Leader of the great religious revolt of the sixteenth century in Germany ; born at Eisleben, 10 November, ; died at Eisleben, 18 February, His father, Hans, was a miner, a rugged, stern, irascible character. In the opinion of many of his biographers, it was an expression of uncontrolled rage, an evident congenital inheritance transmitted to his oldest son, that compelled him to flee from Mohra, the family seat, to escape the penalty or odium of homicide. This, though first charged by Wiceliusa convert from Lutheranism, has found admission into Protestant history and tradition.
I know that it will sound shocking to some. I know that many people will disagree with my views. I shall not try to give a full and scholarly analysis of German Protestantism, of Luther and Lutheranism. I shall merely give my own reading of Luther; I shall show only that side of Luther and his influence which is usually ignored in England and which is entirely the reverse of the traditional view.
My remark, the one I have quoted, is really nothing new or revolutionary. There is a multitude of books which express the same thought, but they all do what I have done hitherto, i. The Nazis themselves claim Luther as their spiritual father.
But then, we must be careful in our acceptance of Nazi sayings. However, long before Hitler there were German Protestant scholars of great standing who analysed aright the part Luther played in the history of Germany.
Ernst Troeltsch of Heidelberg, early in the present century. Since Hitler there have been very many authors who have connected Luther and National Socialism. Edgar Mowrer wrote as early as All the pet doctrines of Prussianism are found in the writings of the founder, Martin Luther.
All the same, I shall attempt to show how I came to this monstrous-seeming conclusion.
When I was an undergraduate in my first term, my tutor returned an essay of mine on Political Philosophy with the sentence written under it: I did not quite know what he meant. My tutor was a wise man, a very detached thinker, from whom I learnt few facts but something of the art of clear thinking.
His saying has since then become my guiding maxim. He meant that it is not possible to explain a very complex and intricate political or sociological situation by one cause alone.
There are always a great many factors, some of greater, some of smaller, importance, which cause a particular phenomenon to come into being. Only if we study them all can we come to a true and valuable analysis.
For my part, I have slowly and gradually come to the conclusion that spiritual values and conflicts play the most important part in all problems which govern our lives as individuals and as citizens.
Max Weber, a famous German scholar, expresses exactly the same idea when he says: I know that it is debatable. But I have to keep to the main point and do not want to lose myself in side-issues which have no direct bearing on the subject.
I fully realise that it is fashionable nowadays to give especially to Economics a place that is higher and superior to that accorded to religious and spiritual ideas. I was brought up partly in Germany, partly in France.16 April My Dear Fellow Clergymen: While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely.".
Martin Luther - Hitler's Spiritual Ancestor by Peter F. Wiener--Many of the Reformers were NOT the saints much of Protestant Church History paints them as. This work reveals some of the dark side of the leading Protestant Reformer.
Essay on Martin Luther King, Jr. and Civil Rights Movement Influential Letter The “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” written by Martin Luther King Jr., was an influential letter that was a signal to change the attitudes of African Americans.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Impact on the Civil Rights Acts of the I.
Introduction Martin Luther King Jr. was the most important and influential civil rights activist in the history of the United States of America. Islam, Muslims and Islamic civilization are under siege in America.
Subsequent to the tragic incidents of September 11, Afghanistan and Iraq wars, ISIS’s barbarism and Paris shooting, Islam both as religion and community has witnessed some of the worst attacks upon its heritage and legacy unprecedented in the previous history.
That said, many activists, politicians, journalists, and academics have used half-truths and outright falsehoods about racial issues that divide people and stir up hatred.