Actually, unlike the pope which RCs seem to think we see Luther as, if RCs were not often attacking Luther you would hardly see him mentioned by most evangelicals.
But he is defended mainly because RCs presume they have an argument by attacking him, and in doing so they often take him out of context, or parrot false quotes, despite frequent corrections.
I would ask other born again evangelicals if Luther was so important in their conversion or present faith that they feel their security threatened by attacks on him, as RCs do with attacks on their church or papacy. Or if their faith is based upon Scriptural substantiation, in word and in life, as in Scripture.
The real issue is why RCs are so preoccupied with attacking Luther, almost invariably being the ones who introduce and focus on him in an debate with evangelicals (being basically the only class that will contend for anything), while the latter cite Scripture, not Luther, until RCs evidence they think attacking Luther will somehow gain them a desperately needed argument for Rome.
• 1. RCs do what Scripture says not to do, "think of men "above that which is written" (1Co. 4:6) - "men" including women - which is evidenced in their incessant focus upon what the pope did or said. Their security is manifestly in a particular church, in which they find their identity and cherish a elitist supreme view of, and thus they feel threatened by anything that impugns it in the least, characteristic of the cults.
Thus unlike evangelicals and NT believers, they constantly are preaching their particular church, which stands in such contrast to the NT church that it is basically invisible in Scripture.
This is due to the majority never having had a "day of salvation" in which under conviction of sin, righteousness and judgment, they came to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, and trusted Him to save them on His blood-expense and credit, and thus experienced the profound changes in heart and life centered upon a relationship with the Christ of Scripture, by which they often enjoy a spontaneous and working relationship with others who also have realized this transformative regeneration, many of which were former RCs.
• 2. As RC cannot conceive of a faith that is not (Catholic) church-centric, papists , because they are papists and anxiously watch their pope - cannot but think evangelicals must likewise look to and follow a man, that of Luther as a pope who started their new religion, as RCs even believe Luther did.
But in reality, Luther and Reformers worked to bring the church back to NT faith from the deformation that is Rome (no supreme perpetual infallible papacy, no perpetually infallible magisterium, no distinctive sacerdotal clerical class of priests, no praying to the departed, no purgatory, etc.) Which is in contrast Scripture being the supreme transcendent standard for faith and obedience as the assured word of God, which it is so manifest to be. Thus the Reformation was progressive, rejecting many things Luther held at the beginning.
Therefore as Scripture and not man is the the Scriptural standard, even if Luther was shown to be all the horrible things traddie RCs attribute to them in their angst, it would hardly faze those who have been born again with its profound changes and relationship with their Lord, who thus look to Christ as the Rock of their faith, not man or a church. For RCs, this is such a foreign reality that they must attack Luther or their current pope, yet the latter is held as valid no matter how evil.
• 3. Some RC's actually believe Prots sense of salvation by grace alone is essentially based on Luther being saved, thus by attacking Luther, even by engaging in psycho-history , they imagine they will destroy Prot. faith, as if evangelicals were saved by looking to Luther, not the Christ of Scripture.
But most evangelicals were born again by faith in the Christ of Scripture, and knew little or nothing about Luther, whom they typically differ substantially from. Thus if RCs want to destroy evangelical faith, they need to discredit the Scriptures and its Christ as libs do, which in fact much of Roman scholarship is in sympathy with.
• 4. RCs uncritically post parroted anti-Luther polemics and Obscure Luther Quotes, and thus actually believe that his teaching rejected the need for holiness and works if one would be saved by faith, and or that SS means only the Bible is to be used in understanding God's will, and or that Luther as a maverick removed books from a infallible canon for no reason except they supported RC traditions that he opposed, and did not include them in his canon, and that he also did not have papal and Catholic precedent in his latter language against the Jews. Luther And The Jews and the A "Roman Catholic" Martin Luther Quiz may help, and more .
• 5. They believe that if Luther is wrong, the Reformation is illegitimate, and of course he must be wrong, as if a pope is wrong then Roman religion is wrong, but unlike Luther, Rome has presumed to infallibly declare she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares. Thus she simply cannot be wrong, if she does say so herself.
This premise of assured veracity is itself wrong in the light of Scripture, in which the church began in dissent from those who sat in the seat of Moses over Israel, as instead they followed an itinerant Preacher whom the magisterium rejected, and whom the Messiah reproved them by Scripture as being supreme, (Mk. 7:2-16) and established His Truth claims upon scriptural substantiation in word and in power, as did the early church as it began upon this basis. (Mt. 22:23-45; Lk. 24:27,44; Jn. 5:36,39; Acts 2:14-35; 4:33; 5:12; 15:6-21;17:2,11; 18:28; 28:23; Rm. 15:19; 2Cor. 12:12, etc.)
Out of Scripture being supreme comes the other cardinal Truth, that in regeneration God justifies the unGodly by faith being counted, imputed for righteousness, (Rm. 3:10-4:7ff) out of which must flow obedience, and repentance whn convicted of the contrary, versus being "formally justified and made holy by his own personal justice and holiness (causa formalis)" via sprinkling with water, (Catholic Encyclopedia >Sanctifying Grace) usually as a morally incognizant infant. And thus, as the subject sins and somewhat fails in moral perfection, usually the subject must conclude this salvation process by becoming good enough (and atoning for sins) in purgatory.
While Luther could be wrong in some other things, if Luther was wrong in these two cardinal Truths then it would indeed be fatal to all who believe them, but which would invalidate the NT church itself. Instead, among other things, rejecting Scripture as the supreme transcendent standard, and making justification to be on account of ones own holiness via sprinkling, Rome,invalidates the church of Rome as being the one true church, though some within it may be part of the body of Christ, which is the one true church in the NT, as it alone consists of 100% believers Thanks be to God. .
What you said.
Now, if the collection for Jim’s bandwidth expense has all been taken up (hat passed), then after the benediction, we can all go have a nice hot lunch...or cold sandwich or whatever.
Who wants to give the benediction to this thread?
This may explain why Luther thought the Anabaptists had to die; not to mention throwing Baptists and Evangelicals under the bus today; baptizing or not baptizing infants was a matter of heresy. The Augsburg Confession of 1530 is an early Lutheran confession of faith, authored mainly by Philip Melancthon and approved by Martin Luther and presented to King Charles V. In Article IX, “Of baptism,” it says: Of baptism [the churches with common consent among us] teach that it is necessary to salvation, and that by Baptism the grace of God is offered, and that children are to be baptized, who by Baptism, being offered to God, are received into God’s favor. They condemn the Anabaptists who allow not the Baptism of children, and affirm that children are saved without Baptism. (Creeds of Christendom, Vol. 3, p. 13)
Luther had NOTHING to do with my conversion and salvation.
My security is not shaken by attacks on Luther as if when an RC shows Luther to be in the wrong, I will abandon my faith and become Catholic, or something ludicrous.
My faith is based on the true and sure and unchanging promises of God found in the divinely inspired word of God.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Galatians 3:6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
LOL!!! I had very little understanding who Luther was and still know very little about the man. But one of the things I do know is that he was right about the Church.