Why I Am a Lutheran: Jesus at the Center
by Daniel Preus
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Book Summary Information
Author: Daniel PreusEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2004-07
ISBN: 0758605145
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Concordia Publishing House
Book Reviews of Why I Am a Lutheran: Jesus at the Center
Book Review: how is this book possible?
Summary: 1 Stars
Elsewhere, I have published a few sportful book reviews poking fun at the Almighty, but here I am in dead earnest.
I want to know: How is it possible--after 500 years of Lutheranism, culminating in the Holocaust--how is it still possible for any thoughtful human being to utter the words, "I am a Lutheran"? or even to say: "I am a Lutheran but disagree with some of his teachings"? That is like saying, "I am a Hitlerite but don't buy the entire package."
Have these folks never read Luther's writings? Without Martin Luther, and nearly five centuries of Lutheranism, the Nazi Holocaust would not have been possible. Adolf Hitler himself, in his oratory and writings, spat out less hatred, less often, for the Jews than Martin Luther on his calmest day of the week.
But Luther didn't just recommend exterminating the Jews. He also spewed his poison on women, homosexuals, Africans, Roman Catholics, hungry peasants, and on anyone else who was different from himself.
"Lutheran" churches and organizations have done some good things in recent years, feeding the hungry, lending shelter and food to the homeless. It's the least they could do. But "Lutheran" is a word that we ought to abolish from the English vocabulary except as an accurate epithet for followers of Luther, such as the middle-class surburban evangelical Lutherans who manned the Nazi death camps.
--L (the L does NOT stand for "Luther")
A few examples follow below (cf. Luther's teachings on women, homosexuals, the hungry peasantry, Roman Catholics, Africans, and Muslims, to name a few of his favourite topics.
MARTIN LUTHER ON RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE:
"I have felt much freer since I became certain that the Pope is the Antichrist."
[The Jews] "are a base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth. [...] They are full of the Devil's f e c e s ... which the Jews wallow in, like swine.
The breath of a Jew stinks for the gold and silver of the heathen; since no people under the sun always have been, still are, and always will remain, more avaricious than the Jews--as can be exhibited in their cursed usury. Therefore know, my dear Christians, that next to the Devil, you have no more bitter, more poisonous, more vehement enemy than a real Jew who earnestly desires to be a Jew...I advise that all their prayer books... in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them... that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of mutilation and death... that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews... that all their treasure of silver and gold be taken from them... But if the authorities are reluctant to use force and restrain the Jews' devilish wantonness, then must we expel the Jews from their country and tell them to return to ... Jerusalem where they may lie, curse, blaspheme, defame, murder, steal, rob, practice usury, mock, and indulge in all those infamous abominations which they practice among us; let the Jews leave ... our Lord the Messiah, our faith, and our church undefiled and uncontaminated with their devilish tyranny and malice." ("On the Jews and their Lies," 1543, cited by the Nazis as an argument for the Holocaust)
-- "What shall we do with...the Jews?...set fire to their synagogues or schools, and bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. ... What shall we do with...the Jews?...their homes also should be razed and destroyed. ... What shall we do with...the Jews?...I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews."
-- "What then shall we Christians do with this d----d, rejected race of Jews?
First, their synagogues should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it. And this ought to be done for the honour of God and of Christianity, in order that God may see that we are true Christians.
-- Secondly, their homes should be likewise broken down and destroyed.
--Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayerbooks and talmuds in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught.
--Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threats of death to teach anymore."
- Martin Luther
"If I find a Jew to baptize, I shall lead him to the Elbe bridge, hang a stone around his neck, and push him into the water, baptizing him with the name of Abraham!... I cannot convert the Jews--our Lord Christ did not succeed in doing so. But I can close their mouths so that there will be nothing for them to do but to lie upon the ground."
- Martin Luther
"I hope I shall never be so stupid as to be circumcised; I would rather cut off the left breast of my Catherine and of all women." --- Martin Luther
"If we are to remain unsullied by the blasphemy of the Jews and not wish to take part in it, we must be separated from them and they must be driven out of the country." - Martin Luther
"We are at fault for not slaughtering them."
--Martin Luther
=====================
"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." --Steven Weinberg
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