Posted on 05/17/2006 6:49:36 PM PDT by FARS
There was nothing remotely peaceful about Luther. He was a ferocious bigot who deliberately and directly promoted wholesale slaughter of those who disagreed with him. Not theoretical, but actual and ongoing under his nose, with him urging on the authorities doing it, telling them to avoid mercy and let the guns deal with them, that their sins would be forgiven and it was all for the best etc.
As for the motives of the rebels, they were varied as in most mass movements. Some were sincerely shocked at moral corruption in Rome, which was real enough. Some resented the taxes that effectively withdrew from their lands to Italy. Some saw an opportunity to loot churches and monasteries. Some wanted to get away with particular crimes or infractions and found the church inconvenient because it still had some moral principles rather than because it did not live up to them (Henry the VIII was not a moral idealist). Some were simply continuing a struggle between civil and church authority that had been going on - violently - for 400 years. Some were simply playing power politics with all of the above as levers. Some sincerely took sides in the resulting quarrels for reasons of religious scruple. Some for reasons of local allegiance, whether national or dynastic. Some because they were sincerely outraged at the disgusting crimes they saw others committing, en masse.
What is not at all the case and what the article pretended, is that the reformation was a movement against monolithic religious authority in the name of freedom or enlightenment or to end religious persecution, as typified by the inquisition. The reformation multipled inquisitions and massacred whole sects, with less ceremony. It did not end inquisitions. It was not opposed to inquisitions. It was opposed to indulgences and church claims in worldly and in theological matters, but religious persecution was not the thing resented and was in fact heartily embraced and vigorously practiced by all concerned.
The history here is one of revisionist whitewash by later protestant historians, particularly in the 19th century but starting in the 18th. Seeing all of history as leading up to the glory of whig liberalism, they looked back and thought of the Catholic church as a great enemy they had defeated along the way. And therefore interpreted anything that fought against it as somehow allied with whig liberalism. Which is about a sensible as seeing Joe Stalin as a capitalist because he helped beat the Nazis.
Bookmark.
Historical stuff aside, I enjoyed the article, thanks.
"The real problem in Iraq is that we are trying to be nice"
Yes, and that's we've lost so many guys and have had so many more wounded and forever changed. You can't kiss the enemies ass, you have to kill them. Then you have to lock the occupied country down, restore order ASAP and then get the hell out.
This administration did none of the above. All the more tragic.
I am familiar with the Huguenots, as one of my ancestors fled France for Germany during the massacre.
However, "I will compel and urge by force no man; for the faith must be voluntary and not compulsory, and must be adopted without violence." Works XX, 24, 1522, doesn't seem to be the words of a blood thirsty man who wants to wipe out all opposition.
Also, I have conceded that Luther told his followers that civil authorities could enforce order against violent revolt. There is a difference between a revolt of conscience and thought in which a set of beliefs is rejected and a foreign religious authority is not obeyed, and a revolt where 'believers' storm churches and monasteries and palaces and kill people, steal things, and leave destruction, or revolt against civil authority. It is the latter type of revolt that Luther inveighed against.
I'm confused why you included this quote. "Christian freedom consists in the belief that we require no works to attain piety and salvation."
This is a basic tenet of Christian religion that Christians are justified by faith, that they are saved by the Grace of God through faith in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross that redeemed all believers, and that no works of man are worthy enough to save a person from damnation for his sins.
I will have to study some of the other citations, as not sure quotations in a "Church history" would necessarily have been accurate. There was a body of work that Luther wrote denouncing the Pope which he recanted, saying he wrote too harshly.
This particular quote is especially alarming, so I will have to verify it is not disinformation from the Roman Catholic church, "Heretics are not to be disputed with, but to be condemned unheard, and whilst they perish by fire, the faithful ought to pursue the evil to its source, and bathe their hands in the blood of the Catholic bishops, and of the Pope, who is a devil in disguise."
No doubt in my mind that the Pope of Luther's time was 180 degrees from Popes of this last half century. He waged physical wars, had mistresses and children, enjoyed blood sports, and he bankrupted the Church, partly from building St. Peter's Cathedral.
Calling that Pope a devil is not that far out, but calling for the bathing of hands in the blood of the bishops and the Pope is definitely a point winner for you if accurate. As is the first part of that statement, "Heretics are not to be disputed with, but to be condemned unheard, and ... perish by fire"
I know there are books of "Table Talk" that were written by students using notes they had taken while listening to Dr. Luther expound over dinner, etc. I don't know how accurate those sources are.
At Free Republic we often exaggerate our real positions for humor or effect, and the Table Talk may have been like the internet of its time. Luther evidentally had quite a sense of humor and drew cartoons. It is possible some of that was table humor that was misunderstood.
However, inquiring minds want to know, so I shall look into it.
oooo! Where did you get to go? What did you eat?
Because it shows he believed freedom was for those who agreed with the central point of his theological system, and for those who did not there simply was no such thing. You will also note he is insisting on *no works necessary*. He is not trying to be ecumenical, he is formulating a specific difference. Anyone who accepts the principle can do anything and be justified. Anyone who denies it is damned, whatever they actually do.
His replacement for moral infallibility is (1) dogmatic agreement with himself and (2) possession of civil authority, however it was attained.
The reason for the earlier pro-tolerance quotes is to show his own position had no consistency but shifted when he had access to political power himself. He justified disobediance when he was engaged in it, on the principle that religion trumps politics. He reversed completely when he had rulers who had sided with him and faced such disobediance himself, and forbade any religious dissent. With fire and sword.
And no, those he wanted persecuted were not simply rebels in secular terms. Any number of protestants who did not subscribe to Luther's positions were persecuted by Lutheran princes on the pretext that their refusal to accept Lutheranism constituted political rebellion. The anabapists were against civil authority in matters of religion, and were condemned on that basis alone.
Read the rest of Acton's article, on the extension of the point to the rest of the entire movement and all the other "reformers".
The point is not to harp on the historical crimes of famous men. It is that cartoonish, one sided, ideological revisionism about our own bloody history, is no basis for reading out lessons to Muslims in their own religious wars. Luther and Ibn Tayymia would have got along famously, sharing hatred for cults of saints as idolatrous, love of literalism, eagerness to damn anyone who did not agree with every jot and tittle of their personal theology, etc. What the Islamists are advocating today is closer to what the protestants actually did (which was not a tea party but centuries of war and massacre), than it is to any supposedly monolithic corrupt church hierarchy. Indeed, corrupt oil baron hypocrites in the Arab world look a lot more like that hierarchy than members of the Muslim brotherhood do.
A reformation would not help the Islamic world at all. An enlightenment might. Try as revisionist whig historians endlessly do to conflate the two, they are not remotely the same thing.
Went to England and Ireland, had a fantastic time and ate all sorts of things - smoked salmon, Italian pizzas with anchovies, full breakfasts, lots of mocha coffees, quesadillas, chocolate mousse, Argentine beef...every bite much better than the boring, overcooked food we get here. ;-)
Wow! You can get quesadillas in England?
Did you go sightseeing?
I believe the freedom that Luther was talking about was freedom from our sins and freedom from death and freedom from Satan, all won for us by Christ's triumph over sin and death. He was the Lamb, the perfect sacrificial offering that attoned for the sins of mankind, should they choose to believe.
Faith in Christ is essential to Salvation in Luther's theology, but also taught is that faith without works is dead, and faith doesn't give you a free pass to commit sins unendingly as long as you believe. Also repentance of sin (and opening your heart to Christ and following his example, having a conversion of manners) is an essential part of faith. So, whatever this seems to say to you, it definitely doesn't mean that one can run around and deliberately do evil things and not expect to pay for that because you give lipservice to faith in Christ.
No one is perfect and all commit sin. What was liberating for Christians then was Luther's interpretation of the New Testament, which he translated into German for the first time, so all could read it directly. One could accept God's free gift of Salvation and be liberated from fear of death and fear of damnation. And a true believer would have a grateful heart and try to be a better person, not the opposite. And yes, that is the point. No works are necessary. You can't buy your way into Heaven with works, or avoid Hell with works. What could a human do anyway that would make them worthy of Salvation? Only Christ was worthy, and his work, his sacrifice, was accepted by God as attonement for us all.
So, no we don't have to buy indulgences to buy a place in heaven. But understanding the pure love of the gift we were given makes one strive to be better. Truly believing in Christ makes it hard to do bad things.
But the message of Protestantism is that if you sin, you can repent and be forgiven. Not cross your fingers and repent, but truly repent and earnestly try to avoid repeating the sin. So for those who have erred in military duties or the duties of magistrates and monarchs where more difficult and complex decisions must be made, then if one has done wrong, one can repent and be forgiven. Still, true repentance means doing your best not to repeating the same sin. This isn't a revolving door get out of jail free card that Luther is talking about.
Luther's replacement for moral infalibility was Christ, the Christ revealed in the Gospels and understood through prayer and inspiration by the Holy Spirit while studying Scripture. Thus the translated Bible became the center of Protestantism, not Martin Luther. Martin Luther's theology rejected the need for an intercessor...whether priest or saint. He believed one could pray directly to God for forgiveness or for understanding.
Luther was a very intelligent and scholarly man, but whether he was like most men and also a bigot who, I can't say one way or another for sure. I will have to read some of his works and see.
I believe Enlightenment and Reformation went hand in hand. When the Church lost the power to dictate what was true and not true in physics and biology, then scientific progress began to make leaps forward. Because the thrust of Protestantism is not to take another's word for it but to check it out yourself personally, while the thrust of Catholicism is obedience to religious authority.
Thus I think it is not a fluke that in the New World those countries that had Protestant religion fared better in beneficial social and political changes and scientific progress than those countries that had Catholic religion.
Oh, I understand. Mine was just a general post. Been around long enough to understand the "don't shoot the messanger" part of this forum. Many don't, however.
Sorry, you are not Luther, and Luther makes quite clear what he was talking about. He meant that anabaptists and the like expressed a belief in freedom of conscience. And he replied that freedom consists in agreeing with him, and those who do not, do not have any.
"was freedom from our sins"
Luther is not free of his sins. Luther was a bloodthirsty bigot and is not a moral model for anyone. Any more than Bin Laden is or Muhammad was. He shares that problem with many others of his time - but nothing like all, in his, ours, or before either.
"and freedom from death"
Luther is dead. He is no more free from death than Palestinian suicide bombers are, and about as moral.
"and freedom from Satan"
Declaring for the murder of millions in the name of a recklessly stupid personal ideology is not freedom from the source of evil, it is an instance of it.
"all won for us by Christ's triumph over sin and death."
But not by Luther in any way shape matter or form. Waving Jesus around like a flag does not make a man Jesus. And agreeing with Luther about theology does not make a man a Christian. Agreeing with him about politics and worldly affairs, though, and defending his simply awful actions, does make one a defender of sin. Luther is no model.
"He was the Lamb, the perfect sacrificial offering that attoned for the sins of mankind"
And Luther was a butcher, who killed Him over and over. Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these...
"Faith in Christ is essential to Salvation in Luther's theology"
And who is Luther that I should care about his theology? A heretic, a rebel, and defender of murder. His merit consists in opposing abuses that were really abuses. But engulfing Europe in wars in which millions perished - some, though by no means all of them, innocent - did not cure those abuses, which remained and, for at least 150 years, were more virulent not less.
"but also taught is that faith without works is dead"
Acton says that faith does not operate by sin, theologically it is not faith. Luther said freedom consists in the belief that no works are necessary for salvation, his central doctrine. He made it a matter of right opinion only, and taught that all who believe the confession of Augsberg are saved, and any who do not are damned, entirely irrespective of their personal crimes.
He undoubtedly knew better, and may have said better on other occasions. But he was enmeshed in the heat of controversy, and cast about for weapons. He formed domga to separate friends and enemies in murderous political conflict. It is not a recipe for enlightened doctrine.
The same disease afflicted Ibn Tayymia, and afflicts Islamists today. They too think those who agree with them as a matter of opinion, can saw off innocent men's heads with dull knives and broadcast it for recruitment, and be saved. Which just makes them deluded evil bastards, not theological authorities. In Luther's time, the offenses were different and the stake was preferred as a means.
The moral essence of the problem was identical. Men who think they and only they are literalist enough to possess the truth about divine authority - and perfectly able to point out real failings in others to justify separating from them - proceed further, to excuse any crime committed in defense of their ideology. And an initial desire for a purer piety ends in moral debasement, squalor, and holocaust.
"faith doesn't give you a free pass to commit sins unendingly as long as you believe."
You know it and I know it, and I suspect Luther also knows it, and may even on occasion say it. But when he needs authorities to persecute for him, he announces that all rulers cannot be without sin in their administration, and that they ought not to be merciful, and let God save his own.
"whatever this seems to say to you"
What it says is very simple, and does not touch the truth of morality or theology in any way. It says, Luther is not a moral authority in the first place. That is all. It has no other consequence.
"No one is perfect and all commit sin."
No doubt. It hardly means we should look up to Bin Laden as a moral authority though, does it?
"What was liberating for Christians then was Luther's interpretation of the New Testament, which he translated into German for the first time, so all could read it directly."
Um, precious few people could read in any language. And a large portion of those who could, could read Latin. I don't doubt it was useful to have a vernacular translation, but if you think that is the source of Luther's influence you are dreaming. His defiance of Rome was politically popular and he then led a mass movement fully supported by secular rulers and by arms, which militarily seized about half of Germany. You might as readily ascribe the importance of Muhammad to his incomparable poetry.
"and be liberated from fear of death and fear of damnation."
Well, those burning fellow Christians at the stake over theological disputes were frankly a little too liberated from such fears. For their own good or anybody else's. I don't doubt that suicide bombers in Palestine feel liberated from fear of death and joyous about their impeding salvation. But really, it does actually matter whether they act (works, notice) in ways that kind of put the kibbosh on that possibility right from the start.
"No works are necessary."
Some "works" necessarily need to be avoided, and reckless industrial scale homicide of innocents is one of them.
"You can't buy your way into Heaven with works"
And Luther can't buy his way into a position of moral authority with mere words. But he can incriminate himself with them.
"we don't have to buy indulgences to buy a place in heaven."
True. And murdering a million people won't get you there, either. Nor defending it when somebody else does it. Nor agreeing with them on abstract propositions.
"Truly believing in Christ makes it hard to do bad things."
And a lot of people truly don't, operative word "truly". Though I have no doubt they think they do. They nevertheless find it appallingly east to do bad things - like defend the pretended moral authority of notorious mass murderers and the theorists who motivate, urge, and defend them.
"the message of Protestantism is"
Sorry, you are not protestantism. It is a real thing out there in the real world spanning centuries and continents, not the ideal abstraction living a life of dreamy moral perfection between your ears. And it did not invent repentence. Didn't much practice it in the period we are discussing, either. Hasn't apologized for the horribly crimes it advocated, either. Hasn't repudiated its murderous founder or the worst half of their principles, either. In practice better behaved, to be sure. But never conceeded the point, in principle. And that is not a mark of sincere repentence.
"truly repent and earnestly try to avoid repeating the sin."
Indeed. And "J'accuse" - the sin of the day to truly and earnestly repent from, is defending the horrible actions and bloodthirsty statements of self-appointed authorities past. That, Muslims might have something to learn from. When instead they are urged to imitate Luther, well, they are already there I am afraid.
"This isn't a revolving door get out of jail free card that Luther is talking about."
On the contrary, he meant exactly to excuse anything the civil authorities did and to prohibit any kind of control over them.
"Luther's replacement for moral infalibility"
Was to bathe their hands in the blood... There is no golden rule in him. He is simply not a moral teacher of any authority.
"whether he was like most men and also a bigot who, I can't say one way or another"
Then you are blinded by partisan loyalties, because it is plain as a pikestaff. I can see that the Borgia Popes are utter scoundrels, and you should be able to see that Luther was in practice a scoundrel. It may be better men have since taken up some of his principles and dropped his personal errors and failings. But it is a failing not to see his, or to excuse them flippantly, or to underestimate the enourmous damage he did to millions of human beings. As for urging others to emulate his example...
"I believe Enlightenment and Reformation went hand in hand."
You are simply uninformed, that is all. The enlightenment takes a century longer even to start and another century to get anywhere. It's principles were no coercion in matters of religious conscience and appeal to reason and fact in disputed matters. It could be and was abused in its own right, and had its own devils.
"When the Church lost the power to dictate what was true and not true in physics and biology, then scientific progress began to make leaps forward."
It never had such a power. And it did not lose such as it tried to claim (unsuccessfully) due to the reformation. Luther rejected Copernicus because it conflicted with scripture - Joshua to be specific. He was not in favor of freedom of thought in scientific matters, either. The martrys of the case, incidentally, have their own skeletons on the reformation. Bruno for example was condemned for his heresy, unjustly to be sure. But he was not a saint himself - wanted Calvinists exterminated, because he thought the doctrine of predestination so horrible.
"the thrust of Protestantism is not to take another's word for it but to check it out yourself personally"
Hardly. If Joshua says the sun stood still not the earth, then Copernicus is wrong. No checking for oneself involved.
"the thrust of Catholicism is obedience to religious authority."
The thrust of Lutheranism is obedience to civil authority, as long as that authority intones "no works are necessary for salvation". And no, you can't build enlightenment on that. You can't even build tolerance on that.
"it is not a fluke that in the New World those countries that had Protestant religion fared better"
New or old, Calvin defended interest and Luther tolerated it as a necessary evil, while Catholicism continued to condemn it for 300 years. The rise of capitalism in Protestant countries requires no additional explanation.
The rest was largely decided by security competition - Spain against England and Austria against first Sweden and then France. England took the seas from the Spanish through successful piracy. The Catholic powers spent half their time fighting Muslims and the Protestants spent all of theirs fighting the Catholics. When even that wasn't enough, France jumped to the Protestant camp. It became the most powerful state in Europe as a result, and shifted international relations to national rather than sectarian or dynastic lines of division.
Britain led the way in later liberalism, from the Scottish enlightenment, and from getting through her own period of destructive civil war, ending it with a degree of compromize. Just not (at first) with the hated "Papists". There is no doubt that England of the 18th century was a more liberal and tolerant society than any previously seen in Europe.
The greatest advances in liberty were made in the Americans, however. Specifically in Pennsylvannia, founded by quakers and the first state on earth to incorporate the principle of religious toleration into its founding, and only slightly later by Rhode Island, which was founded by dissenters fleeing religious persecution in Calvinist Massachusetts.
Principles of religious tolerance had been taught by the 1680s everywhere, but were still only indifferently honored. In 1685, a French king could still think himself within his civil perogatives to order the extermination of any of his subjects who did not change their religion at his command. 100 years later, that sort of thing was unthinkable. The difference between 1685 and 1785 was the enlightenment.
A few years further, though, and men could think themselves justified in lynching every clergyman they could get their hands on - the devils had changed fashions but not their natures. In the 20th century, we saw ideological (and religious) persecutions at least as fierce. The principle is still alive, not least in the Islamic world.
Sorry but something like 3% a YEAR casualty rate is utterly insifngicante in Military terms. People die and get hurt in War. It is a cruel fact of life.
Besides being completely incorrect factually, what you advocate was tried in Eastern Europe by the Germans during WW2 and Afghanistan by the Russians during the 1980s. It is wholly the WRONG answer to a Counter Insurgency. Iraq is working JUST fine as anyone who actually researches what is going on and not just repeating the nonsense fed them the Junk Media KNOWS.
Military strategist, are ya? Combat troop, are ya? You're full of yourself, lady.
"Military strategist, are ya? Combat troop, are ya? You're full of yourself, lady."
Ok, so you do kiss the enemy's ass, fail to secure its borders to stop insurgency, and basically fight this or any other war with one hand tied behind your back due to political considerations?
Yeah you know better......forgive me.
"Iraq is working JUST fine as anyone who actually researches what is going on and not just repeating the nonsense fed them the Junk Media KNOWS."
Terrific, drink more of the kool-aid and listen to Fox news some more.
Things are just peaches and cream, forgive my post.
For the Neo-isolationists, HERE is what we are up to in Iraq.
Counter Insurgency is a strange bastard style of war. It is not total war but it is also more then the Leftist" Police matter". The other thing most old Cast Iron Conservatives forget is the political aspect. Iraq was doable. We had the political consensus to do it. So since we needed a kill zone we could suck the terrorists into and we needed to get the American people to support the cost, there was no other choice BUT Iraq.
Want to really blow the Leftists minds? Tell them this. Even if Al Gore won in 2000 and 9-11 happened the USA would STILL be doing the same thing now in Iraq. Iraq was doable militarily and politically. There was no other place for the US to go. Iraq is basically the same deal as the invasions of Italy was in 1943
Here in a nutshell, is the MILTIARY reason for Iraq. The War on Terrorism is different sort of war. In the war on Terrorism, we have a hidden foe, spread out across a geographically diverse area, with covert sources of supply. Since we cannot go everywhere they hide out, in fact often cannot even locate them until the engage us, we need to draw them out of hiding into a kill zone. Iraq is that kill zone. That is the true brilliance of the Iraq strategy. We draw the terrorists out of their world wide hiding places onto a battlefield they have to fight on for political reasons (The "Holy" soil of the Arabian peninsula) where they have to pit their weakest ability (Conventional Military combat power) against our greatest strength (ability to call down unbelievable amounts of firepower) where they will primarily have to fight other forces (the Iraqi Security forces) in a battlefield that is hostile to guerrilla warfare. (Iraqi-mostly open terrain as opposed to guerrilla friendly areas like the mountains of Afghanistan or the jungles of SE Asia).
There are other reasons to do Iraq but that is the MILITARY reason we are in Iraq. We have taken, an maintain the initiative from the Terrorists. They are playing OUR game on ground of OUR choosing.
Problem is Counter Insurgency is SLOW and painful. Often a case of 3 steps forward, two steps back. I often worry that the American people have neither the maturity, nor the intellect" to understand. It's so much easier to spew made for TV slogans like "No Blood for Oil" or "We support the Troops, bring them home" then to actually THINK. Problem is these people have NO desire to co-exist with us. They see all this PC posturing by the Hysteric Left as a sign that we are weak. Since they want us dead, weakness encourages them. They think their "god" will bless them for killing Westerners. So we can covert to Islam, die or kill them. Iraq is about killing enough of them to make the rest realize we are serious. See in the Arab world the USA is considered a big wimp. We have run away so many times. Lebanon, the Kurds, the Iraqis in 1991, the Iranians, Somalia, Clinton all thru the 1990s etc etc etc. The Jihadists think we will run again. In fact they are counting on it. That way they can run around screaming "We beat the American just like the Russians, come join us in Jihad" and recruit the next round of "holy warriors". Iraq is also a show place where we show the Muslim world that there are a lines they cannot cross. On 9-11 they crossed that line and we can, and will, destroy them for it.
Your little bit of faux war wisdom, is a sadly pathetic reminder of who actually fights for Victory in War- and those who would undermine such Victory, at every turn, with every word and by every nuance. By the by, your agenda is showing, m'aam.
Also- the forgiveness you requested is way above my pay grade. You may want to seek a higher authority.
What teaser, my original comment was And for people who do get it, with military experience it is a very lousy article.
Too much of a civilian view on the war backed up by no real understanding of what we are doing out there. What tactics and strategy we are using and why.
And I stand by that, know where did I say I was going to go into a in depth discussion of tactics units intelligence with names and places. Especially with friends still out there.
re :And all I got was polite dinner conversation about the contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Ha Ha kin ha, I gave you a back ground on counter insurgency, because of statements like this.
The real problem in Iraq is that we are trying to be nice.
What does he mean, I guess he wants us to go in harder how hard what should we be doing what we are not.
That is why I discussed counter insurgency and for your information most of my knowledge is based on first hand experience, not on book smarts.
Now I know you are a clever fellow with many a witty remark and put down, probably a lot more educated than me but if you want a real debate on this subject I will be more than happy to oblige. You tell me where you stand and I mean what tactics and strategy should we be using, why and where have they worked before.
I am always ready to learn something new.
But if you just get of on sarky comments and that is your way of debating then we might as well not debate, flame wars can be fun now and again but not on serious subjects especially with friends still serving out there
MNJohnnie's right. Things are not nearly as dismal as the media portrays it. Things are working in Iraq. The media won't report the positives because they don't work with the media's agenda.
There isn't an "instant gratification timetable" here as so many people expect, but things are progressing and have been all along. There are bumps in the road, certainly. What new democracy has not experienced growing pains?
And I don't have access to Fox News. ;-)
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