The Reformation: Martin Luther’s Pathological War

[Aeneas]

To understand why the forerunners for the Reformation who lived during the Black Death had such apocalyptic views, it is worth having a look at the online ebook by Sacha Dobler about what actually happened in the 14th century. It was not only from 1347 to 1351 that there was trouble. It lasted from about 1290-1350+ with the Black Death being the culmination. In that period there were massive crop failures, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, outgassings, meteor bombardments, extreme hot and cold season etc., so little wonder if people felt slightly gloomy about life on planet Earth.

If one considers the Mandate of Heaven as Pierre wrote about in Earth Changes and the Human Cosmic Connection and tying it together with how closely connected ecclesiastical and secular powers were in those days, then it is not so strange that a number of people at some level might have thought that the Mandate of Heaven had been withdrawn from the ruling powers. Of course, new wannabe rulers saw this as the opportunity to become the new rulers with the blessings of the ideology du jour.

 

[Aeneas]

For context, a little about the plague or rather the plagues as many subsequent plagues rages for 300+ years.

According to wiki:

The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population.[7] In total, the plague may have reduced the world population from an estimated 450 million to 350–375 million in the 14th century.[8] It took 200 years for the world population to recover to its previous level.[9][10] The plague recurred as outbreaks in Europe until the 19th century.

And

The plague repeatedly returned to haunt Europe and the Mediterranean throughout the 14th to 17th centuries.[75] According to Biraben, the plague was present somewhere in Europe in every year between 1346 and 1671.[76] The Second Pandemic was particularly widespread in the following years: 1360–1363; 1374; 1400; 1438–1439; 1456–1457; 1464–1466; 1481–1485; 1500–1503; 1518–1531; 1544–1548; 1563–1566; 1573–1588; 1596–1599; 1602–1611; 1623–1640; 1644–1654; and 1664–1667. Subsequent outbreaks, though severe, marked the retreat from most of Europe (18th century) and northern Africa (19th century).[77] According to Geoffrey Parker, "France alone lost almost a million people to the plague in the epidemic of 1628–31

Luther lived right in the middle of this, so an ideal period for a schizoid with little faith in free will and who clung to faith for salvation.

 

[Ghazi18]

This makes a lot of sense. I was baptized at a Lutheran church and they taught me that the bible is the only truth and would talk about how other Christian denominations are incorrect because they do not do things as they are in the bible. My in laws are Pentecostal and going into their church was pretty weird because the pastor would "speak in tongues" and people in the audience would shake frantically and some of them would laugh in a strange way while he would do that. One of the ex pastors at their church took a picture with his catholic girlfriend by a statue of a saint and it was such a big deal that he ended up leaving. I have heard my mother in law ( which is a youth teacher at the church) talking about Catholic's as if they were a evil religion. Just seemed weird to me because they would preach about love, unity, and "the word" of Christ.

 

[Peter Henkel]

On the secular front, there is Peter Henkel's German book "Enough with Luther - On the erroneous ways of a radical" ("Schluss mit Luther - Von den Irrwegen eines Radikalen"). It's a great little book that compiles a lot of facts and quotes from and about Luther that make your hair stand up, and also questions
the official history of "evil Catholics against progressive protestants". The author is a mainstream journalist and self-proclaimed atheist, so it's not a catholic partisan book, which gives it more credence. On the other hand, some of
what he writes is just standard atheist, anti-religious drivel. Another problem of the book is that it doesn't provide sources/footnotes.


Dear Luc, I am the author of that German book about Luther you mentioned in the beginning of your article. Of course it pleases me to notice your commendation ("great little book"), particularly since your long and thorough text shows your sincere interest in that complex matter. (Above all, you focus on Luther's theology being indeed much more his rebellion's foundation than his opposition to pope and church which is only derived from his religious convictions. So many people anywhere in this world know nearly nothing about it - till today).



What pleases me less are those resentful remarks that follow.

"Mainstream journalist" - how did you find that out?

"Self-proclaimed atheist" - although this might be a neutral assessment, too, here again I hear the sound of resentment against perons who deny God for a lot of good reasons. For what would you say if I said: "Luc is a self-proclaimed christian"? Do we need to wait until other people say what we are?

Minor details. Worse is the "anti-religious drivel" you accuse me of without any hesitation. Dear Luc, here you express the typical self-righteousness of so many worshippers making themselves comfortable within a system of faith keeping away unpleasant facts and a realistic appraisal of life and mankind, world and universe. That self-righteousness prevents any serious dialogue between atheists and believers on equal footing - although we need just this dialogue because religion will remain an extremely important subject and will not disappear out of our thinking and feeling in near future.

My proposal: To invest the same - or probably more - intellectual and emotional energy and honesty you invested in the context of Luther and to start to examine the credibility of the christian religion on the whole.

My promise: By discovering the truth about it (God with all his contradictions, his fabulous and implausible biography - developping from a little local weather god in a small Middle East region to the almighty creator of heaven, earth and every individual -; the bible with its magic fantasies, lies, errors, historical forgeries, cruelties, authoritarian and arbitrarian threats to those who insist on their fundamental right to refuse that faith), your satisfaction will be deeper and more intense than you felt studying the Luther story. If, to repeat it, you 'd try to be honest.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Henkel

 

[Joe]

My promise: By discovering the truth about it (God with all his contradictions, his fabulous and implausible biography - developping from a little local weather god in a small Middle East region to the almighty creator of heaven, earth and every individual -; the bible with its magic fantasies, lies, errors, historical forgeries, cruelties, authoritarian and arbitrarian threats to those who insist on their fundamental right to refuse that faith), your satisfaction will be deeper and more intense than you felt studying the Luther story. If, to repeat it, you 'd try to be honest.

With respect, I think you're out of your depth here Peter. First, we can dispense with the silly straw man arguments that seek to make some silly point by exposing the ridiculous aspects of standard religious belief.

Second, atheism is nonsense. The vast majority of people live their lives as if some kind of god or transcendent power exists. The really deluded ones call themselves atheists. Assuming you live your life according to certain moral values, you by definition believe in something 'higher' that codifies that otherwise pointless morality. Atheism = materialism, but no one lives as if - or believes at their unconscious core that - materialism is the be all and end all of existence, otherwise they would not live their lives according to a moral framework.

If there is nothing but rational materialism, then there is no rational reason to constrain ourselves with any morality, save that which can be described as 'rational self-interest', which leaves a LOT of scope for immoral acts. If you live your life according to a moral framework, you are not an atheist. A much closer approximation to an atheist, if only temporarily, is the true believer church pastor who kills his wife and children.

 

[genero81]

That self-righteousness prevents any serious dialogue between atheists and believers on equal footing

Considering most atheists and 'believers' are equally out to lunch, any "serious dialogue" is unlikely.

With respect, I think you're out of your depth here Peter.

Yeah, we're well past being fascinated by the realization that what's in the bible isn't to be taken at face value.

 

[luc]

Dear Peter Henkel,

Thank you for your feedback, much appreciated. Let me first restate that I really enjoyed reading your book and that I think it was very important that you wrote it, especially considering the glorification of Luther that is still going strong, especially in Germany. Thank you for that!

Some things I said about your book were perhaps a little snide, my apologies. They do have a context however, so let me try to explain, maybe you can better see where I'm coming from then.

What pleases me less are those resentful remarks that follow.

"Mainstream journalist" - how did you find that out?

That was my assumption because I read that you wrote for the Frankfurter Rundschau, which is a mainstream newspaper. The point was this: it seems to me that you are not a "fringe researcher" or a religious partisan, so I found it useful to give that background. In your book, you argue from a secular, pro-enlightenment position, which is very common in German media, politics and academia (hence "mainstream"), and your criticism of Luther comes from this spirit. Do you think this is a fair assessment?

To label you a "mainstream journalist" was sort of blanket statement though, which I now think might have been somewhat misleading, considering that by criticizing Luther, you went against his widespread glorification.

Minor details. Worse is the "anti-religious drivel" you accuse me of without any hesitation.

The reason why I put it that way is that some of your criticism of Luther comes from an Atheist perspective: if I remember correctly, at some points in the book you basically criticize him for still adhering to religion, for taking his faith serious. The way I understood it is that you are basically saying "look guys, your hero wasn't an enlightenment person, he still believed in all this religious nonsense". While I found many of your points against the Luther legacy very on-point and valid, I simply don't share this atheist blanket criticism of all things religious.

My proposal: To invest the same - or probably more - intellectual and emotional energy and honesty you invested in the context of Luther and to start to examine the credibility of the christian religion on the whole.

My promise: By discovering the truth about it (God with all his contradictions, his fabulous and implausible biography - developping from a little local weather god in a small Middle East region to the almighty creator of heaven, earth and every individual -; the bible with its magic fantasies, lies, errors, historical forgeries, cruelties, authoritarian and arbitrarian threats to those who insist on their fundamental right to refuse that faith), your satisfaction will be deeper and more intense than you felt studying the Luther story. If, to repeat it, you 'd try to be honest.

Look, I have grown up as an Atheist, and I know many of those arguments. And I'm all for criticizing the bible and ridiculing fundamentalists such as Luther.

What I don't like though is to automatically dismiss all things religion as mere superstition based on what David Berlinski called "Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions". (His book might interest you.)

To make a long story short, I think atheist materialism is completely wrong for a whole lot of philosophical and scientific reasons. In fact, it is itself a form of religion, and a very intolerant one at that.

What this means is that we can't just dismiss everything religious out of hand, but need to separate the wheat from the chaff. In the case of Christianity: yes, there is a lot of nonsense, but there are also great teachers and profound teachings. There's lots cruelty and stupidity, but there is also lots of love and wisdom.

So, what I'm interested in when it comes to Luther is this question: how did he affect Christian thought and practice, and by extension thought and practice of the Western world in general to this day? My conclusion is that Christianity was a lot worse off after Luther. In other words, Luther was all about nonsense and cruelty, and not about profound teachings and love/wisdom.

I hope I could clarify my position a bit.

By the way, I have a question: you mention in your book the episode of Martin Luther preaching and shaking, screaming "it is not me, it is not me", referring to demonic possession. I found that very interesting. Could you refer me to the source of this story? I did a quick search but couldn't find it. It is also mentioned in O'Hare's book "Facts about Luther", but it is given without context and sources there as well. Thank you!

 

[Peter Henkel]

 

[Peter Henkel]

Atheists are poor people. If and as soon as it comes to the fundamental question - if there is God or not -, their self-righteousness about which I wrote misleads believers to logical mistakes, fellacies, misunderstanding and wrong quoting, without and with intention. Besides to missing the point, dropping the subject and to use- and senseless personal attacks.



Also in this forum my simple confession to be an atheist has provoked these comments:



I am out of depth.

silly straw man arguments trying to make silly points...

atheism is nonsense

deluded atheists

atheism = rational materialism

atheists (and believers) are out to lunch.

living according to a moral framework means being not able to be an atheist (!!).



((this is a whitespread error which has no idea of the fact that moral is a result of social und cultural evolution in mankind's history; not at all moral rules need any God as explanation für their genesis. This fact, by the way, is NOT a proof against God's existence. But a great example of secular down-to-earth-thinking and its evident advantages compared with magic constructs of a transcendence NEVER showing itself.))





All this is an impoverished demonstration of prejudices and of being biased that, indeed, makes a "serious dialogue" impossible.



Dear Luc, I will not offend you. But: If you really know most of the arguments for atheism I mentioned in a nutshell it would make more sense to inform me and us about the reasons why these arguments cannot convict you und bring you to a secular position - - instead of talking about dismissing religious things as ridiculous etc. I criticize religion and faith, but I am never doing something like that. In four books I wrote about (christian) religion I defend religion and faith against false reproaches. I acknowledge their merites and contributions to mankind's cultural history, to moral, to social and individual strength - although just the opposite has happened much more often than it ought to be true.



atheism has nothing to do with these subjects. atheism denies the existence of (the Christian's) God and offers many good reasons for that.



Sincerely yours



Peter Henkel



P.S. I hope to have not made too many mistakes with my six-years-grammar-school-English.


Just I discover one mistake: of course I meant not: convict, but: convince.

 

[luc]

I've had the "faith vs. works" issue in my mind for quite some time that protestants and catholics have so bitterly fought over. (Protestants believe faith alone brings salvation, catholics believe faith + works brings salvation.) The book Paul's Necessary Sin finally brought some clarity.

What it comes down to IMO is that both protestants (starting with Luther) and catholics often have a very materialistic, earthly idea of these concepts. "Faith" is basically "believing in Jesus" and "works" is following ritual and perhaps superficial good deeds. This leads to absurd conclusions - in the case of the protestants, it means you could be the basest, meanest creature and get "instant-salvation" by accepting Jesus on your death bed. With catholics (at least some), it means all you have to do is mechanically follow the rituals, perhaps donate a few bucks, and there you go.

But if we understand these concepts in a more "spiritual" way, it starts making more sense. Some protestants (saw this in the documentary "Americal Gospel - Christ Alone") came up with a useful image for the primacy of faith: the good works are like railroad tracks, and your faith is the engine. So you need the faith first to "drive" you forward. Once you have accepted faith, the good deeds will flow from that automatically. There is truth to that IMO and it's indeed along the lines of Paul's idea of a tangible and very real transformation that happens and changes your whole outlook on life once you are "brought into alignment with Christ". But notice that this image of the rail tracks and engine contradict a strict "faith alone" doctrine - because the tracks count, too! They are the goal, so to speak. Luther, as far as I understand, was extremely radical here and really believed that you can be "saved" totally independently of your actions.

So what does faith mean? Many protestants seem to believe it just means "accepting Jesus", which is a pretty lowly understanding. Some are more sophisticated and see it as a deep, personal love for Jesus. This can be a powerful faith and motivator IMO, if truly felt. But it's still somewhat earthly, worshipping a person. A still higher understanding might be worshipping Jesus as a role model for faith and suffering - where it actually doesn't matter if he really lived the way we think or if it's just legend. Perhaps an even higher or more "spiritual" understanding would be to see faith as a direct connection to the divine, forged by suffering, shattering illusions and applying insights. Taking painful decisions based on a perception of the unseen.

As for "works", these are of course crucial on our plane of existence. But in terms of salvation, it's important to ask how they are produced - mechanically following some law or social pressure, or produced by a true insight into the nature of things? How is the inner development - i.e. faith - related to that?

Anyway, I think once you leave the simple, earthly definitions of these words, the conflict disappears and it starts making sense.

 

[luc]

Dear Luc, I will not offend you. But: If you really know most of the arguments for atheism I mentioned in a nutshell it would make more sense to inform me and us about the reasons why these arguments cannot convict you und bring you to a secular position

@Peter Henkel - I had missed your post, but if you are still following this thread: I don't disagree with your criticism of Old Testament brutality, historical falsifications of the bible etc. The only thing I'm reluctant to do is accept your judgement that it's all "superstition". For me at least, the question is whether scientific materialism is true or not, and I'm completely convinced that it is not. Which opens a whole lot of new ways of looking at the world. If you are interested in why I think this, you could start with the book "Mind and Cosmos" (available in German as "Geist und Kosmos") by Thomas Nagel, an atheist himself.

 

[Arwenn]

First of all, I just wanted to thank @luc for this thread & everyone’s comments, it has been an eye opener.

What brought me to do a bit of a deep dive into this topic, is that we are currently reading the chapter on the Renaissance & The Reformation in McGilchrist’s The Master and his Emissary in our reading workshop. This thread has provided much helpful background information & moreover, made me realise that the effects of that schism in the Church continues to have repercussions to this day, and explains why Western culture is what it is (more on that below).

Laurent Guyenot’s From Yahweh to Zion adds a different point of view to what was happening in Europe leading up to the Reformation with the influence of the Marranos or Crypto-Jews (forced to convert to Catholicism but secretly still practiced Judaism). There is a thread on the book here.

Below are some excepts which flesh things out a bit more regarding the Marranos:

It was in 1236 that Nicolas Donin, a converted Jew who became a Dominican monk, gained an audience with Pope Gregory IX to convince him of the blasphemous character of the Talmud, which presents Christ as the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier and a prostitute (Sanhedrin 106a), capable of miracles only by sorcery, and not risen but “sent to hell, where he was punished by being boiled in excrement” (Gittin 56b).
…With each wave of expulsions, many Jewish families chose conversion rather than exile, while continuing to “Judaize” discreetly or covertly. The fifth edict of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) concerns the problem of crypto-Jews, that is to say, insincere converts.

Freed from the restrictions imposed on Jews, these converts, called “New Christians,” conversos, or marranos, experienced a meteoric socio-economic ascension. In the words of historian of Marranism Yirmiyahu Yovel: Conversos rushed into Christian society and infiltrated most of its interstices…

To eradicate crypto-Judaism, King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile established the Spanish Inquisition, whose first courts opened in 1480 in Seville…As in every episode of this type, the Jews who chose exile rather than apostasy were more committed to their faith and their community, and they took with them a deep resentment against Catholicism…
Judaizing Marranos developed signs of mutual recognition. “Being Marrano means being affiliated with a vast secret society of protection and assistance,” wrote Léon Poliakow. “The secret,” explains Nathan Wachtel, “became an essential component of religious fervor itself,” and “definitively marked what we may call the Marrano lifestyle: secrecy exalted as a value in itself, a sign of eminent virtue.”

Far from blending in with Christian society, New Christians socialized and married only among themselves, continued to practice usury, and still served as intermediaries between the elite and the masses of Old Christians, only with increased freedom and legitimacy…The conversos quickly became first-class international businessmen, confidently exchanging bank notes and IOUs. They “created the first pre-modern, albeit fragmented, model of economic globalization” and “soon began to rise to the forefront of international trade, virtually monopolizing the market for certain commodities, such as sugar, to participate to a lesser degree in trading spices, rare woods, tea, coffee, and the transportation of slaves.

In Venice, Portuguese Marranos settled in the early sixteenth century. By the middle of the seventeenth century “they attained the hegemony in local affairs,” according to Cecil Roth. It is worth mentioning that the first edition of the Babylonian Talmud was printed in Venice in 1520. From 1512 onward, an even larger Marrano community settled in the Netherlands, then under Spanish rule. Antwerp became their capital and emerged as a booming economic center. Calvinist uprisings led to the independence of the United Provinces in 1579. When, in 1585, Philip II of Spain temporarily retook Antwerp, Jews and Calvinists transferred their businesses to Amsterdam. In the seventeenth century, the Jewish community of Amsterdam, called the “New Jerusalem of the North,” was composed largely of conversos who had returned to Judaism. Ashkenazi Jews also flocked to Amsterdam after the pogroms in Poland and Ukraine in 1648. Many of these Jews and crypto-Jews eventually would join the “New Amsterdam,” later renamed New York…Firmly established in all major European ports, the Marranos played the leading role in the commercial and colonial expansion of sixteenth- to eighteenth-century Europe.

About the Kabbalah, Guyenot says it was a starting point for the Reformation:

Johannes Reuchlin, the greatest humanist scholar of his time after Erasmus, defended the Jews. Reuchlin immersed himself in Jewish writings and published in 1506 De rudimentis Hebraicis, the first Hebrew grammar by a non-Jew. He was interested in Kabbalah, which he combined with Neoplatonic magic in his book De verbo mirifico (The Magic Word). Kabbalah is an outgrowth of Talmudism particularly popular in Marrano circles…

Reuchlin defended the Talmud and Kabbalah before the emperor, against the Dominicans. He considered these Jewish books “the speech and the most sacred words of God.” His erudition, aided by the corruption of certain officials, managed to overturn the imperial order to destroy Jewish books…In 1517, Reuchlin published De arte caballistica, dedicated to Pope Leo X. In 1533, Cornelius Agrippa, inspired by Reuchlin, published De occulta philosophia. Thus did kabbalistic occult inspiration take root in the Christian West. Humanist thinkers, opposed to the Christian foundations of their society, sided with Reuchlin and campaigned against the Dominicans.

The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 triggered a great craze for Kabbalah, while accentuating its double messianic-apocalyptic dimension. The Marranos found themselves better placed than the unconverted Jews to influence the Church with regard to kabbalistic prophecies…The controversy of Reuchlin led to an unquestionable victory of Judaism over Christianity, and it was the starting point of the Reformation.

Regarding Luther, it seems Luther initially was rather in favour of Jewish teachings, the OT & the Kabbala, but then pivoted against them:

Luther took the side of Reuchlin, joining the ranks of his continued struggle by writing Sola Scriptura, the pillar of his Reformation, and promoting the study of Hebrew. Most disciples of Reuchlin became Lutherans. Luther was initially very friendly toward Jews..But after much disappointment, Luther had second thoughts. In On the Jews and Their Lies, written a few years before his death, he deemed them so corrupted by deadly sins as to be almost unredeemable, and especially resented their economic prosperity.

Of Calvin, Guyenot writes that he may very well been a Crypto-Jew himself:

Since its appearance, the Protestant Reformation has been seen by Catholics as effecting a return to Judaism under the influence of Jews and Marranos. Its contempt for saints and destruction of the Marian cult, in particular, are an indirect attack against Christ. If the Jews shunned the Reformation, this was not the case for crypto-Jews, who saw it as a way to leave the Church and gain easier access to the Hebrew Bible. The role of the Marranos was particularly important in the Calvinist movement, which not only brought back the God of the Old Testament, but also condoned moneymaking and usury. During his lifetime, Calvin was already suspected of having Marrano origin. His name, spelled Jehan Cauvin, plausibly derives from Cauin, a French version of Coen. Calvin wrote commentaries on the entire Old Testament and perfectly mastered Hebrew, which he learned from rabbis. He heaped praise on the Jewish people: pure knowledge of God comes from them, as did the Messiah. His obsession with the law, and his belief that idolatry should be eradicated by military force, have their roots in the Old Testament, as does his obsession with purity.”

“According to the famous thesis of Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), the Calvinists were the main architects of global capitalism. Werner Sombart opposed him, in The Jews and Modern Capitalism (1911), with the thesis that this role must be credited to the Jews. The history of Marranism, of which neither Weber nor Sombart had sufficient knowledge, reconciles both theses, since Calvinism is, in its origin and spirit, a form of crypto-Judaism.

So from the Reformation, especially the Puritans in England, we have the seeding of the New World (the US) leading eventually to the US seeing itself as unique & exceptional (American exceptionalism) & it’s hegemony as being predetermined (manifest destiny). A chosen people of sorts, and in some bizarre way explains the unholy alliance between fundies & Zionists. And moreover, has led to the globalist capitalism, hyper plurality of subjective truths, & wokeism that infects our culture & thinking today.

There’s a brilliant article on SoTT about just this:

Puritans Gone Wild! The Hidden Yankee History of Woke SJWs

Moralistic busybodies. They've made a comeback in recent years. It's understandable. They're an American tradition, after all. 'Totalitarian theocracy' is a phrase more commonly associated with Saudi Arabia or ISIS today, but some of the earliest...

www.sott.net

And a thread on the book Albion’s Seed which covers the various migrations from England to the US and a MindMatters show that discusses how these main migrations affected US culture and exists to this day: