”Luther was indeed a bigot, but his bigotry was not biblical. The bible does not lie, Luther was wrong”
This reminds me of George Bernard Shaw:
"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means."
I will point out to you that Luther was an eminent scholar who is almost deified by many. He also translated the bible into German, so for you to suggest he does not know it as well as you is rather amusing!
This is not to say it is necessary that a Christian be a racist. Most of the bible is never preached, after all. But you are well aware that many Christian sects are very racist and that they justify it through the bible just as Luther did.
”It's easy to anachronistically leap from the sixteenth to the twentieth Century.”
Is it? Was it a leap? The centuries are connected by years and by days. Ideas live on for thousands of years and inform each generation. The connection between Luther and Nazi hatred of Jews is not disputed in rational circles.
”Here's a News Flash for you,,,, HITLER WAS NOT A CHRISTIAN.”
Here is a news flash for you!
”My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.”
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 [Baynes]
Here are more news flashes from those who knew him best!
”Although he himself [Hitler] was a Catholic, he wished the Protestant Church to have a stronger position in Germany, since Germany was two-thirds Protestant.
-Hermann Göring (Trial of The Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945, Vol.9)
______________________
You Einsatztruppen (task forces) are called upon to fulfill a repulsive duty. But you are soldiers who have to carry out every order unconditionally. You have a responsibility before God and Hitler for everything that is happening. I myself hate this bloody business and I have been moved to the depths of my soul. But I am obeying the highest law by doing my duty. Man must defend himself against bedbugs and rats-- against vermin.
-Heinrich Himmler, in a speech to the SS guards, (Hitler's Elite, Shocking Profiles of the Reich's Most Notorious Henchmen," Berkley Books, 1990)
(The mass murderer Himmler got brought up as a devout Catholic, like young Hitler, and was careful to attend mass regularly.)
Joseph Goebbels
The pious Catholic parents of Joseph Goebbels raised him and his two brothers in that faith. He spoke of Hitler as "either Christ or St. John." "Hitler, I love you!" he wrote in his diary.
”A Jew is for me an object of disgust. I feel like vomiting when I see one. Christ could not possibly have been a Jew. It is not necessary to prove that scientifically-- it is a fact.
”If the danger of the reproduction of that curse of God in the Jewish blood is finally to come to an end, then there is only one way-- the extermination of that people whose father is the devil...
-Julius Streicher paraphrasing John 8:44 as his justification for extermination (Trial of The Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945, Vol. 12)
”Only the Jews, he shouted, had remained victorious after the dreadful days of World War I. These were the people, he charged, of whom Christ said, "Its father is the devil."”
-Julius Streicher [See John 8:44, for Christ's accusation of father the devil], (Hitler's Elite, Shocking Profiles of the Reich's Most Notorious Henchmen," Berkley Books, 1990)
”Germans must fight Jews, that organized body of world criminals against whom Christ, the greatest anti-Semite of all time, had fought.”
-Julius Streicher (Hitler's Elite, Shocking Profiles of the Reich's Most Notorious Henchmen," Berkley Books, 1990)
During the Nuremberg trials, Streicher was asked about his participation in the Nuremberg Race laws of 1935. He responded:
”Yes, I believe I had a part in it insofar as for years I have written that any further mixture of German blood with Jewish blood must be avoided. I have written such articles again and again; and in my articles I have repeatedly emphasized the fact that the Jews should serve as an example to every race, for they created the racial law for themselves-- the law of Moses, which says, "If you come into a foreign land you shall not take unto yourself foreign women." And that, Gentlemen, is of tremendous importance in judging the Nuremberg Laws.. These laws of the Jews were taken as a model for these laws. When after centuries, the Jewish lawgiver Ezra demonstrated that notwithstanding many Jews had married non-Jewish women, these marriages were dissolved. That was the beginning of Jewry which, because it introduced these racial laws, has survived throughout the centuries, while all other races and civilizations have perished.”
-Julius Streicher, (Trial of The Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945, Vol. 12)
[Note, although Streicher had a part in the race laws, Hitler outlined his religious justification for the race laws in his private notes before he came into power.)
When asked if there were any other anti-Semitic publications, other than Der Stürmer, published in Germany, Streicher replied:
”Anti-Semitic publications have existed in Germany for centuries. A book I had, written by Dr. Martin Luther, was, for instance, confiscated. Dr. Martin Luther would very probably sit in my place in the defendants' dock today, if this book had been taken into consideration by the Prosecution. In this book The Jews and Their Lies, Dr. Martin Luther writes that the Jews are a serpent's brood and one should burn down their synagogues and destroy them...”
-Julius Streicher, (Trial of The Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945, Vol. 12)
Well, Greg…I could go on and on. It sounds to me like the Nazis were certainly Christians—from Hitler on down—and that they were assisted in their “theology” by the great biblical scholar, Dr. Martin Luther.
Why is it hard for you to admit the truth? Nobody identifies your form of Christianity with the most literal interpretation. Nobody here believes you are part of some White Supremacist Christian group. So why deny the obvious. The enmity between Christians and Jews has been written down through the centuries by pen and by sword. The record is stained in ink and in blood. Why deny what is obvious history?
What do you wish to tell us? That hatred of Jews has nothing to do with the bible or Christianity? That it is a biological or genetic trait? That the passion stirred up by the recent movie of Christ was all about the fear that the movie would tweak some genetic virus? That the passionate appeal to biblical texts by the Nazis was to further a genetic hate? And it was not because they were passionate about their beliefs? That Luther was not passionate or sincere in his beliefs? Come on, Greg. Don’t be absurd!
”Hitller’s actions were inconsistent with biblical morality, but perfectly consistent with yours”
What a despicable and ignorant little rat you are. You can’t even converse without throwing in vicious lies and insults. You remind me of Luther. You know very well (and I have stated it here 10,000 times) that I believe in freedom and the pursuit of happiness and equality amongst all people irrespective of race, color, or creed. You disgust me.
"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means." |
