Lutherans study German roots

The Post-Bulletin ^ | LeRoy Larson

[Conservative til I die]

Interesting story that has almost nothing to do with anything. I'm German on my mother's side. My recently deceased grandmother, as much as she didn't really live the Catholic life, loved to talk to me in her later years about Germany and Catholicism, being that I had learned German in school and was such an outspoken Catholic around the house.

Her father was a Lutheran, her mother a Catholic. She told me how much he wished he could convert to Catholicism. He did apparently, later in his life when he was ill. She never explained what the hold up was, but I guess it was probably family pressures.

I always wished she opened up about her life in Germany, as she had such interesting things to tell, living through the bombing campaigns during WW2, seeing Hitler at a parade, and some of the darker stuff like how the Nazis requisitioned her father's favorite German Shepherds, having the crosses in her school taken down with portraits of Hitler being put up in her place, Jewish neighbors disappearing, one of her brothers dying in combat, her sister being a Communist and always being taken to the Burgermeister and reprimanded, half her family living behind the Wall in East Germany (I loved when they finally visited us and we took them to the WTC, the Bronx Zoo, West Point, the Empire State Building, my cousin going to bars with us, getting a kick out of riding in my other cousin's Trans-Am), raising her 5 kids alone in NY while learning English. Interestingly, I recently found out my grandfather was and is a German Jew.

That's my little non sequitir.

[wolf78]

I’m not denying any of that. However, one shouldn’t over-generalize when making statements like “THE protestants do this and THE catholics do that”. As my statement above is factually correct, I made my point.

[RightWhale]

When I hear ‘study German roots’ I think of Husserl, Hegel, and especially the firebrand Heidegger who traced etymology of German words for the presently hidden original meaning.

[RobbyS]

Slice of life. Thanks for sharing it.

[RobbyS]

I was referring only to the “confessionaL” Protestants whose churches are entirely state supported. The anabaptists have always been separatists, in that they denied the right of the state to control their doctrine and worship. Like the Mennonites who began in Switzerland and were driven from pilar to post until many escaped to America. There were also the separatists like the “Pilgrims” who fled England for Holland and then, to allowe their children to stay English, immigrated to America. Such sects were as badly treated as Catholics were by Elizabeth’s government. One difference is that Catholics, like Jews and unlike the Protestant sects, have an international character and connection. All protestants, from day one, are nationist in orientation. The great exception among the Reformers, was Calvin, who wished to reform the whole Catholic Church along different theological lines. Luther was nothing but German; Calvin was never just French. While he was alive, Geneva was the Protestant Rome.

[stripes1776]

Nope. It was about the relationship between the Nazis and “German Christians”. Luther was barely mentioned in the article.

As I said, the article you "posted to" is "Lutherans study German roots". Martin Luther is mentioned quite a bit. Maybe you should read it again.

[vladimir998]

Sorry, when you said posted, I thought you mean the articles I linked to.

Sorry, about that.

[kawaii]

Again, you are trying to paint a picture of Protestants "idolizing Hitler." What about the Orthodox Christians idolozing Joseph Stalin, the former Orthodox seminary student? Stalin killed millions more than Hitler, and yet you give Orthodox Christians a clean slate

There are no Orthodox who idolize Stalin and it's clear that with 66 million in casualties the folks managing the killing hated Christians you might endeavor to check out who they were.

[kawaii]

And some Orthodox priests in Russia worked for the KGB, turning in other priests who ended up in concentrations camps where they were either worked to death or executed. The communists exterminated at least 30,000,000 people. One wonders why communism was so successful in an Orthodox country. Is there something inherently collectivist and dictatorial about Orthodoxy?

Because it was foreign funded, and given foreign technology. It's leadership was always foreign with the occasional token Russian.

[kawaii]

ping

[stripes1776]

This is a thread about Lutherans going back to Germany during the 400th year of Martin Luther posting his theses. But what do we get immediately? Some one posting about German Christians being Nazis. The object was to malign Lutherans.

If anybody wants to play that game, I am quite willing to slam the ball in the other direction. But I think it would be better to focus on the content of the article. I don't think one has to be Lutheran to appreciate them studing the origins of Luther's reformation.

[FormerLib]

What is it about certain sects that harbor such a vile hatred for Orthodoxy? That’s the more important question raised by your post.

Some 30,000 Russian Orthodox Clergy were murder by the Communists.

Can you name any other Christian faith that was targeted to that degree by the Communists?

[FormerLib]

And vladmir988 is Eastern Rite Catholic so you wasted your time if you thought you were trolling him by slandering the Orthodox martyrs of Communism.

[FormerLib]

If anybody wants to play that game, I am quite willing to slam the ball in the other direction.

Great, you take offense to a Roman Catholic's posting by insulting Eastern Orthodoxy. Take some time to wipe the egg off your face.

[Alex Murphy]

D.J.: I just had some questions about God and stuff.
Roseanne: Well why didn't you come to us if you had questions? There are no two better people to answer your questions than me and your dad.
D.J.: Okay... what religion are we?
Roseanne: I have no idea... Dan?
Dan: Well... my mom's mom was Pentecostal and Baptist on the side of my dad. Your mom's mom was Lutheran and her dad was Jewish.
D.J.: So what do we believe?
Roseanne: Well... we believe in... being good. So basically, we're good people.
Dan: Yeah, but we're not practicing.

Roseanne, sixth season episode "I Pray The Lord My Stove To Keep"

[Clemenza]

As did the majority of Catholics in Austria and Germany (and Hitler was arguably more popular in the former than the latter). Your point?

[Clemenza]

Yes, it was the JOOOOOOS, not the RUSSIANS themselves.

If I hear the "Russian were victims" fairytale one more time, I will vomit. Most of the "ethnics" were purged along with Trotsky. During Stalin's reign, but especially after his death, Comintern was RUSSIAN dominated.

[kawaii]

(wild eyed conspiracy theories aside) do you have information backing up that this was somehow a Russian led revolution?

btw stalin died in 1953; 36 years after the october ‘revolution’.

[stripes1776]

Great, you take offense to a Roman Catholic's posting by insulting Eastern Orthodoxy. Take some time to wipe the egg off your face.

I assumed the poster was Orthodox. But then neither am I Lutheran. I could just as easily have brought out insulting remarks about the Roman church or any other denomination.

This article for this thread is about Lutherans going back to the roots of their faith. The poster immediately wanted to malign Lutherans by making a link between German Christians and Nazism. My purpose was to use fallacies so that the poster would come to see his fallacies. He has stopped using fallasies, and therefore my method comes to an end as well.

If there had been an article about Orthodox making some trip to a monastery in Russia or Serbia, and somebody immediately make a connection between the Orthodox church and Communism, I would have used the same type of fallacies for some other denomination. If you were offended, then you had the correct response. Fallacies are not very convincing in arguments. That is my point.