I wrote this responding to a blog post on a woman’s shock at discovering Luther’s antisemitism.

1. Read history. Please. This may be new to a lot of you apparently. This is hardly new information. One of the biggest blind sides in religious conversation today is a real lack of any awareness of our past and what previous generations have done, contributed, and erred. It is ironic that this be the case for a generation that has more history available to them than any other in history. If history isn’t your thing search out good biographies of historical persons you are interested in.

2. Are we really that surprised that individuals can make significant contributions to cultural development (theology, art, music, science, etc.) and have some glaring wrongs and blind spots? Shall we get canonical? Abraham married his half sister and twice tried to give her away because he was scared. Moses was a murderer. David killed a loyal soldier to cover up sleeping with the guy’s wife. Again, there isn’t anything new here.

3. I think it is a opportunity to reflect upon how and why we venerate people. There is no question that Martin Luther changed the course of human history. It is one of the most consequential people to live in the last 1000 years. Not long ago I read an article that made the point that Luther was ALSO one of the most important reformers of the RC church. Because of the Protestant Reformation a whole range of practices in the RC church were eventually reformed. Secular text book conversations regularly debate how much space they should give to a guy like Luther but he keeps making the cut because the changes were THAT consequential not just for people who go to church today but for all of world history.

I think what we are really bumping into here with Rachel’s post is that many of us who were educated in the church or Christian school received a lot of “hero” indoctrination. The writing of history is always as much about the present as it is the past. Biographies are sometimes written in order to pursue contemporary agendas as much as they are to report on the past. Our religious traditions have raised up heroes in order to solidify their own groupings and develop loyalty to their particular brand within the communities of traditions. In doing so there is always a great temptation to do some convenient editing to make a particular person more palatable for contemporary sensibilities.

When it comes to teaching children we often recognize that more issues are in play. What issues are age appropriate in a certain telling? We love telling kids about killing Goliath but few Bible story books have nice images of David collecting the 100 Philistine foreskins to pay the bride price for Michal.

Part of growing up is realizing who and what people are. A mature Christian anthropology recognizes the universality of radical inconsistency. A mature faith recognizes it in ourselves. Calvinists of course have a leg up on all of this. The monstrosity that we are is an article of public doctrine. This cuts down on the surprise factor for such disclosures. 🙂

4. Before we get too revved up in our enjoyment of vilifying Luther for his antisemitism we might want to ponder on the fact that this impulse and habit is the same that caused his antisemitism. We have labeled a great evil and now attempt to marshal the resources available to us to combat it, and off we go. First out talking and community formation around agreement about these evils sets the stage and coalitions for various actions down the road. When subsequent generations then review our work they too repeat the process. Perhaps the underpinnings of the process deserve further examination. pvk