I was watching the above video in which at 35:45 minutes the following question was asked:
“Was Luther guilty of anti-Semitism?”
To this Stephen Nichols gives the following reply:
“You know, this is a question you hear a lot, and I think we have got to look at the broad context to Luther, and then we need to say that we need to understand him in that context, but we also need to not give him a free pass. So the first thing that we see in Luther is, his initial writings to the Jewish people are very favorable. He actually is counter-cultural in that, and he goes against the current consensus, and actually favors a good treatment towards the Jews.”
That was very kind of him, I am sure! While it is true that initially he appeared to be favorably disposed towards the Jews, it was not without ulterior motives; and it didn’t last very long. When he discovered that he could not get what he wanted from them, he soon turned against them, became more anti-Semitic than people generally were at the time, and got worse and worse as time went by until his death (as the quotes below will demonstrate). His anti-Semitism was in the extreme. It was murderous and criminal.
His initial support for the Jews was not so much “counter-cultural” as it was counter-Catholic. That was his way of finding something else on which to disagree with the Catholic Church—in the hope that the Jews in turn would return the favor and support his false theology. But when he discovered that they didn’t, he turned against them, and became more vicious, venomous, and hateful in his anti-Semitism than the Catholic Church had ever been. Stephen then continues:
His initial support for the Jews was not so much “counter-cultural” as it was counter-Catholic. That was his way of finding something else on which to disagree with the Catholic Church—in the hope that the Jews in turn would return the favor and support his false theology. But when he discovered that they didn’t, he turned against them, and became more vicious, venomous, and hateful in his anti-Semitism than the Catholic Church had ever been. Stephen then continues:
“And as the Reformation went on and a few years went on, Luther fully thought that that good treatment towards the Jews would result in their paying attention to the gospel and coming to Christ, and he was not seeing that happen; and he began to question that perhaps he was too easy on them in his initial writings, and should have pressed more in order for them to be more aware, and perhaps be challenged, and then come after the gospel.”
LOL! He advocated murdering the Jews, burning down their homes, confiscating their goods, putting them in concentration camps, and driving them out of the country. He was not out to do them any favors. “Join my (false) religion or die” is not God’s way of converting people. Stephen then continues:
“So his early writings are very favorable. He begins to think through this though in his later writings; and the writing that really trips Luther up is his On the Jews and Their Detestable Lies; and it is in that writing that Luther unleashes his rhetoric against the Jews, and is very forceful in his rhetoric.”
That is painting a very rosy picture of it. It was more than just rhetoric. He advocated a murderous persecution of the Jews, which was carried out by his followers both in his lifetime as well as after his death. There is a direct link between Luther and the Nazi persecution of the Jews. The following quotes are taken from an article in Wikipedia titled: “Martin Luther and antisemitism”. (The article includes links to other articles in Wikipedia that provide more information on Luther’s writings.)
“In a paragraph from his On the Jews and Their Lies he deplores Christendom’s failure to expel them. Moreover he proposed ‘What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews:’
- ‘First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools … This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians …’
- ‘Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed.’
- ‘Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.’
- ‘Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb …’
- ‘Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside …’
- ‘Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them …’
- ‘Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow … But if we are afraid that they might harm us or our wives, children, servants, cattle, etc., … then let us emulate the common sense of other nations such as France, Spain, Bohemia, etc., … then eject them forever from the country …’”
• • •
“Luther successfully campaigned against the Jews in Saxony, Brandenburg, and Silesia. In August 1536 Luther’s prince, Elector of Saxony John Frederick, issued a mandate that prohibited Jews from inhabiting, engaging in business in, or passing through his realm. An Alsatian shtadlan, Rabbi Josel of Rosheim, asked a reformer Wolfgang Capito to approach Luther in order to obtain an audience with the prince, but Luther refused every intercession. In response to Josel, Luther referred to his unsuccessful attempts to convert the Jews: ‘… I would willingly do my best for your people, but I will not contribute to your [Jewish] obstinacy by my own kind actions. You must find another intermediary with my good lord.’ Heiko Oberman notes this event as significant in Luther’s attitude toward the Jews: ‘Even today, this refusal is often judged to be the decisive turning point in Luther’s career from friendliness to hostility toward the Jews.’
“Josel of Rosheim, who tried to help the Jews of Saxony, wrote in his memoir that their situation was ‘due to that priest whose name was Martin Luther—may his body and soul be bound up in hell!!—who wrote and issued many heretical books in which he said that whoever would help the Jews was doomed to perdition.’ Robert Michael, Professor Emeritus of European History at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, writes that Josel asked the city of Strasbourg to forbid the sale of Luther’s anti-Jewish works; they refused initially, but relented when a Lutheran pastor in Hochfelden argued in a sermon that his parishioners should murder Jews.”
• • •
“Luther’s main works on the Jews were his 65,000-word treatise Von den Juden und Ihren Lügen (On the Jews and Their Lies) and Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi (Of the Unknowable Name and the Generations of Christ)—reprinted five times within his lifetime—both written in 1543, three years before his death. It is believed that Luther was influenced by Anton Margaritha’s book Der gantze Jüdisch Glaub (The Whole Jewish Belief). Margaritha, a convert to Christianity who had become a Lutheran, published his antisemitic book in 1530 which was read by Luther in 1539. In 1539, Luther got his hands on the book and immediately fell in love with it. ‘The materials provided in this book confirmed for Luther that the Jews in their blindness wanted nothing to do with faith and justification through faith.’ Margaritha’s book was decisively discredited by Josel of Rosheim in a public debate in 1530 before Charles V and his court, resulting in Margaritha’s expulsion from the Empire.”
• • •
“In 1543 Luther published On the Jews and Their Lies in which he says that 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 feces … which they wallow in like swine.’ The synagogue was a ‘defiled bride, yes, an incorrigible whore and an evil slut …’ He argues that their synagogues and schools be set on fire, their prayer books destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, homes razed, and property and money confiscated. They should be shown no mercy or kindness, afforded no legal protection, and these ‘poisonous envenomed worms’ should be drafted into forced labor or expelled for all time. He also seems to advocate their murder, writing ‘[w]e are at fault in not slaying them’. Luther claims that Jewish history was ‘assailed by much heresy’, and that Christ swept away the Jewish heresy and goes on to do so, ‘as it still does daily before our eyes.’ He stigmatizes Jewish Prayer as being ‘blasphemous’ (sic) and a lie, and vilifies Jews in general as being spiritually ‘blind’ and ‘surely possessed by all devils.’ Luther has a special spiritual problem with Jewish circumcision. The full context in which Martin Luther advocated that Jews be slain in On the Jews and Their Lies is as follows, in Luther’s own words:
‘There is no other explanation for this than the one cited earlier from Moses—namely, that God has struck [the Jews] with ‘madness and blindness and confusion of mind’ [Deuteronomy 28:28]. So we are even at fault in not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and of the Christians which they shed for three hundred years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the blood of the children they have shed since then (which still shines forth from their eyes and their skin). We are at fault in not slaying them.’”
• • •
“Shortly before his death on February 18, 1546 Luther preached four sermons in Eisleben. He appended to the second to the last what he called his ‘final warning’ against the Jews. The main point of this short work is that authorities who could expel the Jews from their lands should do so if they would not convert to Christianity. Otherwise, Luther indicated, such authorities would make themselves ‘partners in another’s sins’.”
• • •
“In 1543 Luther’s Prince, John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony, revoked some of the concessions he gave to Josel of Rosheim in 1539. Luther’s influence persisted after his death. John of Brandenburg-Küstrin, Margrave of the New March, repealed the safe conduct of Jews in his territories. Philip of Hesse added restrictions to his Order Concerning the Jews. Luther’s followers sacked the synagogue of Berlin in 1572, and in the following year the Jews were driven out of the entire Margravate of Brandenburg. In the 1580s riots led to expulsion of Jews from several German Lutheran states.
“Nevertheless, no ruler enacted all of Luther’s anti-Jewish recommendations.
“According to Michael, Luther’s work acquired the status of Scripture within Germany, and he became the most widely read author of his generation, in part because of the coarse and passionate nature of the writing. In the 1570s Pastor Georg Nigrinus published Enemy Jew, which reiterated Luther’s program in On the Jews and Their Lies, and Nikolaus Selnecker, one of the authors of the Formula of Concord, reprinted Luther’s Against the Sabbatarians, On the Jews and Their Lies, and Vom Schem Hamphoras.
“Luther’s treatises against the Jews were reprinted again early in the 17th century at Dortmund, where they were seized by the Emperor. In 1613 and 1617 they were published in Frankfurt am Main in support of the banishment of Jews from Frankfurt and Worms. Vincenz Fettmilch, a Calvinist, reprinted On the Jews and Their Lies in 1612 to stir up hatred against the Jews of Frankfurt. Two years later, riots in Frankfurt saw the deaths of 3,000 Jews and the expulsion of the rest. Fettmilch was executed by the Lutheran city authorities, but Michael writes that his execution was for attempting to overthrow the authorities, not for his offenses against the Jews.
“These reprints were the last popular publication of these works until they were revived in the 20th century.”
If this is not anti-Semitism, I don’t know what else it is. Stephen Nicholas then continues his comments as follows:
“Now, we need to say that he was an equal opportunity offender. It wasn’t just … that rhetoric was not just reserved for the Jews. He used the same rhetoric for the Papists, for the Anabaptists, for the nominal Christians that he used for the Jews; but he was wrong. He spoke harshly, and I think he abused his influence that he had in speaking harshly, and so we need to say that Luther was wrong in that. But this isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism.”
That is exactly what it is—anti-Semitism! Calling his language “harsh” is the understatement of the year. He advocated the murder and persecution of the Jews, which was carried out by his supporters in his lifetime as well as after his death, culminating in the Nazi persecution and the Holocaust. They were carrying out Luther’s instructions. And two wrongs don’t make one right. Luther’s anti- anything else does not make his anti-Semitism a less serious offence. Luther was anti-Semitic by any stretch of the imagination—no matter how much you try to sugarcoat it or make it sound palatable. Stephen Nicholas then continues his comments as follows:
“That [anti-Semitism] is really a twentieth century phenomenon, and what Luther was interested [in] is really following the lead of the Apostle Paul, and following the lead of the New Testament. He saw this as a betrayal of Christ, as a betrayal of the gospel, as a failure to recognize Jesus’ coming as the Messiah, and so it was not an ethnic motivation that prompted Luther to this; it was a theological one.”
LOL! That is a joke. That is a travesty of the gospel ethics exemplified by Paul, Jesus, or the New Testament. That is not how Jesus and Paul tried to convert people. You don’t convert people by persecution, murder, hatred, using abusive language, or inciting to violence. You don’t “love” people on condition that they convert, otherwise hate, persecute, and murder them when they don’t. Nowhere in the Bible is such a practice condoned. That is not how the Christians tried to convert the Romans! They would not have stood a chance if they had tried it that way. They were persecuted and reviled; they were not the persecutors and revilers. Paul’s way of converting people was like this:
1 Corinthians 4:
11 Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place;
12 And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it:
13 Being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.
2 Corinthians 6:
3 Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed:
4 But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses,
5 In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings;
6 By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,
Luther was the antithesis of all of that. He was a bully. The reason why he took the stance against the Jew as he did, was because he knew he could get away with it. The Jews were a powerless, defenceless, persecuted minority whom he knew he could abuse with impunity and get away with. The Apostles’ way was different:
Galatians 5:
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
Colossians 3:
11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.
12 Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
Luther was the opposite of that in every respect. Whether you hate the Jews because of their ethnicity or because of their religion, that is still anti-Semitism. He hated the Jews because they were Jews. You convert people by loving them, not by hating and inciting violence against them. “Gospel love” is not conditional on people’s conversation. That is not the Bible’s way of converting people. Stephen Nicholas then concludes his comments as follows:
“So the answer to this is, we need to understand him in his context, but we should not give him a free pass; and we need to recognize that he has legs of iron, but feet of clay; and in this … this is one of those instances where his feet of clay do in fact come through.”
There is no “context” that can justify Luther’s anti-Semitism, or portray it as anything other than what it is. Luther should be identified for what he is: a false teacher and a heretic. He was anything but a true servant of God, and exemplified none of the essential characteristics, such as humility, meekness, patience, or love. Paul wished that he himself would be damned if it could bring about the conversion of his fellow kinsmen, the Jews (Rom. 9:3). He did not try to convert them Luther’s way! Luther was anti-Semitic without a question.
The whole of Christian Europe was anti-Semitic at that time, and persecution of the Jews was common. The Crusades were as much an act of violence against the Jews as they were against the Muslims. Luther became more anti-Semitic than the rest, got worse and worse as time went by, and never softened his stance or changed his mind. He was more anti-Semitic on the day he died than he had been the day before.
When the Nazis persecuted the Jews, they were carrying out Luther’s recommendations. The Nazis did not persecute the Jews out of nowhere. The initial seeds were sown by Luther and his supporters. He lit the fuse that caused it to happen. The following is an unabridged copy of an article by Cecil Adams, published in Washington City Paper in December 21, 2016. The article is in response to the question: “Did Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant Reformation, instigate the Holocaust with his anti-Jewish writings, including his infamous On the Jews and Their Lies?” The article is titled: “Does Martin Luther Bear Some Responsibility For The Holocaust?” and is as follows (punctuation slightly revised):
“Did Martin Luther instigate the Holocaust? Call me a traditionalist, but I figure that accomplishment can stay on Hitler’s rap sheet. What we can safely say, though, is that (a) yes, the father of the Reformation did express starkly anti-Semitic sentiments in print and at great length. In the treatise you name, he explicitly advocates the persecution of German Jews, saying at one point, ‘We are at fault in not slaying them’. And (b) the Nazis couldn’t get enough of it. Luther hardly invented anti-Semitism; but as a towering presence in German culture, he proved very useful in legitimizing the aims of the Third Reich.
“Always opposed to the practice of Judaism, he couldn’t understand why anyone would take a pass on the Christian promise of salvation. Luther initially adopted a honey-not-vinegar approach toward its adherents. His 1523 treatise, That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, condemned the Catholic Church for its mistreatment of Jews—not for humanitarian reasons, mind you, but because he felt it made Jews less likely to convert. On the basis of this position, a Jewish advocate solicited Luther’s aid in 1537 after Jews had been banned from the state of Saxony. Luther, by this time seemingly enraged at the failure of his conversion efforts, vehemently refused to intercede.
“Luther’s anti-Semitism reached full boil with the 1543 publication of On the Jews and Their Lies—basically a 65,000-word blast of what nowadays we’d call hate speech. After roundly condemning Jews as prideful, deceitful, indolent blasphemers, ‘possessed by all devils,’ Luther sets forth a program of action: he calls for the burning of synagogues; forbidding rabbis from teaching; banning Jews from owning homes; denying them legal protection; confiscating their texts and money; and setting them to manual labor. This diatribe wasn’t a one-off, as Luther followed it up with further, equally combative treatises and a later series of anti-Semitic sermons before his death in 1546. And its arguments weren’t ineffective—a reprint helped stir up a Frankfurt pogrom in 1614.
“In his classic, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer argues that here Luther had basically drafted the blueprints for the Holocaust, concluding that his ‘advice was literally followed.’ We have no proof the young Hitler was aware of Luther’s anti-Semitic writings (the strongest stuff had been omitted from some editions of Luther’s collected work), or that they had a formative effect on his thinking; thus we can’t draw a direct line from Luther to Hitler to the Holocaust.
“However, it’s broadly true that Luther contributed to the culture of anti-Semitism that was especially virulent in Germany (although hardly unknown elsewhere—for example in Russia, where Luther had no comparable influence). And by the 1930s at least, the Nazis were well aware of Luther’s anti-Semitic work and used it to justify their actions. On the Jews and Their Lies was displayed prominently in a glass case during the Nuremberg rallies, and Nazi bigwigs regularly cited Luther as a kindred spirit. ‘No judgment could be sharper,’ Heinrich Himmler said of Luther’s writings against the Jews; ‘With Luther,’ according to Hans Hinkel of the Reich’s Propaganda Ministry, ‘the revolution of German blood and feeling against alien elements of the Volk was begun.’ Bishop Martin Sasse, prominent in the pro-Nazi German Christian movement, published a collection of Luther’s anti-Semitic writings, noting with satisfaction in its preface that ‘on November 10, 1938, on Luther’s birthday, the synagogues are burning in Germany,’ and calling Luther ‘the greatest anti-Semite of his time.’ Nazi newspaper publisher Julius Streicher, who had received a first edition of On the Jews and Their Lies from the people of Nuremberg as a birthday present, referred to that work in his own defense while on trial in the same city after the war: ‘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.’
“Luther’s defenders emphasize that his prejudice against Jews was theological, rooted in their refusal to embrace Christianity, rather than strictly racist. But the relentless vigor with which he hammers away at ‘these base children of the devil, this brood of vipers,’ suggests more than a purely doctrinal bone to pick. As noted Lutheran scholar Eric Gritsch pointed out, Luther’s description of how Jews’ collective guilt for their supposed sins ‘still shines forth from their eyes and their skin’ certainly implies some racial component to his animus.
“In Luther’s example, Shirer suggests, Hitler found a traditional justification for not just anti-Jewish policy, but also for authoritarian rule; he contends that Luther’s own ‘passion for political autocracy ensured a mindless and provincial political absolutism’ in German society. The Nazis organized Luther Day celebrations, calling Luther ‘the first German spiritual Führer,’ and enlisted his teachings to support the idea that German exceptionalism and anti-Semitism were inseparable. We have no reason to think Luther would have approved of the Holocaust. But—and this is always the danger with rabble-rousers—he set his followers on the path.—Cecil Adams”
An intelligent search on Google for the connection between Luther and the Nazi persecution of the Jews or the Holocaust will yield much useful information that confirms that connection. As Cecil Adams has noted, it is unlikely that Luther himself would have approved of the Holocaust (although given the vicious, relentless, and unrestrained nature of his attacks, especially towards the end of his life, makes one wonder about that too); but he lit the fuse that led to it.
The persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany did not occur in a vacuum. The reason why the Nazis were able to do as they did, and get away with it, was because a strong culture of anti-Semitism already existed in German society at that time which made it possible. And the chief architect of that culture of anti-Semitism in German society at that time had been Martin Luther. He was the one chiefly responsible for creating the cultural environment which made that persecution possible. He laid the egg that Hitler hatched.
Interestingly, the Book of Mormon also has something to say about the persecution of the Jews among the Gentiles:
2 Nephi 29:
5 O ye Gentiles, have ye remembered the Jews, mine ancient covenant people? Nay; but ye have cursed them, and have hated them, and have not sought to recover them. But behold, I will return all these things upon your own heads; for I the Lord have not forgotten my people.
Indeed, one of the purposes of the Book of Mormon is to bring about the gathering of the scattered remnants of the house of Israel, and their restoration to the lands of their inheritance in fulfillment of the covenant God made with their fathers:
2 Nephi 29:
1 But behold, there shall be many—at that day when I shall proceed to do a marvelous work among them, that I may remember my covenants which I have made unto the children of men, that I may set my hand again the second time to recover my people, which are of the house of Israel;
• • •
14 And it shall come to pass that my people, which are of the house of Israel, shall be gathered home unto the lands of their possessions; and my word also shall be gathered in one. And I will show unto them that fight against my word and against my people, who are of the house of Israel, that I am God, and that I covenanted with Abraham that I would remember his seed forever.
The “marvelous work” mentioned in verse one refers to the Book of Mormon.
3 Nephi 29:
7 Yea, and wo unto him that shall say at that day to get gain, that there can be no miracle wrought by Jesus Christ; for he that doeth this shall become like unto the son of perdition, for whom there was no mercy, according to the word of Christ.
8 Yea, and ye need not any longer hiss, nor spurn, nor make game of the Jews, nor any of the remnant of the house of Israel; for behold, the Lord remembereth his covenant unto them, and he will do unto them according to that which he hath sworn.
9 Therefore ye need not suppose that ye can turn the right hand of the Lord unto the left, that he may not execute judgment unto the fulfilling of the covenant which he hath made unto the house of Israel.
Mormon 5:
14 And behold, they [the words of the Book of Mormon] shall go unto the unbelieving of the Jews; and for this intent shall they go—that they may be persuaded that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God; that the Father may bring about, through his most Beloved, his great and eternal purpose in restoring the Jews, or all the house of Israel, to the land of their inheritance, which the Lord their God hath given them, unto the fulfilling of his covenant;
See also Romans 11:25–26. Luther was not an inspired servant of God, and should be rightly identified as such. He was a heretic, like the many others who had gone before him. “Faith alone” is a heresy. It is a doctrine of the devil. It is not inspired of God, and it is not supported by the Bible.
The whole of Christian Europe was anti-Semitic at that time, and persecution of the Jews was common. The Crusades were as much an act of violence against the Jews as they were against the Muslims. Luther became more anti-Semitic than the rest, got worse and worse as time went by, and never softened his stance or changed his mind. He was more anti-Semitic on the day he died than he had been the day before.
When the Nazis persecuted the Jews, they were carrying out Luther’s recommendations. The Nazis did not persecute the Jews out of nowhere. The initial seeds were sown by Luther and his supporters. He lit the fuse that caused it to happen. The following is an unabridged copy of an article by Cecil Adams, published in Washington City Paper in December 21, 2016. The article is in response to the question: “Did Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant Reformation, instigate the Holocaust with his anti-Jewish writings, including his infamous On the Jews and Their Lies?” The article is titled: “Does Martin Luther Bear Some Responsibility For The Holocaust?” and is as follows (punctuation slightly revised):
“Did Martin Luther instigate the Holocaust? Call me a traditionalist, but I figure that accomplishment can stay on Hitler’s rap sheet. What we can safely say, though, is that (a) yes, the father of the Reformation did express starkly anti-Semitic sentiments in print and at great length. In the treatise you name, he explicitly advocates the persecution of German Jews, saying at one point, ‘We are at fault in not slaying them’. And (b) the Nazis couldn’t get enough of it. Luther hardly invented anti-Semitism; but as a towering presence in German culture, he proved very useful in legitimizing the aims of the Third Reich.
“Always opposed to the practice of Judaism, he couldn’t understand why anyone would take a pass on the Christian promise of salvation. Luther initially adopted a honey-not-vinegar approach toward its adherents. His 1523 treatise, That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, condemned the Catholic Church for its mistreatment of Jews—not for humanitarian reasons, mind you, but because he felt it made Jews less likely to convert. On the basis of this position, a Jewish advocate solicited Luther’s aid in 1537 after Jews had been banned from the state of Saxony. Luther, by this time seemingly enraged at the failure of his conversion efforts, vehemently refused to intercede.
“Luther’s anti-Semitism reached full boil with the 1543 publication of On the Jews and Their Lies—basically a 65,000-word blast of what nowadays we’d call hate speech. After roundly condemning Jews as prideful, deceitful, indolent blasphemers, ‘possessed by all devils,’ Luther sets forth a program of action: he calls for the burning of synagogues; forbidding rabbis from teaching; banning Jews from owning homes; denying them legal protection; confiscating their texts and money; and setting them to manual labor. This diatribe wasn’t a one-off, as Luther followed it up with further, equally combative treatises and a later series of anti-Semitic sermons before his death in 1546. And its arguments weren’t ineffective—a reprint helped stir up a Frankfurt pogrom in 1614.
“In his classic, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer argues that here Luther had basically drafted the blueprints for the Holocaust, concluding that his ‘advice was literally followed.’ We have no proof the young Hitler was aware of Luther’s anti-Semitic writings (the strongest stuff had been omitted from some editions of Luther’s collected work), or that they had a formative effect on his thinking; thus we can’t draw a direct line from Luther to Hitler to the Holocaust.
“However, it’s broadly true that Luther contributed to the culture of anti-Semitism that was especially virulent in Germany (although hardly unknown elsewhere—for example in Russia, where Luther had no comparable influence). And by the 1930s at least, the Nazis were well aware of Luther’s anti-Semitic work and used it to justify their actions. On the Jews and Their Lies was displayed prominently in a glass case during the Nuremberg rallies, and Nazi bigwigs regularly cited Luther as a kindred spirit. ‘No judgment could be sharper,’ Heinrich Himmler said of Luther’s writings against the Jews; ‘With Luther,’ according to Hans Hinkel of the Reich’s Propaganda Ministry, ‘the revolution of German blood and feeling against alien elements of the Volk was begun.’ Bishop Martin Sasse, prominent in the pro-Nazi German Christian movement, published a collection of Luther’s anti-Semitic writings, noting with satisfaction in its preface that ‘on November 10, 1938, on Luther’s birthday, the synagogues are burning in Germany,’ and calling Luther ‘the greatest anti-Semite of his time.’ Nazi newspaper publisher Julius Streicher, who had received a first edition of On the Jews and Their Lies from the people of Nuremberg as a birthday present, referred to that work in his own defense while on trial in the same city after the war: ‘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.’
“Luther’s defenders emphasize that his prejudice against Jews was theological, rooted in their refusal to embrace Christianity, rather than strictly racist. But the relentless vigor with which he hammers away at ‘these base children of the devil, this brood of vipers,’ suggests more than a purely doctrinal bone to pick. As noted Lutheran scholar Eric Gritsch pointed out, Luther’s description of how Jews’ collective guilt for their supposed sins ‘still shines forth from their eyes and their skin’ certainly implies some racial component to his animus.
“In Luther’s example, Shirer suggests, Hitler found a traditional justification for not just anti-Jewish policy, but also for authoritarian rule; he contends that Luther’s own ‘passion for political autocracy ensured a mindless and provincial political absolutism’ in German society. The Nazis organized Luther Day celebrations, calling Luther ‘the first German spiritual Führer,’ and enlisted his teachings to support the idea that German exceptionalism and anti-Semitism were inseparable. We have no reason to think Luther would have approved of the Holocaust. But—and this is always the danger with rabble-rousers—he set his followers on the path.—Cecil Adams”
An intelligent search on Google for the connection between Luther and the Nazi persecution of the Jews or the Holocaust will yield much useful information that confirms that connection. As Cecil Adams has noted, it is unlikely that Luther himself would have approved of the Holocaust (although given the vicious, relentless, and unrestrained nature of his attacks, especially towards the end of his life, makes one wonder about that too); but he lit the fuse that led to it.
The persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany did not occur in a vacuum. The reason why the Nazis were able to do as they did, and get away with it, was because a strong culture of anti-Semitism already existed in German society at that time which made it possible. And the chief architect of that culture of anti-Semitism in German society at that time had been Martin Luther. He was the one chiefly responsible for creating the cultural environment which made that persecution possible. He laid the egg that Hitler hatched.
Interestingly, the Book of Mormon also has something to say about the persecution of the Jews among the Gentiles:
2 Nephi 29:
5 O ye Gentiles, have ye remembered the Jews, mine ancient covenant people? Nay; but ye have cursed them, and have hated them, and have not sought to recover them. But behold, I will return all these things upon your own heads; for I the Lord have not forgotten my people.
Indeed, one of the purposes of the Book of Mormon is to bring about the gathering of the scattered remnants of the house of Israel, and their restoration to the lands of their inheritance in fulfillment of the covenant God made with their fathers:
2 Nephi 29:
1 But behold, there shall be many—at that day when I shall proceed to do a marvelous work among them, that I may remember my covenants which I have made unto the children of men, that I may set my hand again the second time to recover my people, which are of the house of Israel;
• • •
14 And it shall come to pass that my people, which are of the house of Israel, shall be gathered home unto the lands of their possessions; and my word also shall be gathered in one. And I will show unto them that fight against my word and against my people, who are of the house of Israel, that I am God, and that I covenanted with Abraham that I would remember his seed forever.
The “marvelous work” mentioned in verse one refers to the Book of Mormon.
3 Nephi 29:
7 Yea, and wo unto him that shall say at that day to get gain, that there can be no miracle wrought by Jesus Christ; for he that doeth this shall become like unto the son of perdition, for whom there was no mercy, according to the word of Christ.
8 Yea, and ye need not any longer hiss, nor spurn, nor make game of the Jews, nor any of the remnant of the house of Israel; for behold, the Lord remembereth his covenant unto them, and he will do unto them according to that which he hath sworn.
9 Therefore ye need not suppose that ye can turn the right hand of the Lord unto the left, that he may not execute judgment unto the fulfilling of the covenant which he hath made unto the house of Israel.
Mormon 5:
14 And behold, they [the words of the Book of Mormon] shall go unto the unbelieving of the Jews; and for this intent shall they go—that they may be persuaded that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God; that the Father may bring about, through his most Beloved, his great and eternal purpose in restoring the Jews, or all the house of Israel, to the land of their inheritance, which the Lord their God hath given them, unto the fulfilling of his covenant;
See also Romans 11:25–26. Luther was not an inspired servant of God, and should be rightly identified as such. He was a heretic, like the many others who had gone before him. “Faith alone” is a heresy. It is a doctrine of the devil. It is not inspired of God, and it is not supported by the Bible.
It might be worth mentioning that the Jews during the Middle Ages and after, received far better treatment among the Muslims and in the Islamic territories than among the Christians in Europe. Many Jews who suffered persecution at the hands of Christians fled to and found refuge among the Muslims. Jews who had special gifts, talents, or skills rose to prominence among Muslims, and received accolades from kings and rulers, and rose to high positions in the courts of kings. Maimonides is a particularly interesting example. After this Robert Godfrey adds the following comment:
“Just to add one little thing. That is exactly right. But the one little thing that should be added is, Luther all his life longed that Jews should be converted and join the church. Hitler never wanted Jews to join the Nazi party. That is the difference between anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish. Luther wasn’t opposed to the Jews because of their blood. He was opposed to the Jews because of their religion, and he wanted them to join the Christian church.”
How very kind of Luther! Join my (false) religion or be murdered! I am sure the Jews appreciated that kindness very much. Godfrey then continues:
“If you are really anti-Semitic, you are against Jews because of their blood, and there is nothing Jews can do about that. There is no change they can make to make a difference. You are absolutely right. Luther’s language should not be defended by us because it is violent against the Jews; but it was not against an ethnic people, as you said, but against a religion that he reacted so sharply.”
Whether you are against the Jews because of their race or religion, that still counts as anti-Semitism. Anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic amounts to the same thing. Religion is a matter of personal choice, and a fundamental human right. One of the essential civil liberties enshrined in the US Constitution is the freedom of religion. You don’t hate, persecute, or discriminate against people because of their religion. You don’t force people to change their religion against their will. You don’t murder, persecute, burn their homes, or drive them out of town because they don’t want your religion. That is what the Romans did to the early Christians. How was Luther any different? Jesus said, “by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matt. 7:15–20). Luther did not manifest the fruits of a true follower or disciple of Jesus Christ. He was a heretic, a false teacher, and should be exposed as such.
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