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Dear Arthur and Sandra:
A professor brought up a book by Martin Luther called
"On the Jews and their Lies" in class. I looked for it on
the internet and I found several websites that claim Martin
Luther was anti-Semitic and partially inspired the Nazi movement.
I looked at the text of "On the Jews and their Lies" and found
some surprising quotes. If you have time, could you take a
look at the text and tell me why he would write this? I'm
debating if this is believable and what I should make of it.
Here are some websites I looked at:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/luther-jews.html
http://www.nobeliefs.com/luther.htm
http://www.luther.de/en/
Thanks for the email. My time is tight, so here's my reply
for now:
1. I downloaded the book and will read it over the next
few weeks. I'll let you know what my thoughts are.
2. From my preliminary overview of the book, I think the
Walker person has taken much of Luther's writings out of context.
When I read the critique of Luther and all the quotes of the
book, I was puzzled too. When I read some of the quotes in
context, I'm not so puzzled.
3. Walker (of nobeliefs.com) is not a Christian and would
most certainly not be able to read the book through the proper
lenses and understanding - and he doesn't. I don't blame him,
though. He's not able to. So, I understand his point of view,
coming from his background.
Much of what I've read so far was not intended for political
purposes, nor were they intended to be cited the way they
have been.
In fact, if I selected various quotes of Jesus and just
put them side by side, like Walker did with Luther's quotes,
I think people would say that Jesus was anti-Semitic and inflammatory
toward Jews. In fact, Jesus and the Bible have been used and
cited through the centuries as the reason terrible acts were
committed, though, in fact that couldn't be farther from Jesus'
heart or the Bible's message.
Well, we know better because we know the big picture and
the context. I think the same applies.
4. I have visited the luther.de site before but have found
it largely inaccurate and unsubstantiated, so I don't visit
it anymore. The hosts of the site are not followers of Luther
or Christianity in a spiritual sense (though you might think
so from the name of the site); rather, they follow Luther
from a historical sense (much like the infamous "Jesus Seminar"
supposedly was formed to search out the real Christ - however,
it really was formed to debunk the biblical Jesus)
5. Luther's personality was indeed boisterous and cantankerous
at times. He was a very passionate person, to the point of
rudeness on occasion. On a personality level, I'm not at all
sure I would have gotten along with him on a social level.
Also, there are some areas of theology that I would not agree
with, though a vast majority I would.
I think some of the criticisms made toward him are due to
his personality and his colorful language more than the substance
of what he really was trying to say. When stripped to the
substance, I think you'll find very thoughtful and reasonable
arguments.
Anyway, I've got to go. Let me know anything that you're
thinking.
We can get to more specifics later.
Blessings,
Arthur
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