As preparation for a Jewish-Lutheran dialogue event later this week, I’ve been reading excerpts and analyses of Luther’s writings, giving attention to his treatment of Jews and Judaism.
It’s no fun.
Many students of Luther know about his wretched treatise On the Jews and their Lies in which Luther, most notably, calls for the burning of Jewish homes, synagogues, and holy books. His anti-Jewish anger has its source both in the broad anti-Judaism that marred Christian culture of his day, but also in his frustration that the church reforms he initiated didn’t result in masses of Jews seeking baptism and becoming Christians. Having, in his view, freed Gospel truth from its captivity by Roman Catholic error, he had anticipated a great influx of converts to the Christian faith. When that didn’t happen, he called for violence against those who didn’t receive the Gospel.
Blessedly, even many of Luther’s contemporaries – who swam in the same waters of anti-Jewish animus – found this treatise particularly harsh, and we have little evidence that any local government officials directly acted on Luther’s calls for violence against the Jews at the time. It wouldn’t be until the 20th century when his words would be put into action with grave consequences for millions of Jews and other targeted groups in the Holocaust.
If you’re unfamiliar with Luther’s violent anti-Jewish rhetoric, here’s a brief excerpt:
What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? …
I shall give you my sincere advice: First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools 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. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom.
On the Jews and their Lies, Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 47: The Christian in Society IV, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 47 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 268–269.
Certainly, anti-Judaism neither started nor ended with Luther. He does stand out, however, for his extremely vile and hatefully violent rhetoric, particularly near the end of his life. Luther’s calls for violence are patently evil and reflect the abject failure of the church to remain true to its center of neighborly love.
I’m not writing more on this at the moment (perhaps a future post?), but there’s plenty out there on the topic if you want to look into it. Yet there is something else in this treatise that really caught my attention, and is the reason for today’s post.
In On the Jews and their Lies Luther levies another attack against the Jews that sounds exactly like the racist attacks on those who receive welfare benefits and other forms of public support here in the United States. Luther claims that Jews in the German society of his day are unproductive freeloaders who contribute nothing to the greater good. Here’s an excerpt:
A person who is unacquainted with the devil might wonder why [Jews] are so particularly hostile toward Christians. They have no reason to act this way, since we show them every kindness. They live among us, enjoy our shield and protection, they use our country and our highways, our markets and streets. Meanwhile our princes and rulers sit there and snore with mouths hanging open and permit the Jews to take, steal, and rob from their open money-bags and treasures whatever they want. That is, they let the Jews, by means of their usury, skin and fleece them and their subjects and make them beggars with their own money. For the Jews, who are exiles, should really have nothing, and whatever they have must surely be our property. They do not work, and they do not earn anything from us, nor do we give or present it to them, and yet they are in possession of our money and goods and are our masters in our own country and in their exile. A thief is condemned to hang for the theft of ten florins, and if he robs anyone on the highway, he forfeits his head. But when a Jew steals and robs ten tons of gold through his usury, he is more highly esteemed than God himself.
On the Jews and their Lies, Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 47: The Christian in Society IV, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 47 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 217–218.
Where do we begin? First, this sounds like so much of the racist “welfare queen” garbage that some of our nation’s political leaders spewed in the 1970s and 1980s and which lingers to this day, especially in the current misinformation campaign designed to foment anti-immigrant hate in our country.
Go and read that excerpt above again, slowly. Take note of the us/them dynamic. We – Christians, who rightly dominate society and governance – are being fleeced by them, those damn outsider Jews. Our princes don’t even realize that they’re being robbed by those Jews. We treat them so well. They use our resources and benefit from our protection without an ounce of gratitude. They are exiles and as such should own nothing; indeed, whatever they have is actually ours! They don’t work. They steal from us. They are ungrateful to us. Yet, in Luther’s twisted imagination, he accuses German society of being duped, claiming that Jews – a people who are routinely persecuted, expelled from territories, forced to live in segregated communities, and limited in professions they can pursue – are “more highly esteemed than God himself.” He’s making the welfare queen argument, 450 years before Ronald Reagan.
It’s classic oppressor rhetoric. Blame the people you oppress for oppressing you. Claim they’re taking advantage of the good people. Accuse them of crimes and of threatening the very fabric of society. Call for their expulsion and destruction. It’s gross.
And sadly, it’s not just in the past. These lies of Luther’s have lingered to this day and are hurting real people right here, right now in our own time and country. Lord, have mercy upon us, sinners.
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The Lutheran Zephyr 