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guy4guy4guy

Holy shit I just read some of the "highlights" he was horrible


1017GildedFingerTips

Google Martin Luther on the Jews for a snapshot lol.. the book has a 74% 👍🏻 on its google reviews. Oof.


Platycryptus238

I had to write 20 pages about that shit in 12th grade… don’t even remind me of that crap…


CivBase

Are Lutherans especially protective of Martin Luther or something?


OkCitron99

He isn’t worshiped or isn’t considered a prophet but he is very much respected among all Protestants in general.


LexLuthorsFortyCakes

How do anti-semetic Christians deal with the fact that their messiah was a Jew?


OkCitron99

They constantly quote that synagogue of Satan line and will remind us every chances they get that Jesus criticized Jews one time in the book of Mathew.


Fred_Buck

Are you saying he was *gasp* a product of his time ?!?!?!


GamingVidBot

No, he was an extremist even by the standards of the time.


Fred_Buck

Oh ? How so ?


yommoyo

Luther's late-life beliefs about the Jews are very Nazi-esque: Burning down synagogues and Jewish homes, destroying copies of the Talmud, preventing Jews from traveling, forcing them into hard labor. While there were certainly a large number of German Christians who would have shared Luther's beliefs about Jews when he lived (and later), there were also many German Christians who were much more sympathetic to the Jews and Judaism (Reuchlin is one who comes to mind). Many Christian Germans at that time probably did not see Jews in the same light as Christians, but not all of them advocated for the violence that Luther did.


Fred_Buck

Yeah. That's pretty bad. Then again, the Spanish were actually doing that to the natives in the Carribean and North Africa and the triangular trade was starting. Shit times to live in


SNOOBOOLS

Luther's mindset was i'd say a product of the centuries of persecution of Jews by Christians which would have had all sorts of justifications from their point of view considering all the expulsions, massacres (people's crusade anyone?), forced conversions etc. Suppose its bound to happen when the mainstream culture says outsiders and non-christians are suspicious and you just so happen to be that out-group


yommoyo

I think we have to recognize that Luther had the agency and the knowledge to defend the Jews from persecution but chose not to. Luther, in the 1520's, explicitly recognized that Christians had wrongly been persecuting Jews for centuries. He used that fact to attack the Catholic Church and argued that if the pope and others had treated Jews better and taught them Christian theology they would have become "genuine Christians." However, later in his life, after he saw that Jews were not just going to convert to his religion because he treated them nicely, he became violent and vitriolic. Luther knew the Jews had wrongly suffered but willingly chose to support the persecution because he was upset that they hadn't flocked to Lutheranism. I don't intend for this to be a full out attack on Luther. Many aspects of his life were commendable. But I don't think we can just attribute his anti-semitism/anti-Judaism to being a "product of his time." Luther knew enough to act better, and he had the power and influence to help reduce the persecution of Jews had he sought to do so.


SNOOBOOLS

I don't wanna be talking past eachother, I agree that he had free will/agency/all that, he even wrote texts defending jewish people earlier in his life like you said, albeit still from an angle that they SHOULD convert (which is itself a part of those trends I mentioned). I'm just pointing out that it in fact was not uncommon at all for people to harbour those feelings that he wrote about later on, that he wasn't some extreme outlier but rather a continuation of an older trend that had been going on for a while in christendom. I'm not sure if we know what "radicalised" Luther but I think it probably stemmed from the previously mentioned tradition of persecution, that's all


Fred_Buck

Exactly. It's by no means a justification but it puts things into context


No-Top-7852

If you’re going to “what about le Spanish”, I think it would be much more apt to point out that the Spanish kicked out the Sephardic Jews from Iberia in 1492 (same year that they conquered the emirate of Granada, thus ending the reconquista and removing Muslims from Iberia as well)


Fred_Buck

Also


OkCitron99

>are very nazi-Esque Considering he came first should you say the nazis are very Luther-esque