his face.
However, the truth is, Luther was a harbinger of nazism, and he partially bears the blood of millions. The longer we refrain from ending our idealization of his life, the longer this blood will slowly seep onto our fingers."
www.giordano-bruno-stiftung.de
Has an article headlined
"Martin Luther: People's Hero – Anti-Semite – Hate Preacher"
by Giordano Bruno Stiftung publishes critical brochure for the Luther Year
2017/05/03 this article says
"The public sector spends around 250 million euro from general taxpayers' money on the "Luther Decade". The 500th anniversary of his alleged "posting of the theses" is even to be celebrated as a national holiday. But was Martin Luther a man to be celebrated? No, says the Giordano Bruno Stiftung, which in its now published critical Luther brochure shows that the reformer was one of the "most powerful representatives of the hatred of Jews from Golgotha to Auschwitz".
For Adolf Hitler, Martin Luther was "a great man, a giant," who saw "the Jew," "as we only begin to see him today." The Protestant state bishop Martin Sasse, who in 1938 (after the Reichspogromnacht) published the booklet "Martin Luther über die Juden: Weg mit ihnen!" ("Martin Luther on the Jews: Away with them!"), also saw the Reformator as a shining example, the "greatest anti-Semite of his time, the warner of his people against the Jews."
The National Socialists put into practice what Luther had demanded 400 years earlier in his inflammatory writing "On the Jews and their Lies", i.e. forced labour and forced settlements for Jews as well as the burning down of their synagogues. The Nazis also adopted the motto of their inflammatory paper "Der Stürmer" from Martin Luther: "The Jews are our misfortune!" No wonder, then, that "Stürmer" editor Julius Streicher defended himself at the Nuremberg Trial in 1946 with reference to Martin Luther: "Dr. Martin Luther would certainly be sitting in my place in the dock today if this book were considered by the prosecution. In the book 'The Jews and their Lies' Dr. Martin Luther writes that the Jews are a snake breed. Their synagogues shall be burned, they shall be destroyed."
The article continues
"Most Protestant theologians are well aware of these historical connections, which is why they certainly admit to critical questions that Martin Luther had "dark spots" and "shameful statements". However, the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) attaches great importance to ensuring that this does not damage the reformer's public image. Therefore the preoccupation with Luther's "dark spots" should be reserved as far as possible for expert circles, while for the general population a hymn is sung to the proclaimer of the "freedom of the Christian" - enriched with all sorts of harmlessly funny Luther merchandise such as "Luther lollies", "Luther candies", or "Luther Playmobil figurines".
The Giordano Bruno Stiftung aims to counteract this uncritical Luther image, which distorts history. To this end, it lets the reformer speak for himself in the brochure. This shows that Luther was not only a particularly vehement religious Jew-hater (anti-Judaist), who popularised the term "Judensau" ("Jews' sow") like hardly anyone else, but that he also agitated against "the Jews" in the form of a pre-modern racism (anti-Semitism). Thus, Martin Luther wrote in 1543: "The Israelite blood has been mixed, impure, watered down, and left wild. [...] This cloudy sediment and stinking scum, this mouldy leaven and swampy mire of Judaism should have deserved the fulfillment of the Messiah, but is nothing more than a lazy, stinking, rotten sediment from the blood of their fathers?"
In addition to Luther's unbridled hatred of Jews, the gbs brochure also documents the Reformer's inhumane positions towards women, "witches", disabled people, and rebellious peasants. However, a 12-page brochure can only provide a brief introduction to Luther's worldview. Therefore the text refers to the current three-volume edition of Luther's anti-Jewish writings, edited by Karl-Heinz Büchner, Bernd P. Kammermeier, Reinhold Schlotz, and Robert Zwilling (all members of the gbs regional group Rhine-Neckar). The brochure also refers to the exhibition "From Golgatha to Auschwitz" conceived by gbs Rhein-Neckar as well as to the book of the same name by Reinhold Schlotz. The book and exhibition classify Luther's thinking historically and, based on numerous sources, prove that Christian hostility towards Jews was not sufficient, but a necessary precondition for the Holocaust."
The article continues
"When those with majority cultural privilege and power begin to categorize a Jewish group as having ethnic or ethical deficiencies because they are known as Jewish, this categorization is Anti-Semitic. And when those in the privileged majority group begin to discriminate against, direct violence toward, or subvert to various forms of mental, emotional, social, or economic oppression due to threats, the privileged, majority group is acting as an agent of Anti-Semitism.
Martin Luther
Too often, certain expressions of Christianity have normalized Anti-Semitism in their Christian spaces to the point that they are numb to it and accept it as sound doctrine. Martin Luther, the German Reformer and one of Protestant Christianity’s greatest heroes, made several terrifying, jaw-dropping, and breathtaking statements about the Jews. Of course, Luther did not have a modern understanding of race and racism. Yet, he spoke many Anti-Semitic statements about the Jewish people in the name of doctrinal and theological fidelity. Just read, for example, his small pamphlet “On the Jews and Their Lies” to see Luther’s Anti-Semitism on full display.
Upon recently re-reading some excerpts, I found myself losing my breath several times. When reading the work, replace the word “Jew” or “Jews” with the word “Asian,” “black,” “Hispanic,” or “white.” Perhaps, then you might see the horror of his language in a fresh way.
Certain Protestants have a hagiographic understanding of Luther’s Anti-Semitic legacy. But the fact is, though we Protestants should praise and celebrate Luther for recovering the gospel of justification by faith for the church and for translating the word of God in the language of the people of God (as we are during this 500-year anniversary of the Reformation), we Protestants should also often rebuke him for his Anti-Semitic statements.
Jesus of Nazareth
As a Christian, who follows and worships a Jewish Rabbi named Jesus of Nazareth, I forthrightly say that every Christian should speak against Anti-Semitism before and after it raises its ugly head in the church and in society. Anti-Semitism is Anti-Christ! If Christians don’t love the Jewish people, I doubt they love their Jewish Savior, for he says “love your neighbor!” This doesn’t mean only love your Christian neighbor!
Jesus was NOT and is NOT a white American. He likely had dark-skin and a dark beard. And he was certainly a Jewish man from the Middle East, who likely had dirt under his fingernails, from working with his hands, and dirt under his toe nails, from walking in sandals.
As a Jewish man, he did Jewish things: celebrated Passover, celebrated Hanukah, worshipped at the temple, celebrated certain Jewish festivals, wore certain kinds of Jewish garments, and performed certain kinds of Jewish rituals. Jesus now and forever remains a Jewish God-man, who sits at his Father’s right hand in heaven and who has been exalted as Lord and Christ forever and ever.
Christians must remember the Christian gospel is the power of God unto salvation for the Jew FIRST, and then for the Greek (Rom. 1:16). Jesus is the Son of David (a Jew) and the Son of Abraham (a Gentile) (Matt. 1:1). Jews are the natural olive branches within God’s soteriological vineyard, but Gentiles have been grafted in as unnatural branches (Romans 11). All (i.e. a large number of) Israel will be saved by faith in Jesus Christ (Rom. 11:26), because the Jewish deliverer, Jesus, has come from Zion to Jacob (i.e. Israel) to take away her sins (Rom. 11:26-27).
Christians from every racial and ethnic stripe should stand with Jews against Anti-Semitism. May we pray for the safety of Jews. And may we pray that they would be able to live in peace in their diverse communities.
If Christians truly know and love their JEWISH Savior, Jesus Christ, we should stand against Anti-Semitism, because Anti-Semitism is Anti-Christ."
www.christianpost.com has an article headlined
"Was Martin Luther an Anti-Semite?"
By Michael Brown, CP Op-Ed Contributor
Michael Brown
Michael Brown holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and has served as a professor at a number of seminaries. He is the author of 25 books and hosts the nationally syndicated, daily talk radio show, the Line of Fire. This article says
"As we approach the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, focus will return to the leader of that movement, Martin Luther. What kind of man was he, really? More specifically, what kind of Christian was he?
At a recent conference of R. C. Sproul's Ligonier Ministries, panelists Stephen Nichols and W. Robert Godfrey discussed "whether Martin Luther was guilty of anti-Semitism," and there is good reason to raise this question.
As Nichols rightly points out, in 1523, Luther reached out with kindness and humility to the Jewish people, denouncing how the Church had treated them up to now with the hope that many would become Christians. Twenty years later, when that did not happen, and when Luther, now old and sick, had been exposed to some blasphemous, anti-Jesus writings penned by Jews in past generations, he wrote his infamous document Concerning the Jews and Their Lies.
In this mini-book, he told the German princes how to deal with "this damned, rejected race of Jews."
"First, their synagogues should be set on fire ... Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed ....Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer-books and Talmuds ... Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach any more ... Fifthly, passport and traveling privileges should be absolutely for bidden to the Jews .... Sixthly, they ought to be stopped from usury [charging interest on loans] .... Seventhly, let the young and strong Jews and Jewesses be given the flail, the ax, the hoe, the spade, the distaff, and spindle, and let them earn their bread by the sweat of their noses ... We ought to drive the rascally lazy bones out of our system .... Therefore away with them ....
"To sum up, dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domains, if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one so that you and we may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden-the Jews."
The article continues
"Yes, all this came from the pen of Martin Luther. (Brace yourself. There's more to come.)
Of this despicable document Nichols said that "Luther unleashes his rhetoric against the Jews and is very forceful in his rhetoric."
Very forceful? I'd call that a gross understatement.
Nichols continues:
"Now we need to say that he was an equal opportunity offender. It wasn't just — that rhetoric was not just reserved — for the Jews, he used the same rhetoric for the Papists, for the Anabaptists, for the nominal Christians, that he used for the Jews. But he was wrong. He spoke harshly, and I think he abused his influence that he had in speaking harshly. And so, we need to say that Luther was wrong in that. But this isn't necessarily anti-Semitism, that's really a 20th-century phenomenon."
Once again, I must take exception to these words, which minimize the horror of what Luther wrote.
Tragically, Adolph Hitler thought that Luther was a genius who figured out how dangerous the Jewish people were. And the date that many historians mark as the beginning of the Holocaust, Nov. 9, 1938, was the day that Hitler put Luther's advice into practice, setting on fire and vandalizing Jewish synagogues, shops, and homes."
In that light, I cannot agree with Nichols in saying, "I think he abused his influence that he had in speaking harshly."
That, again, is a gross understatement, regardless of how ugly Luther's rhetoric was towards other groups and regardless of how coarse the rhetoric of the day might have been. For a Christian leader, such writings must be renounced in the strongest possible terms, even with tears and wails.
Robert Godfrey, the other Ligonier panelist, commented:
"Just to add one more thing . . . the one little that should be added is Luther, all his life, longed that Jews should be converted and join the church. Hitler never wanted Jews to join the Nazi party. That's the difference between anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish. Luther wasn't opposed to the Jews because of their blood. He was opposed to the Jews because of their religion. And he wanted them to join the Christian church. If you're really anti-Semitic, you're against Jews because of their blood and there's nothing Jews can do about that. There's not change they can make to make a difference. You're absolutely right, Luther's language should not be defended by us because it's violent against the Jews. It was not against an ethnic people, as you said, but against a religion that he reacted so sharply."
& continues
"Is Godfrey right? Yes and no. On the one hand, the real issue was the Jewish religion (specifically, from Luther's point of view, Jewish unbelief in Jesus) as opposed to being Jewish in and of itself. On the other hand, there was a fine line between the two, as historian Eric W. Gritsch pointed out in his book, Martin Luther's Antisemitism: Against His Better Judgment.
He writes,
"There is even a hint of racism in Luther when he commented on the unsubstantiated rumor that Jews killed Christian children. This crime 'still shines forth from their eyes and their skin. We are at fault in not slaying them [the Jews].' Such a declaration cannot be limited to a specific historical context. It is timeless and means 'death to the Jews,' whether it is uttered by Luther or Adolf Hitler. Moreover, Luther himself was willing to kill 'a blaspheming Jew': 'I would slap his face and, if I could, fling him to the ground and, in my anger, pierce him with my sword.'"
So wrote Martin Luther. And I find little comfort in the fact that he wrote about others, like the peasants, in similarly dreadful terms: "On the obstinate, hardened, blinded peasants, let no one have mercy, but let everyone, as he is able, hew, stab, slay, lay about him as though among mad dogs, . . . . so that peace and safety may be maintained... etc."
Returning to Luther and the Jews, quotes like this make it difficult to separate his theological Jew-hatred from his ethnic Jew-hatred:
"A Jew or a Jewish heart is as hard as stone and iron and cannot be moved by any means. . . . In sum, they are the devil's children damned to hell . . . . We cannot even convert the majority of Christians and have to be satisfied with a small number; it is therefore even less possible to convert these children of the devil! Although there are many who derive the crazy notion from the 11th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans that all Jews must be converted, this is not so. St. Paul meant something quite different."
As a non-Catholic, Jewish believer in Jesus, I am indebted to Luther's positive contributions and recognize the hellacious battle he fought with corrupt traditions. But I appeal to followers and admirers of Luther today: Please do not minimize the horror of what he wrote (against the Jews and others). Please don't downplay all this as an example of Luther having "feet of clay" (in the words of Nichols).
There is a lot of blood on those clay feet — including Jewish blood.
Let's own it with sadness and grief. To do otherwise is to be less than honest with the memory of Martin Luther."
Dr. Michael Brown (www.askdrbrown.org) is the host of the nationally syndicated Line of Fire radio program. His latest book is Breaking the Stronghold of Food. Connect with him on Facebook or Twitter.
The website
lutherandhisworldat500.wordpress.com has an article headlined
"Martin Luther’s Anti-Semitism"
BY BILLY W. ROY , this article says
“In the long history of Christianity there exists no more tragic development than the treatment accorded the Jewish people on the part of Christian believers.”[1]
Judensau On Wittenberg City Church
Judensau, established 1305 on the Satdkirche Wittenberg, Martin Luther’s former parish. Martin Luther, while not yet born when the sculpture was erected, says this of the Judensau, “Here on our church in Wittenberg a sow is sculpted in stone. Young pigs and Jews lie suckling under her. Behind the sow a rabbi is bent over the sow, lifting up her right leg, holding her tail high and looking intensely under her tail and into her Talmud, as though he were reading something acute or extraordinary, which is certainly where they get their Shemhamphoras.”[2]
Martin Luther, a devout monk and the face of the Protestant Reformation, is no doubt most infamous for his harrowing words of anti-Semitism. A man who preached and wrote extensively on the concept grace and the truth that we are saved by it alone would turn and slander the Jewish people as a whole, showing them none of this grace that he claimed to be freely given and making blanketed statements that would in turn caused incredible harm to the Jewish-Christian relationship.
It should be noted before continuing that the ELCA has rightly and beautifully disavowed Luther’s most anti-Semitic statements and writings and has apologized to the Jewish people for the outrageous claims made therein. They write,
Print
“We who bear [Luther’s] name and heritage must with pain acknowledge also Luther’s anti-Judaic diatribes and the violent recommendations of his later writings against the Jews. As did many of Luther’s own companions in the sixteenth century, we reject this violent invective, and yet more do we express our deep and abiding sorrow over its tragic effects on subsequent generations. In concert with the Lutheran World Federation, we particularly deplore the appropriation of Luther’s words by modern anti-Semites for the teaching of hatred toward Judaism or toward the Jewish people in our day.”[2]
READ: DECLARATION OF THE ELCA TO THE JEWISH COMMUNITY
Some Jews, however, do not believe this to be a sufficient apology. Rabbi Tzvi Marx responds to an article by Thomas W. Strieter entitled, “Luther’s Call to Resistance: ‘Not with Violence, but the Word,’” in which Strieter writes, “When I first read Luther’s anti-Semitic diatribes in my younger years, I initially wished that he had died before he wrote this stuff.”[3] Marx responds,
“If Strieter’s wish had come true, Luther would have to have died before he began any of his theological writings. It trivializes Luther’s deeply rooted anti-Semitism to ascribe it to his later writings in “The Jews and Their Lies” (1543) as if it were merely the old-age rantings of a man in his waning years.” He continues, “’A number of years ago,’ Streiter tells us, ‘the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America rightly asked Jews for forgiveness for Luther’s racist writings.’ This does little, in my opinion, to neutralize the wrongly placed admiration given to this virulent anti-Semite Martin Luther…. How can real reconciliation ever take place between religions when such spores of hatred continue to inform one of the dialogue partners?”[4]
The article continues
"While Marx here raises a valid point, Luther was much more than just a “virulent anti-Semite,” he was an incredibly important and influential theologian and reformer who did a lot of good for the progression of the Christian Church. While I do agree with Marx that Luther’s writings have subtle anti-Semitism throughout, it seems to me that in his earlier years he was at least attempting to be accepting of the Jewish people and encouraging others to treat them as human beings, worthy of the love and respect of the Christian. The central point of this paper is to recognize how in his later years Luther would drastically turn against any kind sentiment he once had, contradicting himself and causing drastic damage to the Jewish-Christian relationship. Luther had the potential and the opportunity to do a lot of good for the Jews, but instead he turned his back on them. This aspect of Luther’s writings is part of his legacy and anyone who wishes to appropriate Luther’s writings must recognize and repudiate his anti-Semitism.
Thought of as one of Luther’s friendlier writings towards Jews, That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew is a response to critics in 1523 who had “accused him of denying the Virgin birth of Jesus” after he claimed that “Jesus was the seed of Abraham.”[5] Luther takes a reformer’s approach to this criticism and stands up for the Jewish people. He recognizes the vile mistreatment of these people and speaks out against it. He writes,
“If I had been a Jew and had seen such dolts and blockheads govern and teach the Christian faith, I would sooner have become a dog than a Christian. They have dealt with the Jews as if they were dogs rather than human beings; they have done little else than deride them and seize their property…. When the Jews then see that Judaism has such strong support in Scripture, and that Christianity has become a mere babble without reliance on Scripture, how can they possibly compose themselves and become right good Christians?”[6]
READ: THAT JESUS CHRIST WAS BORN A JEW
Some may argue, as Marx does, that there is still anti-Semitism rooted in this writing, and they would not be wrong. Luther does not seem to fully accept the Jewish people, but rather wants to convert them into Christians. He explicitly states, “we in turn ought to treat the Jews in a brotherly manner in order that we might convert some of them.”[7] This sentiment is, however, not by any means unique to Luther, it is characteristic to almost every Christian theologian of the time period and even well beyond. St. Augustine (c. 354-430 C.E.) speaks of the “enemies” of the Gospel, which can be interpreted as the Jews, in his Confessions,
“Strongly do I hate its enemies! Oh, that you would slay them with a two-edged sword,[8] that they would no longer be its enemies! Thus do I love them, that they be slain to themselves, so that they might live for you.[9] [12:14]”
Erasmus, a theologian and humanist during the time of the Reformation, writes in his Letter to Wolfgang Capito, 1517,
“I am also afraid that Judaism may plan to use the renascence of Hebrew learning as an occasion for revival. There is no such plague so opposed and so hostile to the teaching of Christ.”[10]
& continues
"But Luther doesn’t stop there. Going back on all of the progress he made in his earlier writing discussed above, he writes what actions he believes should be taken against them. “First, that their synagogues might be burned down, and that all who are able toss in sulfur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire.” It is hard not to see the parallels here to the atrocities perpetrated by Germans against the Jews in the twentieth century. He then advises Christians to take away all of their books “for they use all of these books to blaspheme the Son of God… and they will never use them differently,”[14] never mind that Jews were most likely using their sacred texts for the betterment of their own personal faith and rarely if at all with the intention of condemning Christianity as Luther here accuses. He writes that Jews should not be permitted to praise God or to teach publicly “among us and in our country.”[15] He even says that they should be “forbidden to utter the name of God within our hearing.” Line after line Luther condemns entirely the Jewish people and religion. He then asks the temporal authorities to take action against the Jews under their authority and exercise “sharp mercy” towards “these wretched people.”[16] He tells the rulers of that time that they should “burn down their synagogues.., force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses did in the wilderness, slaying three thousand lest the whole people perish,”[17] encouraging the mass murder of an entire race of people based solely on their faith. Luther then has the audacity to end his tirade by saying, “I have done my duty. Now let everyone else see to theirs. I am exonerated….”[18]
& lastly says
"Martin Marty writes in response to Luther’s rantings,
“The once uncertain monk in these kinds of cases had become so comfortable with his certitude that it took on the character of a very self-centered security, the intellectual and moral self-assurance, against which he always warned…. This display showed that he had not conquered his own worst self.”[19]
By recognizing Luther’s hypocrisy and the contradictory nature of his writings and rightly calling him out on it, Marty helps illustrate why Luther going against much of what he once stood for is such a tragedy. Through this analysis we discover that Luther’s writing are not simply unambiguous resources. In On the Jews and Their Lies, Luther seems to embody all that he at one point so vehemently opposed. Turning against his own words, he indomitably slanders the Jewish people and, rather than promoting love as before, encourages violence against them. It is a shame that Luther so recklessly went against his own teachings. While Luther’s vicious and enraged anti-Semitism found in On the Jews and Their Lies is not completely characteristic or central to his theology as a whole, it is important that we recognize and repudiate Luther’s hysterical, savage prejudice and erroneous notions of truth so that we may strive towards a healthy Jewish-Christian dialogue as well as a healthy dialogue between all faiths, lest we lose sight of our own prejudice and speak harshly out of fear, anger, and misunderstanding."
From the website
gatestoneinstitute.org an
Article is headlined
" Luther's Anti-Semitism Back to Life"
by Petra Heldt
on August 25, 2016 A must read article about how the Evil & Wickedness of Martin Luther is sadly alive and unwell
The Guilt of Protestant Reformer
Martin Luther is Eternal, it Transcends Time and Space, There is No Forgiveness for
Martin Luther, Never Forgive, Never Forget
The website
samizdat.qc.ca
Has an article headlined
"On Martin Luther's Anti-Semitism" about the Scholar
Eric Metaxas and his writings about Martin Luther part of this article says
"In his later years, Luther’s attitude toward Jews, and almost everything else, had changed drastically. Metaxas writes that Luther seemed to have an absolutely torrid love affair with all things scatological. Not only were his linguistic flourishes styled along such lines, but his doctors seem to have followed suit: for one of his ailments, they persuaded him to take a draught of “garlic and horse manure,” and he infamously received an enema—in vain—moments after he had departed this world. So it is in this larger context that one has to take his attitude toward the Jews, which, like everything else in his life, unraveled along with his health (2010, p. 93)." The full article is online
Another Good Article about Martin Luther is from https://stars.library.ucf.edu
"Hermeneutics of Hate: How Martin Luther's Rhetorical
Manipulation of the Greek Bible Led to His Anti-Judaic Treatise On
The Jews and Their Lies"
by Michael Parrish University of Central Florida Part of the Religion Commons
University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu
Click on the pdf
From the website ijn.com an article is headlined
"Sanitizing Martin Luther"
by Hillel Goldberg Jan 26, 2017 This article states
"Is it possible to speak about Hitler without mentioning the Jews? Is it possible to speak about Jefferson Davis without mentioning slavery? Is it possible to speak about Babe Ruth without mentioning baseball?
Yet, it seems possible to speak about Martin Luther without mentioning anti-Semitism. Eighty-seven straight minutes of speaking, in fact.
Martin Luther — he who said that Jews wallow in devil’s feces like swine. He who said that synagogues should be set on fire, that Jewish prayer books should be destroyed, that Judaism is heresy, that Jews kill children en masse, and “We are at fault for not slaying them.”
Luther’s hatred of Jews and Judaism goes on and on. He equates the Talmud with the genitals of a pig. Yet, it was possible in Denver for learned and no doubt perfectly decent scholars of Luther to speak of him for an hour-and-a-half with nary a syllable devoted to Luther’s anti-Semitism.
I refer to five speakers from universities and theological seminaries on a panel presented by the American Society of Church History, “In the Footsteps of Bainton: Luther Biographies from 1983 to 2017: A Roundtable.”
I acknowledge that Luther can and does mean much spiritually to great swaths of humanity, and that they find meaning and truth in plumbing the teachings of this influential figure in the history of Protestant Christianity. I also note that Luther’s merits, whatever they may be, cannot be disengaged from his hatred and ugliness toward the Jews.
Not to mention, his influence cannot be separated from the segment of Western European thought that, in significant part, yielded teachings that justified the Holocaust.
And so, even as I was educated by listening to five learned historians of Luther analyze many aspects of the many biographies of Luther, I was also stunned that only some three minutes before the end of the session was the topic of Luther’s anti-Semitism mentioned — a 10-second mention, in a question from the audience, not by a member of the panel."
The article continues
"The panel on Luther that I attended was at the annual meeting of the American Historical Assn. in Denver, Jan. 5-8, 2017. For decades I have been a member of the AHA, chartered more than 225 years ago by no less than Congress. Not fully engaged in academic life since 1985, I could never afford the time or money to attend one of its annual meetings.
But as long as it was coming to Denver, I decided to indulge myself.
Indeed, it was a delight. I could stop virtually any attendee and learn about a specific research interest. It wasn’t the interests per se that moved me — a politically insurgent faith healer on the US-Mexican border, a Bolshevik Revolution that no one wants to own — it was that people still take ideas and past events with utter seriousness, something I don’t often see from my perch in the newspaper business. For me, attendance at the annual meeting of the AHA was like a resurrection, as I stepped back into a previous chapter in my personal history.
I attended the session on Luther Biographies not because I had a faith interest or even a historical interest in Luther, and surely not because I brought any preconception as to what would be said. Rather, I attended because I am interested in biography, specifically about how the same person can emerge so differently in the hands of different biographers. Methodologically, I was interested in how one subject, in this case Luther, emerged through the lenses of biographers of diverse interests, backgrounds and goals."
& lastly says
"And so it was.
I learned that Luther, all else aside, was quite a self-promoter, a master exploiter of the new technology of the time — printing.
I learned why different biographies of Luther might appeal to undergraduate students, and why other biographies might appeal to more serious students.
I learned why, for literary power alone, an old biography of Luther was still the winning choice.
I learned why Luther, as opposed to other founders of the Reformation, attracted so many biographers — some 90 in all — while other theologians did not.
I learned how some Catholics tried to reconceptualize Luther as a faithful Catholic, and how others saw him as nothing short of revolutionary. Such is the inevitable effect of multiple biographies.
All well and good.
All the standard fare for an academic presentation on an influential historical figure.
A salient part of that influence, however, was totally overlooked. I know too much history to know that the attribution of an enormous and complex event like the Holocaust to a single cause is likely wrong. Martin Luther did not cause the Holocaust. I also know that some causes are far more influential and determinative than others, and that ideas in history count. The ideas of Martin Luther, in significant part, did cause the Holocaust. Writings by and about Luther published during the Third Reich amply bear this out.
At the American Historical Assn., however, this crucial aspect of Luther’s life merited silence.
Keep in mind, I was at a session not on one or another aspect of Luther’s life or thought. “Specialization” did not characterize this session. It was on the totality — on biography, on Luther’s whole life. In that totality, five church historians did not, could not, would not — take your pick — mention his virulent anti-Semitism even once.
Even given the fact that different biographies will emphasize different aspects of a complex life, one cannot justify a session on the biographies of Luther — the state of the field — without mentioning his anti-Semitism.
It may be blasphemous to use the phrase “garden-variety anti-Semitism.” But even if it isn’t, Luther’s extreme hatred of Jews and Judaism was anything but garden-variety. Jews, he said, called Mary a whore, Jesus a bastard and if “they could kill us, they would gladly do it.” (Excuse me? In Western history, who killed whom?) Luther said, Jews “administer poison to someone from which he could die in an hour, a month, a year, ten or twenty years. They are able to practice this art.” The hatred oozes. The very title of one of Luther’s books is On The Jews and Their Lies.
I expected more of the premier historical association in the United States of America, whose publication, the American Historical Review, is a model of exactitude, comprehensiveness and fairness."
broadview.org has an article headlined
"Martin Luther’s words co-opted by German far right"
The controversy has also dredged up the figure's own muddied legacy in regard to xenophobia and anti-Semitism
By Ken Chitwood, Religion News Service | October 10, 2019 This article says:
Share
ERFURT, Germany (RNS) — “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.”
"Martin Luther’s defiant declaration to Catholic Church leaders in 1521, as he set off the Protestant Reformation, is treasured in Germany as a motto of virtuous subversion. Now church officials and other political groups are taking a stand against attempts by the far right National Democratic Party, or NPD, to co-opt Luther’s words as a campaign slogan.
For the second straight election in the central German state of Thuringia, the NPD has put up posters incorporating the famous portrait of Luther by Lucas Cranach; instead of “Here I stand,” the rebel monk is depicted saying, “I would vote NPD, I cannot do otherwise,” alongside the party’s slogan “defend the homeland.”
The NPD, classified as a neo-Nazi party by the Counter Extremism Project, has used Luther’s image in previous German state and national elections. In 2017, Christoph Meyns, the Lutheran bishop in Braunschweig, to the north of Thuringia, told the German news agency DPA that the posters were “intolerable” political distortions of Luther and his message.
The cathedral in Erfurt, the capital of Thuringia. (RNS photo by Ken Chitwood)
The posters’ appearance before the Oct. 27 vote in Thuringia have renewed the controversy in a place where Luther was ordained and lived as a monk. The dust-up has also exposed the region as a home to nationalist sentiments, dredging up Luther’s own muddied legacy in regard to xenophobia and anti-Semitism.
Thuringia’s 2014 elections saw a coalition made up of the progressive Left Party, the Social Democrats and the Greens oust Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, which had long held sway in the state. The NPD gained just 3.6 percent of the vote then, failing to gain any seats in the state Parliament."
the article continues
"Current polls show the same coalition falling short of a majority, in part due to the increasing support for another right-wing party, Alternative for Germany, or AfD. After a breakout success nationwide in 2014, the AfD has continued its steady rise in German politics and looks like it may come in second in Thuringia, beating out Merkel’s CDU.
Thuringia, red, a state located in central Germany. (Map courtesy of Creative Commons)
A 2018 study from Friedrich-Schiller University Jena found that 19 percent of respondents in Thuringia agreed with extreme right-wing statements such as “National Socialism also had its good sides.” Ethnocentric statements such as “the foreigners come here only to take advantage of our welfare state” or that Germany is oversaturated “by the many foreigners to a dangerous extent” found support from 39 percent of respondents.
Just eight percent of respondents statewide agreed with explicitly neo-Nazi statements, but in some districts, such as Eisenach, another landmark of “Luther country” — it was in the town’s Wartburg castle that he holed up while resisting the established church power — neo-Nazi sentiments have found broader accord.
Eisenach is currently playing host to the Achava Festival of Jewish culture, and the museum Lutherhaus is featuring a special exhibit on the Protestant church’s “Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Church Life” founded in Eisenach in 1939.
Alexandra Husemeyer of the Lutherhaus Eisenach Foundation said that the foundation’s efforts at addressing anti-Semitism have not met with specific resistance from far right groups or neo-Nazis in the area. “While there are four members of the NPD and four members of the AfD in the city council, there have been no reactions from them” thus far, she said.
She is, however, familiar with the controversial election posters, and she uses the foundation’s museum to teach visitors about the political co-option of Luther across time, including his influence on National Socialism. (Husemeyer is proud to speak of Luther’s positive impact on Western culture, from the modern German language to Monty Python’s film “The Meaning of Life.”)"
& continues
"In his infamous 1543 treatise “On the Jews and Their Lies,” Luther called for the burning of Jewish synagogues, the confiscation of Jewish prayer books and Talmudic writings, and the expulsion of Jews from cities.
Christopher Probst, author of “Demonizing the Jews: Luther and the Protestant Church in Nazi Germany,” said that while Luther’s “sociopolitical suggestions were largely ignored by political leaders of his day,” during the Third Reich “a large number of Protestant pastors, bishops, and theologians of varying theological persuasions utilized Luther’s writings about Jews and Judaism with great effectiveness to reinforce the anti-Semitism (that was) already present in substantial degrees.”
Bust of Martin Luther in Eisleben, Germany, where he preached a sermon “On the Jews and their Lies.” (RNS photo by Ken Chitwood)
Probst added: “The NPD’s present usage of both Luther’s image and, more implicitly, his often implacable attitude toward Jews and others fits rather neatly with the views of those German Protestants who were sympathetic to and even supportive of Nazism 80 years ago.”
Probst said that Luther’s anti-Semitism and its impact across Germany are too often downplayed. While “it is impossible to say whether or not Luther would vote today for a far right, ultranationalist party such as the NPD,” he said, “the posters no doubt resonate with some who both revere Luther and — unlike the great majority of Germans, including German Protestants — have no place for ‘foreigners’ in their homeland.”
Many present day German Protestants are having none of it.
Visitors pack All Saints’ Church, or Castle Church, in Lutherstadt-Wittenberg, Germany, on Oct. 31, 2017. Castle Church is where Martin Luther is buried and the journey of the Reformation began. (Photo: Hendrik Schmidt/dpa via AP)
The superintendent of the church in Lutherstadt-Wittenberg, Christian Beuchel, who called the NPD “inhuman,” said the posters abuse the image of a man who gave people dignity through his “rediscovery of God’s grace.”
“Many Germans,” Probst said, “and Thuringians in particular, take great pride in the place that their Heimat (homeland) played in the Reformation.”
Today, the question remains which part of Luther’s legacy will have the greater impact on the upcoming election.
Probst said that Thuringians, Protestants and Germans as a whole need to come to terms with the prejudice that the NPD promotes and that Luther espoused at times.
“The most prominent figure of the German Protestant Reformation, Luther was indeed a remarkable man,” he said. “Yet Luther was also an anti-Semite. It is this deeply complex legacy, I think, that sparks such potent reactions.”
From facinghistory.org an article is headlined \
"Nazi Propaganda Depicting Martin Luther"
"This propaganda poster from 1933 reads, “Hitler’s fight and Luther’s teaching are the best defense for the German people.”
History
The Holocaust
World History Archive / Alamy
The resources I’m getting from my colleagues through Facing History have been just invaluable.
— Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif
From the Jerusalem Post website, jpost.com an article is headlined
"Martin Luther (1483 - 1546): Theologian of the Holocaust"
By DAVID TURNER
Published: JULY 22, 2011 This article says:
"‘What then shall we do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? First, their synagogues or churches should be set on fire… (Luther,1543, On the Jews and Their Lies)
This is the final submission discussing the theological background to modern Western anti-semitism. Martin Luther represents something of a milestone in Christian anti-Judaism as he himself originally sought to attract the Jews toward conversion by presenting a more humane and accepting alternative to the Church’s anti-Judaism.
In many ways a forerunner of the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment, which he preceded by a century, the Great Reformer also had a profound impact on the conditions of existence and even the physical survivability of the Jews.
Luther believed that the Jewish condition, their debased survival, was the result of persecution by the Church. He believed that freed of the burden of the Church they would welcome conversion to his “reformist” Christianity. His failure to attract converts produced an emotional reaction similar to that of Paul, fifteen centuries earlier. Luther’s final writings, On the Jews and Their Lies and Of The Unknowable Name and The Generations of Christ, both from 1543, would have a profound impact on the future conditions of Jewish existence. Almost exactly four hundred years after his death Luther’s writings would be embraced by the Nazi Party as inspiration and justification in their pursuit of a “final solution” to the Christendom’s Jewish Problem.
“Here on our church in Wittenberg a sow is sculpted in stone.
“Young pigs and Jews lie suckling under her. Behind the sow a rabbi is bent over the sow, lifting up her right leg, holding her tail high and looking intensely under her tail and into her Talmud (Luther, 1543, Vom Schem Hamphoras [Of the Unknowable Name…]).”
An online article is headlined
"CHRISTIAN ANTI-SEMITISM"
By Daniel Gruber This article says:
"Christian Anti-Semitism, by Daniel Gruber, is a series of articles that examines the historical development of the anti-Semitism that has proceeded from the church. This reader, for one, has found the series very informative, and select articles from it are being presented that the reader may gain similar benefit. The studies are being presented in the sequence in which their historical content occurred. Therefore, it is recommended that they be read in the sequence in which links to them are found in our Library.
Most articles in the series highlight the origins of anti-Semitism in the Eastern and Catholic branches of the church. The article presented below, and the one just prior to it, brings to light the fact that the Protestant branch of the church does not get off Scott free. A significant portion of it carried forward the anti-Semitism it inherited from the Catholic church and reaped a bountiful "harvest" in the Holocaust.
In 1 Corinthians 14:15, Paul said, I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also (ASV). It is the prayer of the Shofar board that the reader may grow in understanding in this matter and pray accordingly. ~ editor
Study 10: LUTHER: THEOLOGIAN OF THE HOLOCAUST
"Neither the hatred nor the system of 'interpretation' were original with Luther. But he created a theology which placed the destruction of the Jews in a favorable light. In this way, Luther became the theologian of the Holocaust."
~ Daniel Gruber ~
Martin Luther's anti-Semitism has often been treated as though it were a personal weakness or aberration from which he suffered in his later years. That is incorrect on two counts. First, he was an advocate of hatred from the beginning. Second, his anti-Semitism is built into his theology.
He hated the Jews of the Bible as much as he hated the Jews of his own day. His theology justified and invited the Holocaust. He can accurately be called the "Theologian of the Holocaust."
Hatred and Theology
Early on, in his struggle against the papacy, Luther said some compassionate things about the Jews. He commented:
"Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God (Rom. 11:22). ...In contradistinction to this (lesson) many exalt themselves in an amazingly stupid manner and call the Jews either dogs or accursed, or they insult them with other abusive words, though they themselves do not know what kind of people they are and what is their standing in God's sight. They want to convert the Jews by force or invective. May God resist them." 1
the article continues
"Luther desired that Jews 'convert and become Christians,' yet he recognized that the Church was the greatest obstacle to that happening. In a pamphlet entitled "Jesus Christ was Born a Jew," Luther stated,
"If the apostles, who were also Jews, had dealt with us Gentiles as we Gentiles have dealt with the Jews, no Christians would ever have emerged from among the Gentiles." 2
"For our fools, the popes, bishops, sophists, and monks - the gross asses' heads - have treated the Jews to date in such fashion that he who would be a good Christian might almost have to become a Jew. And if I had been a Jew and had seen such oafs and numbskulls governing and teaching the Christian faith, I would have rather become a sow than a Christian." 3
Yeshua said, By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. (Matt. 12:37) Luther himself, in his own abusive insults and curses directed at the Jewish people and in his appeals for their destruction, far surpassed those whom he criticized. There is no one who exceeded him in this regard.
His anti-Semitism did not begin later in his life. He expressed it from the beginning. His "compassionate" remarks were merely a device to strengthen his attacks on the papacy.
His "Commentary on Romans" is considered one of the most influential books of all time. It formed a major part of the foundation on which the Reformation was built. It was written from sermons which Luther delivered in 1515-1516, a year or two before he nailed "The Ninety-five Theses" to the Wittenberg church door.
Much of Romans speaks of the continuing role of the Jewish people in God's plan of redemption for the world. Luther responds to this factual reality in basically two ways: he says nothing or he greatly distorts the text to say something derogatory.
A few of his comments on Romans 11 show how he handles the Biblical text. Paul begins the chapter by affirming God's faithfulness despite Israel's sin. I say then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject His people, whom he foreknew... (vv. 1-2).
Luther comments:
"The Jews arrogantly assumed that they were God's people, simply because the heathen were not His people." 4
The Jews didn't assume that they were God's people. God repeatedly told them they were.
As the Lord told Moses, So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring My people the Israelites out of Egypt (Exod. 3:10).
The article continues
" As Moses told Israel, For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth (Deut. 7:6).
Towards the end of Romans chapter 11, Paul explains how the blindness of part of Israel to the good news is only temporary. It is a means to open the door for Gentiles to be saved too. God will put an end to that blindness, because, On the one hand, they are hostile towards the good news for your sake. But concerning God's choice, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers (v. 27).
Luther comments:
"As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes (Rom. 11:28). The word 'enemies' must here be taken in a passive sense; that is, they deserve to be hated. God hates them, and so they are hated by the Apostles and all who are of God. This is shown by the opposite term 'beloved.' They are hated and at the same time beloved. They are hated 'concerning the gospel...for your sakes.' That is to say; As you are loved for receiving the Gospel, so they are hated for rejecting the Gospel." 5
Verse 28 says, ...but from the standpoint of God's choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.
The they who are beloved are the same people, the same they, who were yet opposed to the good news. In other words, God still loves those Jews who do not believe because of His love for their fathers.
Luther's treatment of the text is unbelievable. Paul says that God loves them. Luther says the meaning of that is that God hates them. For Luther, the meaning is not only that God hates them, but also that Paul hates them. To the contrary, Paul was willing to be damned forever for the salvation of his unbelieving brethren. Not only, according to Luther, do God and Paul hate them, but so do the other "Apostles and all who are of God." According to Luther, someone who does not hate the unbelieving Jews is not of God. Paul and
all the apostles/ambassadors, like Yeshua the King of the Jews, were, and remain, Jews.
What Luther writes is not interpretation. These are not comments on what Paul wrote. They are comments in spite of what Paul wrote. They are comments in defiance of what Paul wrote.
This "Commentary on Romans" is his foundational theological work. Luther said these things before the Reformation even began. He built his theology and life on this distortion and hatred. Martin Luther's anti-Semitism is built into his theology from the beginning. It is integral to his view of salvation by faith without works. For Luther, good works are what the rejected Jews presented to God.
It is warp and woof of his teachings against the Law. He taught that Moses and everything Jewish had to vanish.
It is the reason for his denial of the Millennial reign of Messiah on the earth. A millennial kingdom meant that the God of Israel was still faithful to His people. Luther would not accept that.
In Gen. 12:3, God promises Abraham I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
God later repeats this promise to all Israel.
In his "Works," Luther comments on Gen. 12:3. He sums up the situation of the Jews somewhat strangely:
"In short, they have no hope for salvation except to invent some idea about God's mercy and goodness." 6
Are these the comments of a man who lets the Scriptures determine his theology? Do Jews need "to invent some idea about God's mercy and goodness"? Isn't God merciful and good? For that matter, does anyone, including Luther, have any hope for salvation outside the reality of God's mercy and goodness?
Neither the hatred nor the system of "interpretation" were original with Luther. But he created a theology which placed the destruction of the Jews in a favorable light. In this way, Luther became the theologian of the Holocaust."
& continues
"He attributed his curses and judgments on the Jews to the Lord.
"Everything concurs with Christ's judgment that the Jews are venomous, bitter, vengeful, slimy snakes, assassins and devil's children, who steal and wreak havoc on the sly because they cannot afford to do in the open. A Christian has, next to the devil, no more venomous, bitter enemy than the Jew... (The Jews ought to convert,) but if they refuse, we should neither tolerate nor suffer their presence in our midst!" 12
"Know, O adored Christ, and make no mistake, that aside from the Devil, you have no enemy more venomous, more desperate, more bitter, than a true Jew who truly seeks to be a Jew. Now whoever wishes to accept venomous serpents, desperate enemies of the Lord, and to honor them to let himself be robbed, pillaged, corrupted, and cursed by them, need only turn to the Jews." 13
It should be kept in mind that Luther did not hate only Jews. He also hated the Catholics, the Muslims, and other reformers. His response to the Peasant's Revolt was hatred of the peasants.
He embraced the Imperial Church of Augustine and exalted the secular power. In 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia, following Augustine and Luther, codified the principle that "The religion of the prince is the religion of the people." One's religion was determined by one's civil ruler. Dissent was rebellion. Gone was Biblical faith.
Luther called for the destruction of the rebels, i.e. those he hated.
"We need only to quote from the writings of Urbanus Rhegius, Luther's trusted associate, in support of this. He said, 'When heresy breaks forth... then the magistrate must punish not with less but with greater vigor than is employed against other evil-doers, robbers, murderers, thieves, and the like.... Therefore a Christian magistrate must make it his first concern to keep the Christian religion pure... All who know history will know what has been done in this matter by such men as Constantine, Marianus, Theodosius, Charlemagne and others.' " 14
Why were these Luther's heroes of Christian history? Constantine? the pagan pontifex maximus who conquered the Church with the sword, brought multitudes of unbelievers into it, and authorized the execution of all believers who wouldn't submit to his adulterations?
Luther claimed that only the State could license ministers of the Church. If any man presumed to preach or teach without being licensed by the State,
"'They must neither be tolerated nor listened to, even though they seek to teach the pure Gospel, yes, even if they are angelic and simon-pure Gabriels from heaven... Therefore let everyone ponder this, that if he wants to preach or teach let him exhibit the call or the commission that drives him to it or else let him keep his mouth shut. If he refuses this then let the magistrate consign the scamp into the hand of his proper master - whose name is Meister Hans.'
"Meister Hans is a euphemism for the hangman!" 15
These were not idle words. They were carried out. "[T]hey took the Anabaptists to the torture chamber. We read: '...he was thrice
stretched; he prays God to give him grace to bear the torture. He is told to confess in plain language why he has left the pure teachings as taught by Martin Luther and others.' " 16
Luther had early seen quite clearly the nature of the system he was advocating. "The Pope hath... mixed and confounded matters ecclesiastical and political together; which is a devilish and hellish confusion." 17
The article continues
"The goal for Luther was to use that "devilish and hellish" mixture to eliminate the Jews completely.
"First, their synagogues should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it. And this ought to be done for the honor of God and of Christianity in order that God may see that we are Christians, and that we have not wittingly tolerated or approved of such public lying, cursing and blaspheming of his Son and his Christians... Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed.... Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer books and Talmuds... Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach any more... Fifthly, passport and travelling privileges should be absolutely forbidden to Jews... Sixthly, they ought to be stopped from usury... Seventhly, let the young and strong Jews and Jewesses be given the flail, the axe, the hoe, the spade, the distaff, and spindle, and let them earn their bread by the sweat of their noses... To sum up, dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domains, if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one so that you may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden- the Jews." 18
If you remove Luther's distortion of the Biblical text and his rejection and hatred of the Jews, his theology disintegrates. His theology comes from his anti-Semitism. They cannot be separated.
Some of Luther's supporters treat his anti-Semitism as though it were an aberration to be overlooked. They look at his role in the Reformation and his theological contributions as though they outweighed his sins. They seem to think that he was saved by his good works.
It is not, however, evident that his works or his theology were good. Did Hitler do anything that Luther did not recommend? Hitler said, "I believe that I am today acting according to the purposes of the Almighty Creator. In resisting the Jew, I am fighting the Lord's battle."
Hitler was never excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church. Apparently he did nothing that it thought deserved excommunication. The same must be said of the Lutheran Church and the Nazis who remained Lutherans in good standing. Had their deeds been totally unacceptable, they would have been excommunicated."
A person typed on Facebook
“One of the deadliest myths arising from misinterpretation of the New Testament scripture is that the Jews were the “ Christ Killers”. This is completely false and there is no justification that can be found in the New Testament to support this lie.
The writers of the gospels, who were Jews themselves, took special care to impress upon their readers the fact that the Jews were not responsible for the events that led up to the arrest, trial, and conviction of Jesus Christ. Two conclusions were made from Mark 11:18 and Luke 22:2 :
1- There was a crucifixion plot and Scripture states that the Chief Priest appointed by Herod , were complicit in these plans.
2- The plot to kill Jesus was carried out by the High Priest Caiaphas, who in no way represented the Jewish people. He was a political appointment of Herod Antipas, who was himself directly appointed by Rome, not the Jewish people.
The Jewish people hated Herod and Caiaphas because they were pawns in the hands of the pagan Romans. Herod appointed Caiaphas to do the will of Rome, not the will of the Jewish people.
But what about the crowd who screamed “ His blood be on us and our children.” ( Matt 27:25)? Some have used this as scriptural proof that all the Jewish people on earth are forever guilty of the blood of Jesus and deserve eternal punishment from the Almighty. False!
“ But the Chief Priest and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.” – Matthew 27:20
The truth is that Caiaphas is the one who “ gathered and controlled the crowd.” Remember this was an orchestrated plot. The Jewish people were innocent but were blamed for it all which led up to the atrocities of the false teachers of the replacement theology. I find a little irony in it all. Jesus Christ died an innocent man, so did millions of innocent Jews in the name of Jesus Christ because of a plot of evil , wicked people. We as Christians should ask for forgiveness from our Jewish brothers and sisters for the sins of our forefathers against their forefathers. Remember: There would be no Christianity if there were no Judaism. Once again the enemy is defeated, his plans conquered and in the end, Jews and Christians will unite again to create a perfect Israel. Remember:
The Jewish people are Gods chosen people through covenant and our God doesn’t break covenants. If He did than He could easily break covenant with us Christians as well. He doesn’t break his covenants, period. He still loves the Jewish people and they are still the Apple of His eye. We are to love them the same!”
Another good book to read is
"The Passion Conspiracy: Did the Jews Kill Christ or was Jesus the Victim of Identity Theft?” by
Randy Weiss
blogs.bu.edu has an article
headlined
“Christianity’s Role in the Holocaust”
by Shoshana Koff
And
premierchristianity.com
has an article headlined
“The shocking truth about Christianity and the Holocaust”
By Simon Ponsonby 13 December 2020
timesofisrael.com has an article headlined
“Church of England report admits Christian anti-Semitism helped lead to Holocaust”
By ROBERT PHILPOT
22 November 2019,
See Also the website
strateias.org
From the Internet archive of the website spiritjournals.org
An article is headlined
"IS The Church The "New Israel?" Part One" This article says
"The idea that the Church is the "new" Israel is by no means a "new" thing. However, in recent years this doctrine seems to be making a comeback among many circles seeking to preclude Israel from the plan of God. The doctrine of "replacement theology" means that the Church has finally and forever replaced Israel in the purposes of God.
In this lesson we will examine the following questions, "Do the Jewish people as such still have any significant place in the plan of God?" "Do God's territorial promises to Israel still stand?" and "Does the modern State of Israel have prophetic significance, or is it an historic accident?"
Replacement Theology Defined
The doctrine of replacement theology rests on four main pillars:
Israel has been replaced by the Christian Church in the purposes of God, or, more precisely, the Church is the historic continuation of Israel
The Jewish people are there no longer "Israel." They are just another people group, like all other nations and religions, who need, and can receive, salvation in Jesus the Messiah.
Apart from salvation, and incorporation into the Body of Messiah, the Jews have no future, no hope, and no calling
Since Pentecost, Israel, properly so-called, IS THE CHURCH.
In arguing their case, replacement theologians plead the following points:
To be a son of Abraham is to have faith in Messiah Jesus. Galatians 3:29 shows that son ship of Abraham is seen in spiritual, not national terms.
The promise of Canaan to Abraham was only a "starter." The real promised land is the whole "world." (Romans 4:13). It will be the Church, not Israel that will inherit the world.
The nation of Israel was only the seed of the future Church which would arise, incorporating people of ALL nations (Malachi 1:11)
Jesus taught that the Jews would lose their spiritual privileges and be replaced by another people (Matthew 21:43). The question raised by the apostles in Acts 1:6 is ignored by Jesus as unworthy of comment.
A true Jew is anyone born of the Spirit, whether he is racially Gentile or Jewish (Romans 2:28-29)
Paul shows that the Church was really the same "olive tree" as was Israel. Therefore the distinguish between Israel and the Church is, strictly speaking, false. Indeed, people of Jewish origin need to be grafted back into the Church i.e., into Israel proper (Romans 11:17-23)
All the Old Testament promises made to Israel, unless they were historically fulfilled before the first coming of Messiah, are now the property of the Christian church. They are not to be interpreted carnally and literally, but spiritually and symbolically. Therefore, OT references to "Israel," "Jerusalem," "Zion," and the "Temple," where they are predictive, refer to the Church (2 Cor. 1:20) In the NT all these things are understood spiritually (Gal. 4:21-26; 6:16; Eph. 2:19-22; Heb. 12:22)
The attraction of this doctrine comes from the Church's past. It is historically well rooted in the Church Fathers (Origen and Tertullian), Martin Luther's writings and the Reformers. It has an intellectual appeal, because it does not require literal interpretation of the Bible. It has a freshness appeal, because it goes along with the view of the "Last Things" that cuts across the often fanciful end-time teachings, which have been current in the Church (through the influence of the Plymouth Brethren and the Scofield Bible) over the last century or so.
It also appeals to that side of human character, which has difficulty in acceding the election to others. Furthermore, it feeds into and from the Anti-Semitic past of the Church."
The article continues
"Replacement Theology Exposed
We have seen the case FOR Replacement Theology. Now let's look and see the case AGAINST this doctrine that is yet another effort by Satan to keep Jews and Christians apart.
Some general statements first:
To be a son of Abraham is open to ALL FAITH, but physical sonship still exists. Israel (the Jews) have and will have an important place in the purposes of God
By no means is it true that every Israelite has been, is, or shall be, saved.
Unlike any other nation, Israel has been chosen by God for His purposes of redemption for the whole world
Through Israel the promised Redeemer and Messiah came into the world. Both the FIRST and the SECOND comings of Jesus are to be on their territory
Individually, Jews, as well as Gentiles, can only be saved in this age through faith in the person and work of the Messiah (Yeshuah) Jesus.
Historically, a large part of the nation (though by no means ALL, if we are to believe the record of the book of Acts) rejected the true Messiah, and for that reason lost possession of their land, and their destiny as a priestly nation - for a season.
There has, in all the centuries since Jesus the Messiah, been a number of Jews, who came to know and love Jesus, though at the expense of being swallowed up in a Church, which by this time had forgotten it's Jewish origin.
The Jewish people are unique in human history: they retained their identity as a people, despite having no homeland or political structure, despite frequent attempts at genocide and forcible conversion, and despite their own desires to become indistinguishable from their Gentile neighbors.
God made some very clear promises to the Jews as a people. How could He possible redefine them to apply to another people without be charged with deviousness?
Since the 1840s there are more Jews believing in Jesus than since the first century
The State of Israel has been reestablished, though yet in unbelief. It has been so far preserved remarkably, it not miraculously, through many crises. Those who believe in the sovereignty of God within History find in this the marks of Divine Providence.
There is YET to be a time when Jews in large numbers will turn to Jesus, having strong influence on the evangelization of the Gentile world.
In our day there are significant and growing congregations of Hebrew speaking Jews in Israel, who proclaim Jesus as Messiah and Saviour to their own people. They are not part of any Gentile denominational organization. They bear the marks of a fresh direction in the work of God."
& continues
"What The Scriptures Say About Israel:
The general pattern of scripture is that its histories and predictions are literal, though often trimmed with poetic and pictorial language. This allows for the use of "type" and "antitype" in scripture. Some examples:
The prophecy about the altar at Bethel. 1 Kings 13:2 gives the prediction; 2 Kings 23:15-17 shows the fulfillment
Messiah is to be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23)
Messiah will be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). For those who spiritualize the prophecies, it would not have mattered had He been born in Birmingham.
Messiah will ride into Jerusalem on an ass (Zechariah 9:9 and Matthew 21:5)
Messiah will suffer excruciating pain at the hands of men (Psalm 22)
Messiah will be killed, and buried in a rich man's grave (Isaiah 53:8-9)
Messiah will be alive again after His death (Isaiah 53:10)
In the case of fulfilled prophecy the fulfillment is literaly, then it is logical to expect unfulfilled prophecies to be literal too. Thus, when God speaks of Jerusalem, Judah, and Israel in the last days, we can accept this at face value. Jesus, for example, predicted the destruction of the Temple (Matthew 24:2), and that Jerusalem would be dominated by the Gentiles until much later in history (Luke 21:24). How can this ever be interpreted as "the church?" In fact the predictions were fulfilled in AD 70 and 1967. The Bible, of course, also refers to "the heavenly Jerusalem," but there is no difficulty perceiving when it means the earthly and the heavenly Jerusalem.
The Meaning Of "Israel" and the "Jew" In The New Covenant
There are about 77 references to "Israel" in the New Testament. One refers to the land of Israel, and every single one of the rest refer to the Jewish people either historically, in their unbelief, or as the believing remnant. The one reference which is debated is Galatians 6:16 where Paul says, "as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God." In view of the fact that the word "Israel" never refers elsewhere in scripture to the Christian Church, it is best to interpret Gal. 6:16 as referring to the body of Jews who believe in Jesus, who are, of course, part of the Church.
The word "Jew" or "Jews" occurs over 190 times in the New Covenant. These terms ALWAYS refer to the Jewish people, whether to those who rejected the Messiah, or to those who accepted Him. It is never used to describe a Gentile Christian. Romans 2:28-29 does not extend the title of "JEW" to the Gentile Christian world but it actually RESTRICTS the true Jewishness to those Jews who are circumcised in heart i.e. who accept Jesus, and are born of the Spirit.
While insisting that Jews and Gentiles within the Church constitute "ONE NEW MAN", and that the spiritual standing of Jews and Gentiles in Messiah is equal (Gal. 3:28; 6:15), Paul did make a practical distinction, not only between MEN and WOMEN, but also between Christians of Jewish and Gentile backgrounds.
This is illustrated by his attitude to his two colleagues, Timothy and Titus; Timothy, who was Jewish, he circumcised:
Acts 16:3 - Him would Paul have to go forth with him; and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters: for they knew all that his father was a Greek.
But he sternly resisted pressure to circumcise Titus, because he was a Gentile:
Galatians 2:3 - But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised: "
& continues
" Paul did not teach that either Jews or Gentiles had a superior position within the ecclesia on grounds of race. This outlaws discrimination against ANYONE within the CHURCH on ground of his racial origin. Paul in fact distinguishes between three groups of peoples in the world:
Jews
Gentiles
The Church of God (Comprised of both Jews and Gentiles)
This means that a Christian has transcended his racial background, though for practical purposes he is still a member of his own nation.
This principle is further illustrated in the epistles of James and Peter. James addresses his epistle to "the twelve tribes in the Diaspora. Clearly, he saw the Jewish Christians, to whom he was writing, as still Israelites. He describes their meeting as a "synagogue," (2.2). Peter was given as "apostleship to the circumcision (i.e., to the Jews)" (Gal. 2:8). This is why Peter's first epistle is written from Babylonia, where the largest First Century Jewish community resided (1 Peter 5:13), and was addressed to "chosen exiles of the Diaspora." (1 Peter 1:1)
Paul himself was a Jew, and also the chosen apostle to the Gentiles. (There is not one even one non-Jewish apostle in the New Testament). Paul's epistle to the Romans is the theological heart of the New Covenant. Chapters 9-11 contain his mature teaching about Israel.
Romans 9-11 - The Olive Tree - The Church DOES NOT Replace Israel!
The following is a summary list of the points Paul makes in Romans 9-11 in his great teaching on the nation of Israel and how she relates to God's prophetic time clock and future:
The Jews, even in their rejection of Jesus are STILL Israelites: - Romans 9:4 - ...Who are Israelites; to whom pertain the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;
To Israel still belong the ADOPTION, the GLORY, the COVENANTS (including the New COVENANT), the GIVING OF THE LAW, the SERVICE OF GOD, and THE PROMISES (9:4c)"
& continues
"The main body of Israel has forfeited salvation through rejecting the Messiah - Romans 9:30-33; 10:21 - What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. [31] But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. [32] Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; [33] As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed; Romans 10:21 - But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.
Paul desires and PRAYS for their salvation - there is NOT anti-Jewishness in Paul's heart - quite the opposite - Romans 9:1-3 - I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, [2] That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. [3] For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:"
& continues
"Israel is NOT finally rejected (Romans 11:1-2). Even in OT times, there was only a remnant of true believers among a nation largely composed of unbelievers. In Paul's day, nothing had changed (Romans 11:2-6 - I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. [2] God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture said of Elias? how he makes intercession to God against Israel, saying, [3] Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. [4] But what said the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. [5] Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. [6] And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
God has judicially blinded the unbelieving majority to the truth - Romans 11:7-10 - What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeks for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded [8] (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. [9] And David said, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling block, and a recompense unto them: [10] Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back always."
& continues
"Israel has paid the price of rejection to give the Gentiles a chance. However, their restoration is assure and will be "life from the dead." - Romans 11:12-16 Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness? [13] For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: [14] If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them. [15] For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? [16] For if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.
Unbelieving Jews are like olive branches cut off from their own tree. Believingg Gentiles are wild live branches grafted in. But Gentiles are not to BOAST AGAINST THE JEWS, because God is able to graft them in again. The Olive Root speaks of the spiritual riches, which flow from God via the Patriarchs, which the Church (comprised of Jews and Gentiles) now enjoys, and which unbelieving Israel has temporarily lost - Romans 11:17-24 -And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them partakes of the root and fatness of the olive tree; [18] Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. [19] Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. [20] Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Be not high minded, but fear: [21] For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. [22] Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shall be cut off. [23] And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again. [24] For if thou were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
A Future national repentance is expected for Israel. This is laid before us as a mystery (a secret which can now be revealed - Romans 11:25-27). Compare Zechariah 12:10, where the prophet also speaks of a national repentance towards a Messiah, who is also God. Romans 11:25-27 - For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. [26] And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: [27] For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.
Israel, even in its unbelief, is chosen and loved by God - Romans 11:28 - As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes.
"As concerning the gospel they are enemies for "your sakes" (i.e. YOU GENTILES). This alone should bring about great thankfulness and love towards the Jews from Gentile Christians.
"The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable." Romans 11:29 - This is firm ground on which to believe that God has not rejected Israel.
Paul still identifies himself as a Jew, after coming a Christian (Acts 21:39)Acts 21:39 - But Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city: and, I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people.
The NT epistle addressed to the Hebrews is a warning to Jewish believers not to return to Judaism as a religious hope, but it clearly still sees these believers as Jewish. It's not a militant call against the Jewish race as some church fathers have taught"
Part Two of this article says
"Let's continue our study in lesson nine on the question "Is the Church the New Israel?" No better source of teaching on this than to look at the teachings of Yeshuah Himself, the Lord Jesus, the Messiah.
Our Lord Jesus does not teach the permanent rejection of Israel. In the parable of the Tenants of the Vineyard in Matthew 21:33-44, He says: "The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." This is a threat, not to the Jewish PEOPLE as such, but to the leaders, specifically the chief priests and Pharisees:
Matthew 21:33-44 - Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: [34] And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. [35] And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. [36] Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise. [37] But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. [38] But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. [39] And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. [40] When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen? [41] They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. [42] Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? [43] Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. [44] And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
Jesus forsees a time when the religious Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem WILL accept HIM as Messiah and this will precede His return:
Matthew 23:37-39 - O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that kills the prophets, and stones them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathered her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! [38] Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. [39] For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Another teaching from Jesus is a promise to the 12 apostles "they will rule the 12 tribes of Israel."
Matthew 19:28 - And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
Luke 22:30 - That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."
Part Two continues
"Our Lord's FIRST mission to earth was to ISRAEL rather than to the Gentiles:
Matthew 10:5-6 - These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: [6] But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
The Promises Of God To The Jews
God solemnly promised a land to Abraham (Gen. 15:18-21). This promise is reiterated in sevenfold affirmation in Psalms 105:8-10:
Genesis 15:18-21 - In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: [19] The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, [20] And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, [21] And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
Psalm 105:8-10 - He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations. [9] Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac; [10] And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant:
Reading these two passages it is impossible for anyone (except those with an Anti-Semitic heart) to apply it metaphorically to the Church. Indeed, if such violence could be done to clear statements of God, then the apparent promises in the NT to the Church would be capable of reinterpretation, and of reapplication to some new people (Why not to the Moslems, who claim to have replaced the Church?) The Psalm's language clearly indicates God wants ISRAEL, not the PLO or any other group of natinonal origin, to possess the land of Canaan.
Look at this five-fold affirmation:
He has remembered His COVENANT forever....which covenant He made with Abraham
And His OATH unto Isaac
And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a LAW
And to Israel for an everlasting COVENANT
Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the LOT of your INHERITANCE
The words, "covenant," "oath" "law" and "everlasting covenant," have great meaning for GOD and those who will seek to oppose His plan will only find heartache and destruction."
& continues
"God's Plan For Israel
God's purpose for Israel has always depended on His initiative and electioni, but Israel's enjoyment of God's blessings has depended on their response as a righteous nation:
Deut. 7:1-7 - When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; [2] And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: [3] Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. [4] For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. [5] But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. [6] For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. [7] The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:
Israel is promised abundant blessing when living in a right relationship with God (Lev. 26:1-13; Deut. 28:1-14), but God promised discipline (NOT REJECTION) when the nation rebelled (Lev. 26:14-46, Deut. 28:15-68). Scattering among the nations was the ultimate disciplinary measure, with the promise of regathering ultimately to fulfil His purpose. (Deut. 30)"
& continues
"A second key factor in God's dealing with Israel was His promise to David. God promised David a royal dynasty reaching eternal dimensions in Israel's Messiah (2 Sam. 7:11-17); 1 Chr. 17:10-15). Matthew demonstrates that Jesus is that Messiah (Matthew 1:1-16). The angel Gabriel tells Mary that her Son will "reign over the house of Jacob forever." (Luke 1:33). The name "Jacob" can hardly apply to the Church. Jesus is still related to JUDAH and to DAVID! Rev. 5:5 and 22:16.
2 Samuel 7:11-17 - And as since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel, and have caused thee to rest from all thine enemies. Also the Lord telleth thee that he will make thee an house. [12] And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. [13] He shall build an house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. [14] I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: [15] But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. [16] And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever. [17] According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak unto David.
1 Chron. 17:10-15 - And since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel. Moreover I will subdue all thine enemies. Furthermore I tell thee that the Lord will build thee an house. [11] And it shall come to pass, when thy days be expired that thou must go to be with thy fathers, that I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons; and I will establish his kingdom. [12] He shall build me an house, and I will stablish his throne for ever. [13] I will be his father, and he shall be my son: and I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it from him that was before thee: [14] But I will settle him in mine house and in my kingdom for ever: and his throne shall be established for evermore. [15] According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak unto David."
& continues
"Matthew 1:1-16 - The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. [2] Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; [3] And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram; [4] And Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon; [5] And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse; [6] And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias; [7] And Solomon begat Roboam; and Roboam begat Abia; and Abia begat Asa; [8] And Asa begat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias; [9] And Ozias begat Joatham; and Joatham begat Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias; [10] And Ezekias begat Manasses; and Manasses begat Amon; and Amon begat Josias; [11] And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon: [12] And after they were brought to Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel; and Salathiel begat Zorobabel; [13] And Zorobabel begat Abiud; and Abiud begat Eliakim; and Eliakim begat Azor; [14] And Azor begat Sadoc; and Sadoc begat Achim; and Achim begat Eliud; [15] And Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat Matthan; and Matthan begat Jacob; [16] And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
Luke 1:33 - And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
Rev. 5:5 - And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.
Rev. 22:16 - I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star."
& continues
"When God promised a New Covenant to "the house of Israel" and "the house of Judah" (Jer. 31:31), He promised that there would come a day when the Jews should "all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them." (v. 34). Since such a blessing has never occurred in Israel's history, this event is YET to come! In Ezekiel 36 the "Lord Jehovah" declares, "I will do it" 22 TIMES concerning Israel's restoration, both to her land, and to her Saviour, Messiah. Here is a summary of the things He said He will do through Ezekiel:
He will judge the nations for ill-treating Israel (36:3-7)
He will regather Israel to their promised land (v. 8-15)
He will judge Israel for shedding blood in the land, for preferring idols, and for profaning God's name among the nations (v16-21)
He will make Israel righteous for the sake of His holy name, not Israel's sake (v.22)
Jeremiah 31:31-34 - Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: [32] Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: [33] But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. [34] And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."
& continues
"Ezekiel 36:1-22 - Also, thou son of man, prophesy unto the mountains of Israel, and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord: [2] Thus saith the Lord God; Because the enemy hath said against you, Aha, even the ancient high places are ours in possession: [3] Therefore prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Because they have made you desolate, and swallowed you up on every side, that ye might be a possession unto the residue of the heathen, and ye are taken up in the lips of talkers, and are an infamy of the people: [4] Therefore, ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God; Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes, and to the cities that are forsaken, which became a prey and derision to the residue of the heathen that are round about; [5] Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Surely in the fire of my jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the heathen, and against all Idumea, which have appointed my land into their possession with the joy of all their heart, with despiteful minds, to cast it out for a prey. [6] Prophesy therefore concerning the land of Israel, and say unto the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I have spoken in my jealousy and in my fury, because ye have borne the shame of the heathen: [7] Therefore thus saith the Lord God; I have lifted up mine hand, Surely the heathen that are about you, they shall bear their shame. [8] But ye, O mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of Israel; for they are at hand to come. [9] For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown: [10] And I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of it: and the cities shall be inhabited, and the wastes shall be built: [11] And I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bring fruit: and I will settle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. [12] Yea, I will cause men to walk upon you, even my people Israel; and they shall possess thee, and you shall be their inheritance, and thou shall no more henceforth bereave them of men. [13] Thus saith the Lord God; Because they say unto you, Thou land devourest up men, and hast bereaved thy nations; [14] Therefore thou shall devour men no more, neither bereave thy nations any more, saith the Lord God. [15] Neither will I cause men to hear in thee the shame of the heathen any more, neither shall thou bear the reproach of the people any more, neither shall thou cause thy nations to fall any more, saith the Lord God. [16] Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, [17] Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way and by their doings: their way was before me as the uncleanness of a removed woman. [18] Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols wherewith they had polluted it: [19] And I scattered them among the heathen, and they were dispersed through the countries: according to their way and according to their doings I judged them. [20] And when they entered unto the heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, These are the people of the Lord, and are gone forth out of his land. [21] But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went. [22] Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went.
As a result of Israel's national salvation, God will demonstrate to the nations that He is Jehovah:"
& continues
"The Church's Complete Fulfillment Will Not Be Realized Before The Salvation Of Israel
Romans 11:12 - Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?
Romans 11:25 - For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
The Greek word in both cases is pleroma. The implication is clear: just as Israel provided the foundation members, and the apostolic band which founded the Church, so Israel will be the "fullness" of the Church, the top stone to the whole structure. The national salvation of Israel will involve the great bulk of the Jewish people returning from their apostasy to their own Redeemer, Jesus, the Son of God, and God the Son. Israel will thus find her rightful place as part and parcel of the CHURCH of which Jesus spoke of in Matthew 16:18:
Matthew 16:18 - And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
This event will mean a lot of uncomfortable reconsideration for Gentile Christian theologians as well as for Rabbis!
God's Promise To The Church:
Ephes. 1:11-14 - In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: [12] That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. [13] In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, [14] Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory."
& continues
"If the clearly worded promises to Israel can be transferred as some teach then how can we as Christians be sure that the promises given to us (the above verses) shall not be transferred to another people? God's faithfulness to Israel's promises is the measure of His constancy to us, His Church. The Church is "grafted in" to Israel's olive tree! Her members are "citizens of the commonwealth of Israel" (Eph. 2:12). How can we then dobut the equally significant and specific promises of grace and election to Israel? If we do, we undermine the foundation of the Church itself.
It is sadly true that very soon after the death of the Jewish apostles, the Church began to hate and oppose the Jews> many of the early Church Fathers were rabidly anti-Jewish, as was Martin Luther, the great Reformer, in his latter years. However, many godly men have affirmed God's continued purposes for Israel, men such as Bengel, the Wesley brothers, Horatius Bonar, Dr. J.C. Ryle, Charles Spurgeon, and Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones, to name but a few.
The whole dealing of God with Israel has been mysterious. Indeed, His purpose with the Church was mysterious also. It was not fully understood before the first century AD as Paul writes in Ephesians 3:2-6:
Ephes. 3:2-6 - If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you ward: [3] How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, [4] Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) [5] Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; [6] That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:"
& lastly says
"If Israel's leaders had not rejected Jesus, Jesus would not have died, but then there would have been NO ATONEMENT, NO RESURRECTION, and therefore NO SALVATION either for Jew or Gentile! Both the blindness of Israel and the corruption of Pilate were necessary to bring about God's redemption of the Human race. In the light of what has been set forth in these two lessons we can see that God has decreed the re-establishment of the territorial State of Israel. Both the State of Israel, and the calling out of Jewish assemblies are clear signs to believers that God's purposes are being worked out, and that exciting, though difficult, times are in view for both the Church and Israel. Our redemption is drawing nigh!"
From the Internet archive of
christianactionforisrael.org an article is headlined
"The "Illogic" of Christian Theological Antisemitism"
by Stephanie White , this article says
"I have always recognized that the blaming of Jews for a CRUCIFIXION, something that was never done by Jews in all of Jewish history, either before or after Jesus time, is illogical. Pontius Pilate, I just read by a Catholic author, was sadistic and crucified thousands of Jews ... The Roman rulers also were aiming to frighten Jews planning a revolt by at least one crucifixion at this season every year, another scholar told me. The rationalization for Christian anti-Jewishness on the basis that Pilate was only doing the will of Jewish leaders is appallingly stupid. If Rome was ruling the country, if Rome wanted to put down any attempt of Jews to rule their own country again, why would it then play the part of puppet instead of governor? No, the Romans had an Empire and had to show authority.
They were very powerful then ... too powerful for the lovers of Jesus, who would be justifiably full of hate toward those who killed him so cruelly, to be brave enough to say who actually killed him and who wanted him killed.
The other inconsistency however, brought to mind by "who wanted him killed" is that Christians teach fundamentally that Jesus wanted himself killed to "die for our sins" . The clear implication is that he VOLUNTARILY gave his life to cleanse all of his followers both at that time and throughout history, of sins. He also is reported to have said, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do" in reference to his killers.
If Jesus called for forgiveness of the Romans who were REALLY killing him, how can any Christian persecute Jews, who are innocent of this crime against ANYONE, using this cowardly (but in 30 A.D. realistic) fear of the Roman empire, for this sadism ...
So why are the "Romans" not blamed?
Why were they not blamed then? They went on to kill many more people, later Christians. It is easier for some "Christian" to blame "the Jews" than for them to blame their now co-religionists. The truth is that we no longer blame "the Japanese" for what some of their ancestors did, nor do we blame Germans for what Hitler and his followers did. Wouldn't it be silly for some Christians to storm the Vatican full of Romans, screaming CHRIST KILLERS at them as they prayed .... to Jesus?
Because certain Christian leaders, who want to stand by their true Christian spirit of charity and kindness, recognize the roots .. of unjust anti-Semitism in the New Testament, I am just recognizing that indeed, a certain repudiation and mending of fences must be undertaken."
The sad fact is that 2, 000 years of Christian Anti-Semitism & Jew-Hatred directly led to the Nazi Holocaust of World War II. Many have said that
So just to be Fair and Just for the next 2,000 years starting this year 2022 and going up to
the year 4022. All of the Christian Churches from All branches of Christianity should pay each and every Individual Jewish or part Jewish person on the Planet Large Amounts of Money, Very Large Amounts of Money to each and every Individual Jewish or part Jewish person in America, Israel and the World for literally the Next 2, 000 Years, Until 4022. Large Amounts of Money, Very Large Amounts of Money to each and every Individual Jewish or part Jewish person on the Planet and their Descendants for the Next 2, 000 Years. Literally till the Year
4022. Christian Anti-Semitism, Jew-Hatred and Persecutions leading up to the Holocaust had Severe Psychological Harmful effects on the Jewish people, Causing Jewish Self-Hate and an Inferiority Complex. If Blacks can ask for Reparations for Slavery, why can’t Jews have Reparations & Restitution for 2,000 years of Christian Anti-Semitism & Persecution leading up the Nazi Holocaust.
Also some Messianic Jews like
Michael L. Brown and other
Messianic Jews admit the sad ugly truth that 2,000 years of
Christian Anti-Semitism & Persecution of Jews directly led up to the Nazi Holocaust and made it possible.
Plus Numerous Gentile Christians who have written books about the painful tragic history of Christian Anti-Semitism saying that all of
Christianity after World War II should Cry Out in Repentance, Weep and Shed Tears of Repentance, and Beg the Jewish people for
Forgiveness and be more Proactive in Combating Hate to make sure that there is Never a Holocaust anywhere in the World again.
Many people have said that the Document
Nostra Aetate of the
Second Vatican Council , Vatican II
that was released on
October 28, 1965
That the Bible verse
John 4:22 should have been included and discussed in the Nostra Aetate Document
In John 4:22
Jesus says
“for salvation is from the Jews”
John 4:22 is a Bible verse that describes the Jews in a positive light, John 4:22 should have been included in Nostra Aetate
thegospelcoalition.org has an article headlined
" Nailed It? The Truth About Martin Luther, the Ninety-Five Theses, and the Castle Church Door"
OCTOBER 31, 2022 by Forrest Strickland this article says
"On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther strode confidently to the door of Wittenberg’s Castle Church, nailed up his Ninety-five Theses, and in one swing of his hammer started what later became known as the Protestant Reformation. The defiant monk, enraged by the sale of indulgences that promised forgiveness apart from repentance, sought to overthrow the Roman Catholic Church with his teaching of justification by grace through faith alone.
Or so the story goes.
This story, however, is not without its holes. Consider the “nail,” the theses themselves, and Luther’s intention.
The “Nail”
The image of Luther nailing the Ninety-five Theses to the door of Castle Church is powerful, and as Protestant heirs of his theological convictions, we appreciate the sense of confidence and finality the image carries.
Unfortunately, this story first shows up over a hundred years after the event. The first image of Luther with a hammer appeared in 1697.
The first image of Luther with a hammer came in 1697.
By contrast, the first historical accounts of the theses-posting date to the 1540s, and they say nothing about Luther nailing the Ninety-five Theses to the door. Peter Marshall* quotes Philip Melanchthon, Luther’s chosen successor, who recounted that the German monk, “burning with eagerness and piety, issued Propositions concerning Indulgences, which are recorded in the first volume of his works, and these he publicly affixed to the church next to the castle in Wittenberg, on the eve of the Feast of All Saints in the year 1517.”
Melanchthon didn’t report that Luther specifically nailed the theses, but affixed them.
Practically speaking, nails were tremendously valuable prior to the industrial revolution. A blacksmith had to make each one individually. Moreover, from other publicly posted documents that have survived, we know documents were typically glued up. Daniel Jütte recounts how in 1521, officials in Antwerp forbade the posting of anti-Catholic material in public places, and they were specific about how things were typically posted: “Slanderous libel, rondels, or ballads directed against those who are not followers of Luther shall not be written, distributed, or pinned and pasted to church doors or any archways.”
For these reasons, it’s unlikely Luther used a hammer and nail. But that’s the picture that survived. Why? Because an image of the reformer marching through town with a glue pot doesn’t seem as world defining.
The Theses
Why does this matter? Understanding how Luther affixed the Ninety-five Thesis helps us to make sense of what Luther intended that day 505 years ago. And to answer that question fully, we ought to turn to the source in question: the theses themselves.
From the start, Luther didn’t intend to end the Catholic Church. His goal was to be a faithful Catholic theologian and to clarify Catholic teaching on an issue he saw within the Church. In 1545, reflecting on his life, Luther stated that in 1517, he was a faithful Catholic who would have murdered in the name of the Pope.
It’s fascinating that the Ninety-five Theses are as famous as they are, as the publication of theses like these was tremendously common. But for reasons Luther never really understood, the Theses became wildly popular, propelling him to international fame. Nevertheless, the theology contained in the Theses ought not to be celebrated as beacons of Protestant light.
It’s at least problematic to date the Protestant Reformation as starting on October 31, 1517, because the theses themselves contain no distinctively Protestant doctrine. Michael Reeves writes: “If the ninety-five theses were meant to be a Reformation manifesto, they were a pretty poor effort: they contain not a mention of justification by faith alone, the authority of the Bible, or, indeed, any core Reformation thought.”
The article continues
"An image of the reformer marching through town with a glue pot doesn’t seem as world defining.
Before Luther, other reform-minded Catholics existed throughout medieval Europe: Jan Hus, John Wycliffe, and others. Bernard of Clairvaux sought to encourage reform in his own day, as did Thomas Aquinas and Anselm of Canterbury. It was common for theologians within the church to be frustrated with its leadership and to call the church to holiness. So, we must conclude that a reformation movement began within the Catholic Church in 1517, but it was later that this movement brought about the Protestant split.
By my judgment, April 26, 1518, was the day Protestantism began. On that date, Luther presented the Heidelberg Disputation, writing,
He is not righteous who does much, but he who, without work, believes much in Christ. For the righteousness of God is not acquired by means of acts frequently repeated, as Aristotle taught, but it is imparted by faith. . . . The law says, “do this,” and it is never done. Grace says, “believe in this,” and everything is already done.
Only then was the heart of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone clearly seen.
Luther’s Intention
Luther certainly posted the Ninety-five Theses to the door of Wittenberg’s church. Yet no evidence from his era implies he nailed them. “Nail, glue, pin—these are minor differences in the historical narrative,” we might say. Why does this question even matter?
Ultimately, getting the details right matters because this guards us against highlighting the wrong parts of the story. By the end of his life, Luther was a valiant defender of the truth. But in 1517, he was an obscure monk who was striving to be faithful to Catholic teaching.
It’s easy for those of us who are sympathetic to Luther, myself chief among them, to think his posting the Ninety-five Theses was intended from the start to be revolutionary. But it wasn’t. The chapel door was nothing more than the community noticeboard. There was likely no fanfare or gathered audience. Posting a series of disputations was the normal course of events for professors in German universities to make the public aware of points of debate he intended to address. Luther simply made use of a common practice.
Painting Luther in 1517 as more heroic than he was does him a disservice. To say he considered the Ninety-five Theses as his great rejection of Catholic teaching doesn’t do justice to how revolutionary his later teaching actually was.
It was when he was forced into a corner after posting the Ninety-five Theses that he found confidence in the gospel. The theology of the theses didn’t bring him that confidence. Rather, the beautiful truth of being justified by faith in Christ alone, as he stated in the Heidelberg Disputation, made him into the reformer we remember. That truth is worth its weight in nails.
*I disagree with Peter Marshall’s conclusion that Luther did not post the theses on October 31."
From the website
Catholicapologetics.info an article is headlined
"Martin Luther
Hitler's spiritual Ancestor"
By Peter F. Wiener Good article to read
A good book to read is
"Jewish-Christian Dialogue: Drawing Honey from the Rock"
by Alan L. Berger, David Patterson, David P. Gushee, John Pawlikowski, John K. Roth , the online description says
"Jews and Christians are bound by an intimacy unprecedented in the history of religions; Jesus, Mary, Paul, and the first apostles were Jewish. Theologically, Christianity needs Judaism. But the relationship between the two religions is fundamentally asymmetrical. John Roth succinctly states the theological imbalance: Nothing in Jewish life logically or theologically entails Christian existence. Christian life, however, does depend essentially on Jewish life. Christianity makes no sense, it would not even exist, if the world contained no Jewish history. Given this intimate connection, one might assume that dialogue between the two religions would come naturally. The opposite, however, is the case. Authentic Jewish-Christian dialogue is a new historical phenomenon whose birth is directly related to the horror and shame of the Holocaust. From the ashes of the death camps there emerged an ember of hope."
Also by Alan L. Berger
Another book is titled
"Post-Holocaust Jewish–Christian Dialogue
After the Flood, before the Rainbow" The online description says
"This volume sheds light on the transformed post-Holocaust relationship between Catholics and Jews. Once implacable theological foes, the two traditions have travelled a great distance in coming to view the other with respect and dignity. Responding to the horrors of Auschwitz, the Catholic Church has undergone a “reckoning of the soul,” beginning with its landmark document Nostra Aetate and embraced a positive theology of Judaism including the ongoing validity of the Jewish covenant. Jews have responded to this unprecedented outreach, especially in the document Dabru Emet. Together, these two Abrahamic traditions have begun seeking a repair of the world. The road has been rocky and certainly obstacles remain. Nevertheless, authentic interfaith dialogue remains a new and promising development in the search for a peace."
From the website
israeltoday.co.il an article is headlined
"Christianity is Jewish!"
by Charles Gardner
Row over ‘Jewish’ Easter service makes national headlines
April 11, 2021 this article says
"An Eastertide row over the similarity of a Christian service to the Passover Seder practiced by Jews had me scratching my head wondering what all the fuss was about.
The Church of England had prepared a guide for use at home (with pandemic restrictions in mind) on how to celebrate Maundy Thursday, which marks the beginning of the three-day Easter festival.
But, according to The Telegraph, they subsequently withdrew the guidance following criticism that it bore “striking similarities” to the Jewish order of service and apologised for the offence caused in having “appropriated” Jewish tradition.
All of which exposes the dreadful confusion that exists in Christendom as a whole, and in British churches in particular, over the link between Christianity and Judaism, which is why I have been writing much on the subject in recent weeks.
In the words of distinguished author and theologian Edith Schaeffer, ‘Christianity is Jewish’, which is the title of one of her books. The link is not partial, but total. The gospel we preach is entirely Jewish. And scholars are generally agreed that the Last Supper which Jesus celebrated with his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion was a Passover Seder.
Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, who died for the sins of all who put their trust in his redeeming blood, was crucified – appropriately and in perfect fulfilment of the Old Testament (i.e. Jewish) scriptures – during the Passover feast.
Whereas the Israelites in Egypt were freed from slavery through the blood of a sacrificed lamb marked on the lintels and doorframes of their homes, the cross of Christ became the door to eternal life for all who appropriated the blood that spilled from his nail-pierced hands and feet for their own salvation.
The confusion over all this dates back to the early Church Fathers who, for all their helpful insight, made the tragic decision to break away from the Hebraic roots of the faith and re-invent or ‘Christianise’ the Passover, divorcing it from the feast still marked by Jews today.
It was a blatant act of antisemitism and has inflicted untold damage to Jewish-Christian relations ever since.
Messianic Jews – those, like the first disciples, who do believe in Jesus – still celebrate Passover as their ancestors have done, only it’s extra-special because they are not only rejoicing over their freedom from slavery in Egypt at the time of the Pharaohs, but also recognising that Jesus has rescued them from sin and darkness and brought them into the kingdom of light.
Of course there are “striking similarities” to the Jewish Seder. That is because Christianity has benefited entirely from its Jewish heritage. It’s time church leaders stopped apologising for this and relished the rich connection with our Hebraic roots.
The Apostle Paul berated the Gentile believers in Rome: “You do not support the root; the root supports you!” (Rom 11:18) And he warned that breaking away from these roots would rob them of the life-giving sap on which they depended for healthy growth. It was, after all, only by grace that they had been grafted into God’s family tree.
The original document which sparked this row admitted that it echoed motifs from the Jewish Seder, so I fail to understand why the Church of England backed off.
Rev Nick Nawrockyi, Rural Dean of Grimsby and Cleethorpes, said it was inappropriate because it was borrowing a ritual rite “from another faith”. But Christianity is the fulfilment of Judaism, as I’ve pointed out.
Jesus himself summed it up by saying: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.” (Matt 5:17)
The article says "Nick added, however, that the Prayer at Home guide tapped into “centuries of antisemitism on the part of Christians”. And I would not for a minute contest the fact that the institutional church has been responsible for persecuting Jews down the centuries.
But borrowing (or ‘stealing’ in the words of another priest quoted by The Telegraph) Jewish liturgy would surely amount to a compliment, not a jibe.
Part of the Church’s antisemitism over the years has been in expecting Jewish ‘converts’ to relinquish their Hebraic traditions and behave as Gentiles. But there is nothing in the New Testament to suggest that Jewish believers in Jesus should forsake their traditional feasts and culture.
On the contrary, the feasts are more appropriate than ever since they explain so much about what Jesus came to do. He is the fulfilment of Passover, as we’ve already seen, of the festival of first fruits through his resurrection from the dead, of Pentecost in pouring out his Spirit and writing his law on our hearts (Jer 31:33), and of Tabernacles by coming to live amongst us and providing us with everything we need for life.
It was in recognising this that the Church’s Ministry among Jewish people (ironically an Anglican body) launched its outreach to the Jews over 200 years ago. And the Messianic movement has since spread around the world, with Jews encouraged to remain Jewish while at the same time enjoying fellowship with Gentiles as part of the “one new man” spoken of by Paul (Eph 2:15).
Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, I’m heartened to see, did not find the prayer guidance offensive, and seems to have more of an understanding of our faith than most Christians. And I quote: “If they wanted to take Jewish liturgy out of Christianity, it is like taking the soul of Christianity. Easter is completely linked to Passover, which is why it changes date every year, and to deny the Jewishness of Jesus and of Christianity may indicate a discomfort with Judaism and not with Christianity.”
It was Jews who first brought us the gospel. And a Gideon’s Army of them have taken to the streets of modern Israel to complete the circle. They aren’t, as many of their critics suggest, following a new religion. They have merely re-discovered Jesus, their Messiah."
Another good article is from
fathomjournal.org in 2022
Headlined
"The Jews Are Guilty’: Christian Antisemitism in Contemporary America"
by Alvin Rosenfeld
From cnn.com an article is headlined
"Anti-Semitic church carving can stay, Germany's top appeal court rules"
Updated 15th June 2022
Written by Lianne Kolirin, CNN This article says:
"Germany's highest appeal court has ruled that a medieval sculpture can remain on the outside of a church in Wittenberg, eastern Germany, despite acknowledging that it is anti-Semitic.
The sandstone carving, which has been part of the exterior of Wittenberg Stadtkirche -- or city church -- since around 1290, depicts two people identified as Jews by their pointed hats suckling a pig -- regarded as unclean in the Jewish religion. Another man, a caricature of a rabbi, raises the pig's tail and looks into her backside.
The case was brought by Michael Dietrich Düllmann, 79-year-old retired psychiatric nurse, who converted to Judaism in the 1970s. Düllmann has long campaigned for the removal of the "Judensau" or "Jew Sow," which he believes is not only offensive but "dangerous" at a time when politicians are warning of rising anti-Semitism in Germany.
Wittenberg is the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation and where Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a Catholic church in 1517. In 1570, the inscription "Rabini Shem HaMphoras" -- a nonsensical phrase that the court said was based on an anti-Semitic text by Luther -- was placed above the sow carving.
Düllmann has been waging a legal battle for years to remove the carving, situated about 13 feet from the ground.
But on Tuesday the Federal Court of Justice upheld rulings from lower courts that dismissed the case, saying there was no breach of the law.
It acknowledged that the nature of the sculpture was offensive up until November 1988, when a bronze plaque was installed as part of the 50th anniversary commemoration of Kristallnacht, when Nazis set light to and destroyed Jewish property across Germany.
Luther's writing and other examples of anti-Jewish sentiment in Germany through the ages are mentioned on the plaque, in addition to a reference to the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust.
Israeli court halts auction of tattoo kit said to have been used at Auschwitz
Düllmann told CNN his latest courtroom defeat was "scandalous," saying he now plans to appeal to the German constitutional court.
Speaking by telephone from Bonn, Düllmann said the court's decision was an "underestimation of the real danger" of the sculpture.
"You can't neutralize it just by putting a simple plaque alongside it of what it means," he told CNN, adding that such "propaganda" can be found in more than 30 churches across Germany today."
the article continues
"The Judensau isn't only an insult, it's so much more -- it's a call to murder the Jews," he said.
"No institution besides the church, and no single person besides Martin Luther, did more to prepare the German people for Auschwitz. Auschwitz came not from a vacuum. It was the result of centuries-long agitation against the Jews."
He said the growing level of anti-Semitism is a "real danger" in Germany today and that far-right demonstrators have appeared at every court hearing he has had so far.
Four cleared of criminal damage over toppling of slave trader statue
"I'm very concerned about the situation here and I think the intellectuals and those in politics are underestimating the dangers. They are willing to make concessions to the right wing."
Determined to fight on, he added: "It's my will go to to the Constitutional Court and to continue to fight this and if I lose I will go to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg."
Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said on his organization's website that the ruling was "understandable," but added that "neither the base plate nor the explanatory slanted display contain an unambiguous condemnation of the anti-Jewish work of art."
He said: "Both the Wittenberg church community and the churches as a whole must find a clear and appropriate solution for dealing with sculptures that are hostile to Jews. Defamation of Jews by churches must once and for all be a thing of the past."
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