Talk:Martin Luther

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Streamlining of the Luther article

I've begun to edit the article, as I have time, to address the issues I mention below. Please feel free to join me in the effort. Please weigh in here if you are going to make substantial changes, so that we can colaborate and improve this article and sub-articles before the 500th anniversary of the Reformation next year. Thank you! CTSWyneken^(talk)

Notice of intent to remove the NPOV banner

At the request of Dr. Cameron MacKenzie, I have reviewed the article in its current state. I am Robert. E. Smith, the Electronic Resources Librarian for Concordia Theological Seminary, a Lutheran graduate school of theology. I am the Coordinator of Project Wittenberg, which has put the works of Martin Luther and other Lutherans on the internet since 1994. I have published several articles on Martin Luther, most recently "A History of the Reformation" Lutheran Witness 134, no 10 (October 2015) 6-7, a timeline of the Lutheran Reformation. As such, I am an expert in the life and ministry of Martin Luther.

Several years ago, I was engaged with others in crafting the text of the article and struggled with others to represent all sides of the more controversial issues in the life and ministry of Luther. Having read through the text again, I see the same basic balance remains. Therefore, I intend to remove the NPOV banner from the article at the end of the week.

My basic evaluation of the article as it now stands is it is overlong and repetitive. Many of the issues spelled out should be moved to free-standing articles. There is some anachronisms (calling the church at the time, the Roman Catholic Church, which term would not be recognized by anyone in the 16th century, and calling Luther a friar, a term he did not use for himself. I'd edit it down myself, but I do not have the time to fight over it with other editors.CTSWyneken^(talk)

Luther and Anti-Semitism

Contributors seem to want to make Luther's anti-Judaism a central theme. His views were not unusual for his times and it is anachronistic to contemporary views on someone who lived five centuries ago. I have moved comments to a new section. However, these comments need to be balanced. Luther thought that with the Reformation Jews would embrace a reformed Christianity - no longer tainted by what he deemed the idolatries of Rome. This of course did not happen and his anti-Judaic polemics reflect his frustration. He was not an anti-Semite. This refers to the Jews as a race and this is a modern concept that would have been unknown to Luther - as would the concept of racism itself. IACOBVS (talk) 16:31, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, perhaps the older term "Judenhass" would be more appropriate, but modern readers generally consider any hatred of "the Jews and their lies" to be antisemitism, regardless of whether the expression is anachronistic or not. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 19:04, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

I concede the point. I certainly do not excuse the later Luther for his anti-Jewish vitriol and indeed lamentable Judenhass. I acknowledge that late 19th and 20th century German and later Nazi anti-Semites made full use of Luther's polemics. IACOBVS (talk) 11:49, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Medieval Christian Church vs Roman Catholic Church

"...was a German professor of theology, priest, former monk and a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation. Luther came to reject several teachings and practices of the Medieval Western Christian Church."

Don't you think it should be replaced with the Roman Catholic Church? Its clear people at that time did not refer to it as we do today, but for christ sakes, when someone talks about Protestantism or anything linked to it we refer to a "break from the Roman Catholic Church", not Medieval Christian Church.Ernio48 (talk) 18:56, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Better yet, this lede sentence links the term "Church" to a disambiguation page. "Medieval" has nothing to do with Luther. He was born too late to experience the Middle Ages as we understand them.

Following the East–West Schism (1054), there is no reason to avoid using the terms "Catholic" or "Orthodox". The event counts as the birth date of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church as distinct entities. Dimadick (talk) 21:34, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

The term Roman Church probably was around then, but it was likely a dangerous practice to use the word. The Eastern Church did not indulge in the vices of Rome and even allowed many of its clergy to marry, depending on the order. Does Luther make any statements about them?203.221.157.17 (talk) 01:52, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Antisemitism, Continued

Hello, I've edited here on wikipedia before but I couldn't remember my username and password, so I'll go anonymous for right now. The thing I wanted to to bring up was the fact that in Luther's last sermon, he spoke much more diplomatically about Jews, as explained here:

That, in that light, we [the LCMS] personally and individually adopt Luther's final attitude toward the Jewish people, as evidenced in his last sermon: "We want to treat them with Christian love and to pray for them, so that they might become converted and would receive the Lord" (Weimar edition, Vol. 51, p. 195).

I think it would be a good idea for fairness' sake to include this because, though it doesn't erase the things he said, it at least explains where he stood just before he died. Let me know what you guys think of this. I'm not sure what book the article was quoting, so I just put the link here instead of trying to add the info myself and putting the reference in. Thanks. -184.21.131.95 (talk) 01:00, 7 July 2016 (UTC)