What with all the recent work to recast the Roman Catholic Crusades in a positive light by our politically vigorous postmillennial brothers, I share this article that summarizes Luther’s views. I’m with Luther.
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Here’s a perfect summary of the bankruptcy of our posmillennials today, and even more so our Christian MAGA men. If Luther caught even a glimpse of the wickedness of our nation today, and heard pastors and elders calling for “Christian nationalism?” Oh my. All the online commentary takes little to no thought of our nation’s wickedness except in carefully selected areas where there is some current consensus on that issue. I say “current” because that consensus is always moving. But greed? Pride? Warmongering? Neutering God’s words? Cultural profanities and obscenities exported around the world which constitute a large proportion of our balance of trade?
We all love Luther’s words here, but saying them today is something else, isn’t it? Love,
Luther’s position concerning the Turks was determined by study of the Bible. It was Luther’s intention to instruct the consciences of Christians on the basis of a study of Scripture.
He wanted them to learn “what we must know about the Turk and who he is according to Scripture.”’ According to Scrip-ture, the Turks were dangerous. Luther’s attitude was not based upon political speculation in regard to a balance of powers.
It was not based upon his desire to preserve a so-called Christian civilization. He thought very little of the Christian civilization of his time. Luther’s position in regard to the Turks was the result of a thorough study of Scripture and especially of those passages that seemed to point to the Turkish danger. Before Luther spoke about the Turks, he had first obediently listened to the Word of God.
What was the message of Scripture in regard to the Turks?
First of all, they were the rod of punishment that God was send-ing. In his explanation and defense of the ninety-five theses, Luther had called the Turk the rod of punishment of the wrath of God. He had said that by means of the Turks God punishes Christendom for its contempt of the Gospel. Pope Leo and his courtiers had tried to use this statement to imply that Luther lacked patriotism and claimed divine sanction for the Turkish sword. In spite of this misrepresentation, Luther repeated in 1529 what he had said before: "Because Germany is so full of evil and blasphemy, nothing else can be expected. We must suffer punishment if we do not repent and stop the persecution of the Gospel. And he reiterated later that as long as the Christian world refuses to repent, it will not be successful inits wars, for the Lord fights against it. Here Luther stood courageously in the prophetic tradition. With the proph-ets, he realized that God can and does use heathen nations in order to punish the so-called Christian nations for their unfaithfulness.
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It shouldn’t surprise us that Luther would begin with repentance.
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If you haven’t read the article yet, you can listen to me read it (with commentary interspersed):
We’d be pleased if you took the time to listen.
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What did Martin Luther have to say about the Jews?
And therein is quite the hornet’s nest …
Oh no! We totally forgot Luther said some terrible things about the Jews late in life! Guess we can never point to anything he’s ever said. Thanks, pal! You saved us there…
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I’m going to contribute here, as I think the situation is a little more nuanced than this.
Some time ago, I contributed to an exchange where I noted Luther’s very real anti-Semitism. Someone from a Lutheran background replied, “Well, you have to remember the context of this - Luther had reached out to the Jews with his wonderful message of justification by faith, but they rejected it. So Luther responded in the only way he knew how”. Others have since added that his language about both Catholics and Turks was equally intemperate, even by the standards of the time.
And here’s where the law of unintended consequences kicks in; four centuries on, the Nazis quoted Luther more or less verbatim. There is a possible parallel with the way Calvin has ever been blamed for what happened to Michael Servetus.
Some soft words (1523). Some harsh words (1543). Luther was also responsible for rotten views of the sacraments, particularly the doctrine of ubiquity (1526).
Today, the charge of anti-semitism is often used as a cudgel for anyone you want to smear. And it is virtue-signaling to the max. Back in my grad school days at a performance of Bach’s Johannespassion at IU, the audience was warned about Luther’s and Bach’s anti-semitism…because they used John’s Gospel, and it was anti-semitic, so they said. It, as you know, attributed the persecution of Christ to the ioudaioi (Jews). And, according to those same people, Jesus’ words against the Pharisees and Stephen’s words to the Sanhedrin are radically anti-semitic. To say that the Jews share responsibility for the murder of the Son of God is Biblical. Yet, to forget or renounce the Apostle Paul’s example of becoming a Jew to the Jews that he might win the Jews is ignorant and cruel.
Before Luther, Innocent III (one of the champions of the Crusades) and his 4th Lateran Council, 1215 (at which transubstantiation and crusading were codified) called for the Jews not to hold public office, to financially support the church, to wear distinguishing clothes when in public—which sound eerily similar to some Nazi doctrines. Which is to say, there is a long tradition of cruelty to the Jews; we could attribute its continuance to Popes, to Muslims, to Christians, to Luther. It seldom fails to be a part of nationalistic purity movements, which we see again today. It takes almost no work to witness the vitriol of men today who so hate the Jews that they condemn all of them to hell without possibility of faith in Christ taking root in any.
Get on Gab if you haven’t seen it, I’m told.
But, to reject Luther’s teaching on the Crusades because he said some awful things about other topics is not good enough. I haven’t read what he wrote in 1543 on the Jews, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself agreeing with many things he writes that others say are evidence of his sinful partiality. On the other hand, every Christian man is capable of terrible sin—including the sin of racism. Luther’s view of the Crusades—in so far as I know it—is not burdened by that sin.
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Or, Herr Wagner, do you like Luther’s 1543 words better than the “misinformed youthful softness” from earlier in his life?
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But here’s the big difference in your two examples. Luther said what he said about the Jews. The common understanding of Calvin’s involvement with Servetus is not good history (i.e. never happened).
Speciesism, sexism, homophobia, racism, anti semitism, authoritarianism, tyranny; today, the only thing these words stand for is any slightest confession of the corresponding Christian doctrines:
SPECIESISM: “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth’” (Genesis 1:26).
SEXISM: “[Man] is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man is not from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake” (1Corinthians 11:7-9).
BIGOTRY, HOMOPHOBIA HETEROSEXISM: “‘You shall not lie with a male as those who lie with a female; it is an abomination” (Leviticus 18:22).
RACISM: “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true. For this reason reprove them severely so that they may be sound in the faith" (Titus 1:12-13).
ANTISEMITISM: “His blood shall be on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:25).
AUTHORITARIANISM: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account” (Hebrews 13:17).
TYRANNY: “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore he who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves” (Romans 13:1-2).
We could continue this list. What is really needed is not tipping our hat to this new constitution (“Won’t Get Fooled Again”) or virtue signalling, but directly attacking the project, particularly when it rears its head within Bibles and the Church. Church officers have steadfastly refused to take these rebellions on, directly or even indirectly, and so now we have the Bibles and gotchas oppressing us even in private Christian discourse.
Take, for instance, this discussion of Martin Luther. What, we’re going to cancel him because he didn’t express himself concerning the Jews the way we judge he ought to have, making our judgment half a millennium later? Why, even historians have begun to wake up to the stupidity of this sort of cheap anachronism. And it’s not because historians have softened towards the historical opposition and criticism and oppression and murder of Jews, but because we understand how difficult it is to understand the thoughts and hearts of men and women five hundred years ago on an issue incredibly controverted today.
One last thing: If the people of God hated and murdered their Messiah, does His blood rest on their children’s children today—just as they cried it down on themselves at the time of the murder? And if so, is it anti semitism to point out their crying down on themselves this generational guilt, but also to read their past and present history of character and sins in light of that guilt?
For myself, I see no way around this and believe such observations and judgments are only the beginning of loving the Jews. Love,
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Covering up their sin against their Messiah robs the wonder and sweetness of their repentance. Same for all other sins (the effeminate, the liar, the adulterer). Thank you for giving other pastors courage to call sinners to repentance.
And while were on the Jews:
How sweet it is to personally know Jews who come to their Messiah. We are blessed to have such a brother in our church. And need I remind us of our dear brother Bob Kaplowitz? Truly:
But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. Now if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be! …
how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? Rom. 11
Finally, from Samuel Rutherford, 1631:
I have been this time bypast thinking much of the incoming of the kirk of the Jews. Pray for them. When they were in their Lord’s house, at their Father’s elbow, they were longing for the incoming of their little sister, the kirk of the Gentiles. They said to their Lord, “We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?” (Cant. viii. 8). Let us give them a meeting. What shall we do for our elder sister, the Jews? Lord Jesus, give them breasts. That were a glad day to see us and them both sit down to one table, and Christ at the head of the table. Then would our Lord come shortly with his fair guard to hold His great court.
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Off topic: I don’t buy the allegorical interpretation of Song of Songs. However, the quoted part of the book is probably the one that makes the least sense to me in my more literal interpretation. I’m not inclined to rethink my position, but if I was, this might make me start reading again. 
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… For myself, I see no way around this and believe such observations and judgments are only the beginning of loving the Jews.
Do you think that national/corporate Israel will one day be restored to her Messiah? This is a mainstay of most Dispensational and Pentecostal thinking on the matter, but it is argued for in some parts of the Reformed tradition as well (e.g. Spurgeon).
Just got to this (Fatty McFatfat finally getting back to running). Thanks for taking the time to discuss this. Some very good reflections on prioritising personal repentance (while not neglecting cultural repentance) and how to interpret current culture. Also some good Luther-thoughts on politics. But this Neo-Crusaderism…good grief… How on earth is this what we have to be spending our precious time discussing?
Like Sonship Theology, both Reformed and Lutheran versions of justificationism, Gentle and Lowly, this Crusaderism is also such bad history. As in, embarrassingly so. Taking one bit of Luther (especially early Luther!!!) out of context is a rookie level mistake. Even secular historians know better. It seems bad theology and bad history go together. It’s much worse to be bad at theology, but to be bad at both? Oh dear.
Can these guys read? Is this really what a NSA-style education is worth?
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