Luther and the true reformers
Today Protestants and some self-hating Catholics across the globe are celebrating the career of the renegade and apostate monk named Martin Luther. Being Catholic, I oppose his theology and his career as a “reformer”. Regardless, many articles have been popping up on the anti-Semitism of Martin Luther. They say that he paved the way for the holocaust. Of course when people say this, they often take a shot at the Catholic Church as well saying they were no better.
First of all, Luther can hardly be called anti-Semitic. He believed in anti-Judaism but not anti-Semitism. After all, his attacks on Jews were purely of religious character and not ethnic. Second of all, Luther departed from the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church on how to treat the Jews in their lands. The Catholic Church always followed the policy of Sicut Judaeis Non. Jews were always allowed to live in Catholic lands and they would be left alone unless they caused trouble. This would often include harassing Christians, charging interest on loans, or other immoral business practices.
Regardless, to say that Luther was responsible or paved the way for the holocaust is so incredibly stupid. The events of WWII happened 400 years after Luther died. Why wasn’t there a holocaust immediately after the life of Luther? The writings of Luther had far more influence in Germany in the 16th and 17th century than they did in the 20th century where religion had been reduced to social club status.
I obviously don’t agree with what Luther wrote against the Jews but this type of thinking is sickening. This is used against the Catholic Church as well. Catholics and Protestants always have the finger pointed at them as being responsible for the holocaust. This is usually from Rabbis, other leaders in the Jewish community, and liberal self-hating “Christians” who don’t know history.
Here’s the question for those who want to blame Christianity for the holocaust:
Why didn’t the holocaust happen when Christianity was 100% in control? Why did it happen in the extremely secular 20th century as opposed to the extremely religious centuries. Christianity gained political power in the 4th century under the Roman Emperors and had a large amount of power until the “enlightenment” when Freemasonry and the French Revolution started to take large chunks of that political power away. The Jews who lived in those centuries rejected Christ just as much as the Jews of the 20th century. Where was the holocaust at those times if it was such a Christian thing?
That is my proposal and what I have always asked people who say that the holocaust was Christian or partially Christian. The Catholic Church bears zero responsibility for the holocaust. Martin Luther bears zero responsibility for the holocaust. If you hear anyone say otherwise, refer them to the bold section above and challenge them to answer. This is a lie that is out there to malign Christianity. I have never heard an answer to those questions in bold and I don’t think that I will.
I invite any Rabbis out there to respond to my questions in bold. If any readers of this post know any Jews or Rabbis, please send this to them. I want to hear the best answer that they can offer.
The Catholic Church bears zero responsibility for the holocaust. Martin Luther bears zero responsibility for the holocaust.
Agreed.
That was a good article, thanks Allan.
(even though, from my perspective, theologically and Biblically, Martin Luther was right on Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura and the priesthood of all believers in Christ)
A book about Dietrich Bonhoffer ( by Eric Metaxas) is really good that explains the thinking of the Nazis, a chapter called “Nazi Theology” (Chapter 11). Metaxas demonstrates that Himmler, Rosenberg, Borman, and Reinhart Heydrick were the real “Nazi theologians” and pagans and anti-semitites, along with Hitler, but Hitler did not want to go as far as they did as soon as they did. Metaxas demonstrates that Hitler wanted to first deceive the church and the German people; and THEN later do what those 4 were calling for earlier. (they wanted to replace the German Churches with a new pagan and warlike religion based on old paganism.)
Hitler admired Islam and the Japanese religion because they were warlike and not like, as Hitler put it, “weak and wimpy and flabby like Christianity”.
https://apologeticsandagape.wordpress.com/2016/10/18/hitler-admired-islam/
Hi Ken,
Thanks for the kind words. The Catholics and Protestants(and Orthodox for that matter) receive so much smears from the Rabbis. A girl I know had an interesting experience. When she was in her Catholic high school, her class had to visit a Synagogue in my city for religion class. They went to the Orthodox Synagogue and the Rabbi taught them about Judaism then went to blame Christianity for the holocaust. One student started arguing with the Rabbi and eventually the Rabbi threw the whole class out. The next years class was not allowed to go to the Synagogue(what a shame….). I’m glad that this student stood up to the Rabbi. Not enough people are doing it these days.
It’s a bit ironic that you bring up Metaxas. I just picked up his biography of Luther a few days ago. Expect a review of it on this website. I first need to review another book though. So much to do!!! Believe it or not, this will only be my second biography of Luther I’ve ever read. The first one I read was by French Calvinist Jean Henri Merle D’Aubigne. It’s called The Triumph of Truth. It’s not great because it goes up to the Peasants revolt then fast forwards to the end. The last 20 years of his life are just glossed over. I’ll admit though that everything up until 1525 is detailed very well.
Hitler and the top Nazis are interesting. There is a lot of false information about them. From my studying, I would agree with you that Himmler, Borman and the others you mentioned were more obsessed with dealing with the “Jewish Question” than Hitler was. Hitler wanted to win the war more than anything else.
In terms of what Adolf Hitler personally believed, there are only two good primary sources that I know of. Those are Hitler’s Table Talk 1941-1944, and Hitler’s Second Book. Don’t trust Mein Kampf as it had multiple authors and we don’t know who wrote what parts. Hitler obviously wrote some of it but so did Rudolf Hess, Hans Frank and others.
I like Muntzer more than Luther.
It makes more sense that Hitler was much more concerned with the War than with the extermination of the Jews. But one thing cited by Holocaust scholars was that there was a considerable expenditure of resources to kill Jews, since there were numerous trains that were used to transport them to ghettos and extermination camps that could have been used to ship military supplies.
Hi Latias,
Sorry for the late reply. You said:
“But one thing cited by Holocaust scholars was that there was a considerable expenditure of resources to kill Jews, since there were numerous trains that were used to transport them to ghettos and extermination camps that could have been used to ship military supplies.”
This is very true but I think it gets back to the question, who was doing this? From what I understand, Hitler let the SS simply run themselves for the most part. He was more involved with the commanding of the Wehrmacht which wasn’t involved in the holocaust.
I talked a professor who was teaching a course on Existentialism about Nietzsche’s polemic against the Apostle Paul (and he was the same person who encouraged me to read Bart Ehrman’s book and called Ehrman a good compiler). He said that based on Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals that Paul was initially dejected at Jesus not being the traditional messiah who lead the Jews to astounding military victories and liberated Palestine from Roman occupation. The professor said that Nietzsche said Paul was the leader of the slave’s revolt in morals against the more robust and noble Greco-Roman conception of it. Paul, instead, emphasized meekness, praised uniting his sufferings in Christ (Philippians 3), boasting about his weaknesses (Romans 5, 2 Corinthians 11), railing against the wisdom of the world (1 Corinthians 1), and exulting the weak.
Moral conduct in Paul emphasizes a new life in love while refraining from satisfying the indulgences of the flesh for we are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).
I remember Galatians 6:14 and I will recite it from my memory (which I actually memorized as a Muslim):
I only boast in Christ crucified, for through him the world has been crucified to me, and I to it.
[I looked it up after I typed that, and I did not capture the first part in its entirety, but my recitation suffices.]
In other words, Paul claims that he is dead to the world, and the world is dead to him. This largely corroborates Nietzsche’s assessment.
Similarly, Hitler probably agreed with Nietzsche’s critique. Muslims tend to be anti-Paul, but I do not see any reason why they would adopt Nietzsche’s critique.
David Irvin would say that that the holocaust didn’t happen then because they only had drafty life saving-louse killing gas chambers.
The Church teaching has always been to pray for the conversion for the Jews who deny Christ. This teaching has been turned on its head in the past 50 years with the ecumenical orientation after Vatican II. To deny the prayers for sanctifying grace of baptism for those who need it would be equivalent to deny the grace of heaven.