In Defense of Martin Luther
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About this ebook
Author Joseph Keysor previously demonstrated that Hitler and the Nazis were not acting on Christian principles and exposed the true basis for destructive actions. Now he comes to the defense of Martin Luther, a person that many people try to blame for Hitler's anti-semitism. Keysor is not Lutheran, making his analysis all the more decisive.
In "Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible" Keysor demonstrated that there was nothing Christian at all about Hitler's racial attitudes and traces it back to the writings of atheistic philosophers such as Nietzsche and Haeckel, to name a few. Keysor also took aim at the reasons why many try to lay the blame for the holocaust at the feet of Christianity. This led him to examine certain writings of Martin Luther and in the course of his book, showed how they could not be a significant factor in Nazi ideology.
This present edition is a separate treatment that specifically expounds on the 'bad rap' that Martin Luther has received. Since Keysor is not a Lutheran, this defense is not 'personal.'
It is perhaps time that people gave Dr. Luther his proper due.
Joseph Keysor
Joseph Keysor is the author of "Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible" and an authority on Nazi ideology.
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In Defense of Martin Luther - Joseph Keysor
In Defense of Martin Luther
By Joseph Keysor
Copyright Joseph Keysor 2011.
All Rights Reserved
Published by Athanatos Publishing Group.
Smashwords Edition
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Joseph Keysor is the author of Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible. Learn more at http://www.hitlerandchristianity.com.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Violence
2. Unclean language
3. Hostility to science and reason
4. Luther's responsibility for later events in German history
5. Luther and German nationalism
a. Some misconceptions
b. Luther's worldview
c. Modern nationalism
6. Luther's anti-Semitism
a. David and Bathsheba
b. Luther's biblical understanding of the Jews
c. What Luther did not believe about the Jews
d. Why Luther was angry at the Jews
e. Advocacy of violence against the Jews
7. Luther and the Nazis
8. Modern hostility to Luther
Appendices
1. Why anti-Semitism?
2. Christian
anti-Semitism
3. The political and social benefits of the Protestant Reformation
4. Weimar Germany - a Christian country?
In Defense of Martin Luther
Introduction
For some time now I have been reading through Martin Luther: Selections from his Writings (John Dillenberger, Ed.). I have been not merely impressed by the depth of Luther's spiritual insight, but have also been helped to a better understanding of Christ's work, and to new insights about what it means to be saved from God's anger by Christ's righteousness and work rather than by my own righteousness and works.
Nevertheless, Luther at times made comments I find misguided, even wrong. His dismissal of the book of James, for example, was a bad mistake, and his defense of infant baptism seems to me at any rate to be very lame. At times Luther made statements that were true in themselves, but were expressed with excessive rhetorical force. In spite of his undeniable faults, however, I esteem him in his best writings as a burning and a shining light, mightily used of God to establish liberty of conscience and to re-emphasize the centrality of Christ, and of the Bible.
All of this being so, I have been disappointed by criticisms of Luther that often seem to me to be inaccurate and unfair - many of them from people who are hostile to and or ignorant of Christianity; who have no understanding of Luther's teaching and no appreciation of his achievements; and who are only too eager to discredit Christianity, and the essential teachings Luther emphasized. So, I thought I would like to respond to some common criticisms (writing not as a Lutheran, which I am not, but as a Christian, which I am still learning to be).
1. Violence
For example, one alleged fault is Luther's violence. In particular, his urging the German princes to crush the peasant rebellion is taken as proof that he was a hateful, cruel, bloodthirsty man - but this is, as are so many criticisms of Luther, wide of the mark. For one thing, prior to the outbreak of fighting, Luther wrote an Admonition to Peace,
in which he appealed to both sides to avoid violence. His preference was for a peaceful solution to undeniable injustices and oppression.
Secondly, once the rebellion exploded in blind violence, Luther was in my view right and correct in urging the authorities to put down the rebellion swiftly and severely, without delay. Not only was it necessary for Luther to distance himself from radicals who appealed to his writings for justification; he also understood that violent revolution only created more evil than what it purported to remove. If he did err, it was in rhetorical excess, stating a valid point too heatedly.
Would that the attempt to overthrow the Russian Provisional Government by the Bolsheviks in 1917 had been crushed, and Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin had been put to death. Would that Hitler and the participants in the 1923 putsch had been put to death. In both of these cases, untold millions of lives would have been saved as a result. Sometimes modern softness, spinelessness, and fake compassion
only lead to more suffering in the long run. According to the Bible, the authorities have the power of the sword given to them by God to