From The Times
March 6, 2008 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3492299.ece According to Vatican insiders the Pope will argue that Luther, who was excommunicated and condemned for heresy, was not a heretic.That Martin Luther? He wasnt so bad, says Pope
by Deputy Dog 28 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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chickpea
he wasnt so bad..... for an raging anti-semite
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Deputy Dog
chickpea
he wasnt so bad..... for an raging anti-semite
Not to defend all of Luthers statments, but many think that's unfair.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Martin_Luther_and_the_Jews/Religious_or_Racial_Antisemitism
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Satanus
That's good to hear.
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Pahpa
Maybe it's because Martin Luther became like a Pope among the Lutherans. It's a matter of perspective. Just asked the Jews of his day or the peasants who were part of the Peasant Rebellion in Germany.
The problem with many of the Reformers is they aligned themselves with powerful princes and established religious "empires" of their own. Many ended up persecuting and killing others who did not hold to their doctrines. (Anabatist, Servetus, etc.) It reminds me of the Puritans of New England. They fled Europe to escape the persecution. But when they established their own "new Jerusalem" they had no toleration toward those who held different beliefs and persecuted and banished the dissidents. (Sound familiar?)
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chickpea
Antisemitism (alternatively spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism, also known as judeophobia) is prejudice and hostility toward Jews as a religious, racial, or ethnic group. While the term's etymology indicates that antisemitism is directed against all Semitic peoples, since its creation it has been used exclusively to refer to hostility towards Jews http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism
this sounds familiar as well
"But perhaps the most lasting damage of all came from Luther openly advocating the abandonment of using natural reason (Luther considered his use of theological reasoning different from natural reason, i.e., scientific reasoning) . His theological message to live by faith and to abstain from listening to reason has mentally enslaved the lives of millions of Christians to this day. Throughout his literary life he wrote statements such as, "Whoever wishes to be a Christian, let him pluck out the eyes of his reason," "We must give reason a vacation and enter a different school. We must refrain from consulting reason. We must bid reason hold its peace; we must order it to be dead. We must gouge out its eyes and pluck its feathers...," "You must kill the other thoughts and the ways of reason or of the flesh, for God detests them." I can find no other influential writer who has spent as much ink, ad nauseum, against the very investigative tool which has kept the human species alive-- reason.http://nobeliefs.com/luther.htm
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VM44
What I would like to know is this. Why Martin Luther King, Jr's father changed his name to "Martin Luther"?
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stillajwexelder
Utterly amazing -but overdue
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Deputy Dog
Pahpa
I really don't want the job of defending Luther. He said and did many things I dislike.
My point is, that Luther felt the same way about the Jews, as many on this forum feel about the JWs. I'm sure he hated their theology. I don't believe he advocated killing anyone. Jews or those killed in the peasant rebellion.
The main reason for this post was for the dilemmas that are caused for the Catholic Church.
Things like, If he's not a heretic, can Catholic Priests marry?
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stillajwexelder
If it had not been for Luther - then Henry the 8th situation would have not turned out quite as it did - perhaps. The monasterys would not have been dissolved. England would not have had so much money. Britain wold not have had the same naval power and would not have been a world power. America woould have been colonized by less english speakers and America today would be speaking French or Spanish or Portugese perhaps