Kelleigh Nelson continues her scholarly series “The Toxic Fruit of Reformed Theology”. Today she targets Martin Luther. This is a series that is very instructive for so many in the Church who are muddled about this very important subject, which is so rarely taught.

Gibber! Gibber!

Chugley

THE TOXIC FRUIT OF REFORMED THEOLOGY

PART FOUR

THEOLOGICAL BUTCHERS

MARTIN LUTHER

Kelleigh Nelson

I have experienced His presence in the deepest hell that man can create. I have really tested the promises of the Bible, and believe me, you can count on them.  Corrie Ten Boom

But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.  Isaiah 43:1

True freedom requires the rule of law and justice, and a judicial system in which the rights of some are not secured by the denial of rights to others. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

For centuries, the Church, in conceit, arrogance and ignorance, has claimed that she alone was the true Israel, that she had replaced the ancient covenant people.  (They certainly didn’t claim to be Jewish during the Holocaust!)  The Church taught emphatically that the physical people of Israel were eternally rejected.  This belief is still in effect and is even growing, and it’s a lie from the very pit of hell.  

The foundational Abrahamic Covenant (Gen. 12:1-3) establishes a biblical mandate for the world’s relationship with Israel and the Jewish people. We cannot and must not ignore it.

Psalm 105 has the answers to God’s promise to Abraham and his descendants and how long those promises are good.  The Lord says, “He remembers His covenant forever, the word He commanded for a thousand generations, the covenant He made with Abraham, the oath he swore to Isaac.  He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant: ‘To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit.’”  (Psalm 105:8-11)

The Scriptures speak of God’s covenant, the word He commanded, His oath which He confirmed as a decree forever, for a thousand generations, as an everlasting covenant.  The Lord is trying to make a point!

Not only did He promise to bless Abraham and make him into a great nation; not only did He promise to multiply his seed; not only did he promise to bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him; He also promised Abraham the land of Canaan, with clearly defined borders, as an everlasting inheritance to his natural descendants until this earth is no more!

The only time the New Testament speaks of the Jewish people being exiled to the nations is the same passage that speaks of this only being the case “until” at which point the exile would end and Jerusalem would be restored.  This is clear in Luke 21:24.  Then, when God would have mercy, His people would return and Jerusalem would be restored.  

Here is what the great British preacher Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones had to say about the passage in Luke:

“To me 1967, the year that the Jews occupied all of Jerusalem, was very crucial.  Luke 21:43 is one of the most significant prophetic verses: “Jerusalem,” it reads, shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”  It seems to me that that took place in 1967, something crucially important that had not occurred in 2,000 years.  Luke 21:43 is one fixed point.  But I am equally impressed by Romans 11 which speaks of a great spiritual return among the Jews before the end time.  While this seems to be developing, even something even more spectacular may be indicated.  We sometimes tend to foreshorten events, yet I have the feeling that we are in the period of the end…I think we are witnessing the breakdown of politics.  I think even the world is seeing that.  Civilization is collapsing”.

As far as Luther and Calvin are concerned, I truly do not wish to print what these men wrote, what they preached, and what they taught to their congregants.  The filth spewed from their mouths and pens is a pernicious evil and was a blueprint for what happened during the Shoah.  Their words are such heresy that their wickedness disturbs the heart and soul.

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was born in 1483 in Eisleben, Germany and died there in 1546.  He was a German priest, theologian, hymn writer, professor, Augustinian friar and member of the Augustinian Order.  (See Part Three for Augustine of Hippo.)

Before we get into Luther, I must once again remind readers that not all who attend these churches know of Luther’s past, of Augustinian Amillennialism, or are even aware of their own church doctrine.  Neither can all Catholic priests and Lutheran pastors be held accountable.  We have exemplary examples of Lutheran preachers who stood against Hitler’s genocide in both Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemöller.  

French Cardinal Eugène Tisserant, Msgr. André Bouquin, as well as French diplomat Francois De Vial have been recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations for their actions assisting and sheltering Jews in Rome and at the Vatican during World War II.

Jewish people are keenly aware of the virus of anti-Semitism, being the victims of it themselves throughout history.  But most Christians are blatantly ignorant of the history of anti-Semitism, especially in terms of the Church’s own tradition.

Edward H. Flannery, a Catholic priest and scholar of the Bible as well as of Church history, aptly summarizes this problem:

“The vast majority of Christians, even well educated, are all but totally ignorant of what happened to Jews in history and of the culpable involvement of the Church.  They are ignorant of this because, excepting a few recent inclusions, the antisemitic record does not appear in Christian history books or social studies, and because Christians are not inclined to read histories of antisemitism.  Jews on the other hand are by and large acutely aware of this page of history if for no other reason than that it is so extensively and intimately intermingled with history of the Jews and Judaism.  It is little exaggeration to state that those pages of history Jews have committed to memory are the very ones that have been torn from Christian (and secular) history books”.

Martin Luther in his early days naively imagined that the Jews, to whom he was attracted by his studies, would flock to the Church in his reformed version. When nothing of the sort happened, he denounced them in a set of pamphlets written in a vituperative fury. He had produced the early, favorable, “That Christ Was Born a Jew” in 1523, but after he turned on this so-called “damned, rejected race,” he wrote “Against the Sabbatarians” (1538) and “On the Jews and Their Lies” (1543).  The latter booklet was used by Hitler in Germany where the majority of the populace were Catholic or Lutheran.  

I make absolutely no excuse for the man.  

When Luther’s early treatise failed to bring Jewish people to Christ, his sympathies for them soured.  His obscene and blasphemous treatise contains some of the most violent language in the history of Jew hatred.  

Luther frequently referred to the Jews as “idle and lazy,” “useless,” “impenitent, accursed people,” “consummate liars,” “boastful arrogant rascals,” “bloodhounds,” “murderers,” and the “vilest whores and rogues under the sun.”  He accused them of libels which have never been true; of poisoning wells, assassination, and ritual murder, branding them collectively as “venomous serpents and devil’s children.” He attacked “their accursed rabbis, who wantonly poison the minds of their poor youth and common man, to divert them from the truth,” arguing, “If I had not had the experiences with my papists, it would have seemed incredible to me that the earth should harbor such base people…for I never expected to encounter such hardened minds in any human breast, but only in that of the devil!”  

Luther’s vilifications are monstrous indeed, but the worst was when he asked, “What shall we do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews?”  His answer was the foul and fomented filth used throughout the centuries against our Jewish brethren:

First, to set fire to their synagogues or school and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them.

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed.  For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues.  Instead, they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies.  This will bring home to them the fact that they are not masters in our country, but that they are living in exile and in captivity.

Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings be taken from them.

Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life or limb.

Fifth, I advise safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews.  For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like.  Let them stay at home.

Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping.

Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an axe, a hoe, a spade, into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow.

Luther has been described by the Encyclopaedia Judaica as “a second Haman.” (Reformation in Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 14, 21.)

It would have been far better for Martin Luther had he died three years earlier, before writing this accursed treatise.

Heinz Schreckenberg’s unique book, The Jews in Christian Art: An Illustrated History, has more than one thousand pictures testifying to the diabolical lengths to which the church was prepared to go in its denigration of the Jews.  Throughout Europe, on the stained-glass windows, frescoes, reliefs, and fixed furniture of the Catholic Church, and in its inflammatory literature, our Jewish brethren are denigrated with the most nauseating portrayals.  Originating in thirteenth century Germany, this obscene libel made its first appearance in three-dimensional form in churches and town halls and later was widely used to illustrate books and broadsheets.

Conclusion

What the Bible says about Jewish people and their relationship to Christians who believe on Messiah, is very telling.  We are to love God’s people and as Paul says three times in the first two chapters of Romans, “To the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

It is said of Dr. J. Hudson Taylor, a lovely story and true, that he, as founder of the China Inland Mission, would send an offering on the first of every year to John Wilkinson, the founder of Mildmay Mission to the Jews in London.  With it would be a note reading, “This is the first gift that’s come in for the new year, and since the Scripture says, ‘to the Jew first,’ I’m sending it to you.”

Then Mr. Wilkinson would always write out a personal check and send it back to Mr. Taylor with just these words, “Also to the Gentiles.”

Next up, Calvin.

Kelleigh Nelson has been researching the Christian right and their connections to the left, the new age, and cults since 1975. Formerly an executive producer for three different national radio talk show hosts, she was adept at finding and scheduling a variety of wonderful guests for her radio hosts. She has owned her own wholesale commercial bakery since 1990. Previously, Kelleigh was marketing communications and advertising manager for a fortune 100 company. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, she was a Goldwater girl with high school classmate, Hillary Rodham, (Clinton) in Park Ridge, Illinois. Kelleigh is well acquainted with Chicago politics and was working in downtown Chicago during the 1968 Democratic convention riots. Email: Proverbs133@bellsouth.net