Martin Luther: Anti-Semitic ??

LadyEagle · Nov 7, 2003

At the beginning of his career it is often said that Luther was apparently sympathetic to Jewish resistance to the Catholic Church. He wrote, early in his career:

The Jews are blood-relations of our Lord; if it were proper to boast of flesh and blood, the Jews belong more to Christ than we. I beg, therefore, my dear Papist, if you become tired of abusing me as a heretic, that you begin to revile me as a Jew.

However, sometime before 1517, in his Letters to Spalatin, we can already see that Luther's hatred of Jews, best seen in tis 1543 letter, was not some affectation of old age, but was present very early on. Luther expected Jews to convert to his purified Christianity. When they did not, he turned violently against them.
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http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/luther-jews.html

I did not know this until I heard it on TV the other day. A Google search brings up many sources.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Stephen III · Nov 7, 2003

All pardons, but I think you inadvertently posted this on "Find an archaic Pope to bash Friday".
Please repost with an anti-Catholic slant.

LadyEagle · Nov 13, 2003

I wonder if Lutherans know this.

rsr · Nov 14, 2003

Of course they do. It's not as if this has suddenly been discovered — but it took the Holocaust to make the matter clear.

ELCA STATEMENT TO THE JEWISH COMMUNITY (1994)

The Lutheran communion of faith is linked by name and heritage to the memory of Martin Luther, teacher and reformer. Honoring his name in our own, we recall his bold stand for truth, his earthy and sublime words of wisdom, and above all his witness to God's saving Word. Luther proclaimed a gospel for people as we really are, bidding us to trust a grace sufficient to reach our deepest shames and address the most tragic truths.

In the spirit of truth-telling, we who bear his 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 contemporaries in the sixteenth century, we reject his 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.
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Every denomination has its, er, demons to be exorcised.

SBC RESOLUTION ON RACIAL RECONCILIATION (1995)

Martin Luther: Anti-Semitic ??

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