Some have asked me, "Why are you characterizing Lutherans as Anti-Semites?" This is a good question, which I am eager to answer. The short answer is that I am not. Martin Luther the reformer was not anti-Semitic. I’m no more characterizing all Lutherans as anti-Semitic than Luther was calling for all Jews to be persecuted.
Lutherans all around the world have apologized for the "anti-semitism" of Luther. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod said,
"While The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod holds Martin Luther in high esteem for his bold proclamation and clear articulation of the teachings of Scripture, it deeply regrets and deplores statements made by Luther which express a negative and hostile attitude toward the Jews."1
The ELCA offerred an even stronger condemnation, not wanting to be outdone,
"In the spirit of that 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 companions in the sixteenth century, we reject this violent invective, and yet more do we express our deep and abiding sorrow over its tragic effects on subsequent generations."2
It is difficult to find such a formal public condemnation made by the Wisconsin Synod Lutherans. They have, however, established a public teaching against anti-Semitism, and expressed solidarity with the Jewish people.
If you google a bit about Luther and anti-Semitism, and search past what Lutherans have to say about it, you’ll find an interesting phenomenon. The websites dedicated to Luther’s "anti-Semitism" are sites also dedicated to atheism, or the removal of religion from the public square. In some cases, you’ll find Catholics still upset about the Reformation.
Dinesh D’souza, in his book "What’s so Great About Christianity," aptly points out that the greatest horrors imposed on the world- from holocausts to the imposition of oppressive economic systems and the persecution of Jews and Christians- were perpetrated by Atheists. These advocates of Atheism are all too happy to point out how "anti-Semitic" Luther is in their efforts to discredit Christianity, but what many fail to recognize is that they stand on the shoulders of a long line of atheists who have murdered both Christians and Jews for no other reason but their faith and identity.
So what about Luther and this book "The Jews and Their Lies," referred to so often- and apologized for by America’s Lutherans? What about the other anti-Semitic statements attributed to Luther? Well, there are a few explanations that have been offerred throughout history. In my own study, I’ve discovered a few things that are never mentioned by us Lutherans who apologize profusely for Luther. Some Lutherans, like the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, not only apologize for Luther- giving credence to the attacks of the atheists- but actually have established anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish teachings and proclamations. It is like the apology itself becomes a cover for a deep seated anti-Semitism that lies beneath. In many ways it is not much different than people who are racist against blacks prefacing their positions with phrases like: "I don’t have anything against blacks," "some of my best friends are black," or "there’s nothing wrong with being black, but you should marry within your race." In fact, the more profuse and flourished the apologies for Martin Luther’s anti-Semitism, it seems the more anti-Jewish Lutherans really are. Take the ELCA, for example.
One of the most quoted words of Luther regarding Jews is cited as his response to a priest who asked what to do if a Jew came to be baptized. The oft quoted phrase is: "I would take him on to the bridge, tie a stone around his neck, and hurl him into the river." What Luther actually said in context was, "You must fill a large tub with water, and, having divested the Jew of his clothes, cover him with a white garment. He must then sit down in the tub, and you must baptize him quite under water. The ancients, when they were baptized, were attired in white, whence the first Sunday after Easter, which is peculiarly consecrated to this ceremony, was called dominica in albis. … If a Jew, not converted at heart, were to ask baptism at my hands, I would take him on to the bridge, tie a stone around his neck, and hurl him into the river". These weren’t words that Luther even wrote.
In fact, so much of what we have read of Luther’s teachings were not things that he actually wrote, but a compilation of notes taken by others who attended his classes, his lectures, or listened to his sermons. So many of the anti-Semitic statements attributed to Luther have several layers of perception attached to them kind of like that game telephone line we played as children. The layers are 1) What Luther actually said 2) what his listener heard and interpreted his words to be through their own lens of opinions and life experience 3) what the listeners actually transcribed to notes 4) what the editors of those notes actually transcribed into publishable material, laden with their own conceptions and perceptions 5) The German language being translated into English 6) The perceptions and conceptions that the translators and publishers inserted into the English language.
So many layers leave so much room to nuance what Luther actually said that just a single word or even a turn of a word could transform simple and innocent theological statements into an anti-Semitic Diatribe.
However, his treatise titled "The Jews and Their Lies," is something that Luther himself wrote. It was in response to a pamphlet, supposedly circulated by Jews, and sent to him by an old friend who was shocked. Count Wolfgang Schlick of Falkenau who wrote:
"Dear sir and good friend, I have received a treatise in which a Jew engages in dialog with a Christian. He dares to pervert the scriptural passages which we cite in testimony to our faith, concerning our Lord Christ and Mary his mother, and to interpret them quite differently. With this argument he thinks he can destroy the basis of our faith."
The Count sent the pamphlet to Luther in the hopes that Luther would respond to it. In his early life, Luther was sympathetic with the Jews, with a deep desire to proclaim the Gospel to them. He actually wrote a treatise called "Jesus was Born a Jew." For most of his life he saw them as parteners against the murderous conquests of the Muslims who were sweeping fiercely across the lands taking cities and nations. In fact, this high opinion of the Jews probably never changed, even in his death. Luther, famous for the distinction between Law and Gospel, believed the Jews were people of the Law. In "The Jews and Their Lies," he set out to give them a large dose of it. Further, the objects of his sentiments were not every Jew, but only a certain sect of Judaism that was hostile to Christianity.
The treatise was actually Luther’s response to the good Count as a private letter, and was later published. Scholars point out that Luther did not create anti-Semitism, but lived in a time when anti-Semitism was fashionable among Catholics. Luther actually found a kindred spirit with the Jews of his time, who opposed the Empire of the Popes. Those who were deeply anti-Semitic could not help but publish and distribute the private letter written by a man of such great stature. It was one of the last things that Luther ever wrote.
Because this was written later in his life, and a personal letter, the work should be all the more de-emphasized when looking at Luther’s greater legacy. It can be seen more as an email we might write in the heat of anger or emotion, when we are besides ourselves, that gets sent and can’t be taken back. Or perhaps another way to look at it, an embarrassing paper written in College that we hope nobody ever dredges up ten years later. Luther, though he probably knew he was a well known preacher, certainly never realized or understood the far-reaching world changing impact of his life and work. He probably didn’t understand how easily misunderstood his writing on this topic would be. To him, it was just another thing he wrote- not something he thought would be read again 500 years later.
But another thing to keep in mind is how sick Luther was. He had a whole number of ailments, and in his last couple years- when "The Jews and Their Lies" was written- he was not always in his right mind. He was given to irrational behavior, and was most characterized as irritable, harsh, overly argumentative, and confused. He sufferred from severe anxiety and paranoia. He heard and saw things that weren’t there, and had periods where he appeared to have lost his mind, with periods of lucent and clear thinking and communication. Many of the descriptions of Luther in his later life sound like modern day Alzheimers.
And if you know anybody who has Alzheimers, you know how uncharacteristic their behavior is. One day, I went to visit one of my parishoners at her home, an Alzheimer’s patient. I brought her communion every Sunday, but this Sunday was different. She refused communion. She began yelling that I was trying to poison her. She quickly changed gears and stood up. She walked over to her thermostat and look at it as if peering through a window or into a television set. She said, "I see my kitty, she’s so hungry and cold. I have to go feed my kitty before she dies, and you must leave right now." She invited me to look at her kitty through the thermostat. Her cat had died 3 years earlier, and she died just a few weeks later.
Luther didn’t have Alzheimers, but he suffered from Uric Acid poisoning, which has some of the same effect on the brain as Alzheimers. When he wrote the letter to his friend the Count, "The Jews and Their Lies" he was clearly lucent, but he was simply not himself. He called for the burning of synagogues, for the beating of Jews, and for driving them out of Christian cities and villages. All of this in response to the pamphlet, which it is believed among other things said that Jesus was in hell, forever neck deep in a pool of human excrement and that Mary was a whore, and Jesus an illegitimate child- a position held by a very radical and small sect of Jews at the time of Jesus (not mainstream Jews at all). Luther speaks of polemical works written by Jews in which they blasphemed Jesus and Mary, of the propaganda which they made among Christians and which caused quite a number of Christians in Moravia to embrace Judaism, and of three Jews who had come to him to convert him. He also spoke of a Jew who was sent to assasinate him. This radical kind of Jewish believer was the object of his disappointment and anger.
Luther was never one to pass up a good fight. He had all kinds of mean spirited and colorful things to say about Bishops and the Catholic Church, for example, but with the exception of this treatise, spent most of his life proclaiming the Gospel to the Jews. Here are some of the things that Luther believed and taught about the Jewish people his entire life:
"The Jews," he says, "are of the best blood on earth" (Luther, l.c. xxv. 409); "through them alone the Holy Ghost wished to give all books of Holy Scripture to the world; they are the children and we are the guests and the strangers; indeed, like the Canaanitish woman, we should be satisfied to be the dogs that eat the crums which fall from their master’s table" (xxv. 260).
"Our fools, the popes, bishops, sophists, and monks, these coarse blockheads ["die groben Eselsköpfe"], dealt with the Jews in such a manner that any Christian would have preferred to be a Jew. Indeed, had I been a Jew and had I seen such idiots and dunderheads [Tölpel und Knebel] expound Christianity, I should rather have become a hog than a Christian" (ib. xxix. 46-47).
"If I were a good Jew, the pope could never persuade me to accept his idolatry. I would rather ten times be racked and flayed"
In another passage he tells the anecdote, derived from Boccaccio, of a Jew who desired to embrace Christianity but wished first to see the pope. When the Jew returned from Rome he asked a priest to baptize him, "for the God of the Christians must indeed be a God who forgives all iniquity if he suffers all the rogueries of Rome"
"I would advise and beg everybody to deal kindly with the Jews and to instruct them in the Scripture; in such a case we could expect them to come over to us. If, however, we use brute force and slander them ["gehen mit Luegentheiding umb"], saying that they need the blood of Christians to get rid of their stench, and other nonsense of that kind, and treat them like dogs, what good can we expect of them? Finally, how can we expect them to improve if we prohibit them to work among us and to have social intercourse with us, and so force them into usury? If we wish to make them better we must deal with them not according to the law of the pope, but according to the law of Christian charity. We must receive them kindly and allow them to compete with us in earning a livelihood, so that they may have an opportunity to witness Christian life and doctrine; and if some remain obstinate, what of it? Not every one of us is a good Christian"
Luther was an enthusiastic believer in the Christianity of the apostle Paul, and therefore expected from the Reformed Church the fulfilment of Paul’s prophecy that all Israel shall be saved (Rom. xi. 26). "If this prophecy has not been fulfilled yet, it is because papacy has presented such a perverted Christianity that the Jews have been repulsed by it."
Luther’s last sermon was delivered at Eisleben, his place of birth, on February 15, 1546, three days before his death. It was "entirely devoted to the obdurate Jews, whom it was a matter of great urgency to expel from all German territory," according to Léon Poliakov. James Mackinnon writes that it concluded with a "fiery summons to drive the Jews bag and baggage from their midst, unless they desisted from their calumny and their usury and became Christians." Luther said, "we want to practice Christian love toward them and pray that they convert," but also that they are "our public enemies … and if they could kill us all, they would gladly do so. And so often they do."
Martin Luther’s last words to his wife as he lay dying were,
"“I am fed up with the world, and it with me. I am like a ripe stool, and the world is like a gigantic anus, and so we’re about to let go of each other.”
I don’t believe that Luther was anti-Semitic. In his later years, I think his illnesses clouded his judgment about how he expressed his thoughts about the minority of Jews who said such offensive things about his Lord and Christian faith. In his paranoia he became fixated on a small segment of Judaism that did not at all represent the mainstream of Jewish belief and teaching, and their desire to live in peace and brother-hood with Christians. It is a sad thing for sure, but just as the final days of a woman with Alzheimer’s is not what we remember about her life and work, so is it with Martin Luther.
And so too, the ELCA, and the ELCIC- and other Mainline Churches, they must be sick. They have exhibited, institutionally and communally, all the hallmarks of mental illness- from their position that God celebrates gay sex, to their acceptance of partial birth abortion and those doctors who perform them, to replacing the Gospel with the Millenium Development Goals and the religion of Global Warming.
It is no wonder then that while apologizing for Martin Luther these liberal Lutherans want to push the Jewish people out of the Israel. What kind of insanity is that? Their leaders are either mentally ill, schizophrenic, or suffering from multiple personality disorder, or they are wholly anti-Semitic.
Luther was old and ill. What is their excuse?
