I think we are talking 'past each other', @Barnabas62.
I'm not so much talking about awareness/empathy with individual suffering but the sense of dealing with corporate or systemic wrongs and injustices which, I would argue, are more a feature of post-Enlightenment sensibilities than those found in classical antiquity or medieval times.
That's not to say that there was no sense of these things back then, but rather there wasn't such an emphasis on those in highly stratified societies.
That's not 'cultural relativism' but simply a recognition that we can't read later sensibilities back into previous historical conditions.
Whenever I read an historical novel I'm generally struck by how the central figures aren't convincing historically in any way, shape or form.
They are generally more 'modern' figures with more 'liberal' or 'enlightened' attitudes projected back into the past.
There are some exceptions but by and large that's what happens.
Take the attitude towards children for instance. If they survived infancy they tended to be treated as mini-adults.
Individual Popes condemned slavery way back in the middle ages but it was many centuries before any organised opposition to the practice emerged.
Beliefs illuminate values. And values motivate actions.
But I agree those connection are not inevitable as our history shows. To believe that indifference to suffering is a sin neither leads inevitable to a clear understanding of specific injustices nor a commitment to corrective action. Culture can cloud the individual mind to both. That’s a matter of deep sadness and regret.
I suppose that’s why I believe we should return to the surveying of the Cross, as Luther said, to illuminate the Hidden God, His heart and His purposes for us and in us. No matter how imperfect the history and the present.
An understanding of Kingdom Values does not necessarily lead to Kingdom Commitment.
I s'pose what I'm saying is that if you or I went back in a time-machine to 1520s Germany and we tripped and fell down some steps and hurt ourselves, then Luther would almost certainly have stopped and helped.
He may well have paid an innkeeper to feed and accommodate us until we'd recovered and bobbed back from time to time to see how we were doing.
What he wouldn't have done is organise The Wittenberg Peasants' Co-operative or the town's first printing trades union.
Or the Palatinate States Jewish-Christian Dialogue Confraternity.
I remember proofreading something of his, I'm pretty sure it was--it was directed at the town and village leaders, and it gave very precise directions for how to set up a welfare system for peasants, artisans, etc who fell on hard times. A chest for collecting and distributing money featured very prominently in it, along with directions to (I think) a town council on how to gather and distribute such funds. It was interesting.
I think where you might be going wrong is in not understanding Luther's mental model of how society ought to act--though always leavened with sin, of course, which would cause malfunctions. As i understand it, Luther's mental map started with the household--father, mother, children, servants, and various other belongers. Each of these has a place, responsibilities, and expectations from the others, all ultimately based on the fourth commandment. Take a look at hits explanation of the fourth commandment in the Small and Large Catechisms, where the system of inter-locking responsibilities and expectations is laid out in detail--also the table of responsibilities at the back of the small catechism, which addresses each person by role and was intended as a help to self examination and confession. It comes down on the great for their sins as much as on the least.
And it seems to me that Luther's view of society and how it ought to function is basically the household writ larger--though now we're getting into two-kingdom theory, where the church and the government serve God separately and following their own norms. Both are equally concerning for Luther--he spent a lot of time trying to disentangle the affairs (sometimes literal!) of electors and princes who were going wrong, and in fact met his death on one of these trips as the result of a heart attack.
His problem with the peasants' rebellion was just that--that it was a rebellion, and one inspired by his own writings, as I understood it, which would have caused some personal guilt. He agreed they had real concerns which ought to be redressed--but the method they chose for it (rebellion) would have tripped every alarm in his psyche, with a world view based on order and mutual responsibility as it was. I suspect if they had come to him before the rebellion, they would have found a very ready helper who would have advised and mediated with the princess, etc on their behalf. He had done that sort of work before, and they were not wrong when they thought he had sympathies with them (beforehand, i mean). Luther himself came off such a family, his father being a peasant turned miner.
Thinking about it, I seem to remember reading somewhere that Luther's hyperbolic reaction to the Peasants Revolt was partly to disassociate himself from it. 'I didn't intend them to launch an uprising ...'
But yes, I am sure he had a 'social conscience' but one very much in line with the standards and zeitgeist of the social hegemony of the time.
It is. It makes me feel like I wasted all that effort at six in the morning to tell you something you either already knew or don't care about, and now I feel like an idiot.
And it seems to me that Luther's view of society and how it ought to function is basically the household writ larger--though now we're getting into two-kingdom theory, where the church and the government serve God separately and following their own norms. Both are equally concerning for Luther--he spent a lot of time trying to disentangle the affairs (sometimes literal!) of electors and princes who were going wrong
Not withstanding all of this he didn't hold a particularly clear separation between the moral, and economic and political orders, he had a fairly fixed sense of the former, but the latter only progressed as far as a Christian prince/elector who was acting justly.
His problem with the peasants' rebellion was just that--that it was a rebellion, and one inspired by his own writings, as I understood it, which would have caused some personal guilt.
It also deeply frightened him as it threatened his fairly fixed view of the moral order. It would be trivialising it to say that it was merely publishing in haste, but that was certainly part of it.
It sounds like Luther had no "revolution" clause in his political thinking.
And when you deny the weaker party redress like that, then you are going to inherently enable the ruling powers to do what they will because there's no way to change the system. If you can't threaten the lords, and the lords are entitled to threaten you, that's a fundamental power imbalance.
Luther sounds like the kind of "progressive" who had deep hopes for reform within the system, assuming a certain goodwill on the part of the rulers a la "why can't we all just get along?" This is a little ironic considering how famously vituperative he was. But when the poor ones got fed up with the waiting, then he realized that you can't just open that can up a little.
I'm not saying the guy was a Marxist, and truthfully I am not a Marxist. But I do think Marx did make some pretty sharp observations about political history.
I doubt anybody from that time period (early 1500s) had the kind of revolutionary sensibilities you describe. It simply wasn't a part of their world view. I doubt the peasants themselves hoped for more than to shake up the princess and get them to behave better.
It is. It makes me feel like I wasted all that effort at six in the morning to tell you something you either already knew or don't care about, and now I feel like an idiot.
Especially when the response starts “Sure.”
@Gamma Gamaliel, how many times are Shipmates going to need to tell you how this style of posting is unhelpful and off-putting before you start believing us?
It also reminds me of Archbishop Helder Camara’s famous comment about social disadvantage.
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist."
And I would not have expected Martin Luther or indeed just about anyone in the 16th Century to have made the comment.
But it’s in contrast to Isaiah. Amos and other prophets voicing thoughts more than 2 millennia earlier. Reading Abraham Heschel’s opening Chapter in The Prophets I think those earlier prophets were indeed criticing the social inequities of the time which led to the poverty and suffering.
After all it’s only quite recently that these lines from “All Things Bright and Beautiful were recognised as attributing to God values about the social structure which were not now thought of as Godlike.
“The rich man in his castle
The poor man at his gate
God made them, high and lowly
And ordered their estate”
So far as I can tell, the OT prophets would really not have not liked that. And the very early church had all things in common and shared, according to Acts 2.
That being said, I’m pleased to note that Luther did understand in very practical ways the duty to the immediate needs of the poor.
I doubt anybody from that time period (early 1500s) had the kind of revolutionary sensibilities you describe. It simply wasn't a part of their world view. I doubt the peasants themselves hoped for more than to shake up the princess and get them to behave better.
In that case, even trying to employ violence for simple redress in a way that was still relatively comprehensible was too much for Luther.
I wonder if there was a theory of revolt at the time, what that entailed. Was this revolt another escalation in a series of conflicts between peasants and lords?
Luther, being called to try to heal the graceless-ness of the medieval church, has more than enough on his plate, particularly after the church's reaction left him trying to establish a completely new hierarchy, worship service, and catechetical resources (but to mention pastoral training and Bible translation!). I'm amazed at what he found time to do, and suspect God was calling others (who didn't step up to the plate) to deal with the issues of the poor etc.
It's a matter I listen think on, as e we have our own overwhelming call and yet I'm being tempted by other issues! It makes you wonder: where is everybody? Well, not everybody, but you know what I mean.
Apologies. I did say 'to a certain extent.' I wasn't entirely teasing and no, @Lamb Chopped you didn't waste your time as you reminded me about something I'd read about Luther which tallied very much with what you wrote.
Apologies to Shipmates all.
I was posting in haste as I was about to go out to a hide in the Romanian woods to watch the bears. I'm in Transylvania for a few days hiking.
The bears were pretty cool.
I should have waited until I had more time and had collected my thoughts.
FWIW I think @chrisstiles is right that Luther, like most of his contemporaries would have seen subversion of the social order as a terrifying prospect.
And @Lamb Chopped is clearly right also about social revolution not being part of the worldview.
Heck, over a century later when Parliament rebelled against Charles I none of them had any notion of overthrowing the monarchy. They wanted him to mend his ways.
Which is what I mean about not engaging in anachronisms when looking at figures like Luther. I'm not saying he lacked a moral compass. Far from it. Neither am I saying he didn't have a social conscience. He did, but one firmly framed within the standards of his time - which expected Princes to show largesse but not for them to lose their privileges and power.
Your most recent post on this thread pretty much adds up to an admission of posting without engaging brain.
While the apology is appreciated, this follows on from you recently writing a high volume of lengthy posts that the hosts are unsure that you have taken the time to sufficiently think through, re-read and edit.
Please consider whether you need to take more time to compose and edit your thoughts before hitting the post button.
Helpful again. @Lamb Chopped . That also brings the reality of his circumstances very much to life.
And 20/20 hindsight is rarely the most helpful way of looking at anything.
A confession.
I haven’t been able to look at Martin Luther with any real objectivity since I read “On the Jews and Their Lies”. My dad was in Germany in 1945, helped clear a concentration camp, saw many bodies. He had other bad WW2 experiences but this was by far the worst. Couldn’t talk about it. Definitely suffered from what we would now call severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Had dreadful nightmares for years.
His mental health broke in the early 1960s, was misdiagnosed, put long term on medication which should have been only a short term treatment and his mental health problems became worse.
After almost 20 years of this he was finally properly diagnosed and treated and my mum got her husband back, my brother and I our dad. It was extraordinarily painful. My dad was a very gentle, sensitive man who was much loved, not only by us.
One consequence is that I’m been very sensitive to antisemitism since I was very young.
I didn’t read “On the Jews and Their Lies” until after my dad’s death and had a huge, horrified, reaction to it. I was appalled that one of the founders of the Reformation could write such stuff. I was shocked to the core.
In more recent years I’ve discovered more about antisemitism in medieval England and Europe and have been able to adjust a bit to the fact that Martin Luther was by no means alone in his antisemitism.
For reasons I’m not quite clear about, this thread, coupled with some necessary reading more of his writings, has helped to draw some rage out of me.
I’m never going to be able to lose my loathing of “On the Jews and Their Lies”. But hopefully I might be able to move to a more balanced view, more understanding view.
The thing is, he wasn’t always that way. There’s an early work titled “That Jesus Christ was born a Jew” which I understand is far more irenic. That’s why I have trouble with simply saying “he was a man of his time, and of story.” No. Something went horrifically wrong between the two. And of course any Christian must be horrified by the later work, it’s not at all defensible.
As I understand it, he moved from
a sincere belief that Jews would come to Christianity to a more disappointed then more cynical view. There’s probably a deeper story there. I suppose some aspects of the “Hidden God” became more hidden.
As I understand it, he moved from
a sincere belief that Jews would come to Christianity to a more disappointed then more cynical view. There’s probably a deeper story there. I suppose some aspects of the “Hidden God” became more hidden.
Sad. Tragic even.
That's also the story I heard. I think there's a lesson to me that if you're bold enough to try to convert someone from one attitude to another, it's important not to put your weight on them, or to set up an expectation that they're going to follow your way. People don't always do that. I can empathize with him, even if I'm appalled at this attitudes. I remember being a bit shocked the first time I'd heard someone accuse him of antisemitism (in undergrad, without qualification) and later got more nuanced. It is legitimately a hard thing.
We can only speculate of course but given the turmoil of the Reformation it's hardly surprising that one of its prime movers and shakers was going to be traumatised by it to some extent.
I know it's not analogous but you can see a hardening of attitudes in various directions before, during and after the 17th century Civil Wars in the British Isles, as well as people beginning to react against 'fixed' forms of religious belief.
My great uncle was manic depressive and certainly suffering from PTSD. He was an ambulance driver and present at the liberation of Belsen. My Gran said he was never the same again.
He was also anti-semitic, as though blaming the victims as well as the perpetrators. He would talk about it and a chill goes through me every time I remember him doing so.
At the end of his life he seemed to become a sweet old soul, perhaps the brother my Gran remembered having. God rest their souls.
The thing is, he wasn’t always that way. There’s an early work titled “That Jesus Christ was born a Jew” which I understand is far more irenic. That’s why I have trouble with simply saying “he was a man of his time, and of story.” No. Something went horrifically wrong between the two. And of course any Christian must be horrified by the later work, it’s not at all defensible.
As suggested by Barnabas62 and Bullfrog, I don't think anything went "horrifically wrong" in the sense that you mean - Luther's antisemitism progressed from wanting to convert Jews to Christianity with a carrot (having rejected as self-defeating the established idea of trying to convert Jews with a stick), to concluding that Jews are a stiff-necked and rebellious people beyond conversion. It's the nature of his antisemitism that changes. Wanting Jews not to be Jews is antisemitic, whatever means are employed to bring it about.
I haven’t been able to look at Martin Luther with any real objectivity since I read “On the Jews and Their Lies”.
…
I’m never going to be able to lose my loathing of “On the Jews and Their Lies”. But hopefully I might be able to move to a more balanced view, more understanding view.
As I read while thinking about these posts:
Scholars and non-scholars, Jews and Christians, owe a great debt to the work of scholars working in the Lutheran tradition for preserving these texts by Luther that they recognize as odious.
On one level, recognising Luther's antisemitism is to recognise the antisemitism baked into (for many of us) our Eurocentric history and societies.
Comments
I'm not so much talking about awareness/empathy with individual suffering but the sense of dealing with corporate or systemic wrongs and injustices which, I would argue, are more a feature of post-Enlightenment sensibilities than those found in classical antiquity or medieval times.
That's not to say that there was no sense of these things back then, but rather there wasn't such an emphasis on those in highly stratified societies.
That's not 'cultural relativism' but simply a recognition that we can't read later sensibilities back into previous historical conditions.
Whenever I read an historical novel I'm generally struck by how the central figures aren't convincing historically in any way, shape or form.
They are generally more 'modern' figures with more 'liberal' or 'enlightened' attitudes projected back into the past.
There are some exceptions but by and large that's what happens.
Take the attitude towards children for instance. If they survived infancy they tended to be treated as mini-adults.
Individual Popes condemned slavery way back in the middle ages but it was many centuries before any organised opposition to the practice emerged.
That's the point I'm trying to make.
I think we are talking past one another.
Beliefs illuminate values. And values motivate actions.
But I agree those connection are not inevitable as our history shows. To believe that indifference to suffering is a sin neither leads inevitable to a clear understanding of specific injustices nor a commitment to corrective action. Culture can cloud the individual mind to both. That’s a matter of deep sadness and regret.
I suppose that’s why I believe we should return to the surveying of the Cross, as Luther said, to illuminate the Hidden God, His heart and His purposes for us and in us. No matter how imperfect the history and the present.
An understanding of Kingdom Values does not necessarily lead to Kingdom Commitment.
I s'pose what I'm saying is that if you or I went back in a time-machine to 1520s Germany and we tripped and fell down some steps and hurt ourselves, then Luther would almost certainly have stopped and helped.
He may well have paid an innkeeper to feed and accommodate us until we'd recovered and bobbed back from time to time to see how we were doing.
What he wouldn't have done is organise The Wittenberg Peasants' Co-operative or the town's first printing trades union.
Or the Palatinate States Jewish-Christian Dialogue Confraternity.
I remember proofreading something of his, I'm pretty sure it was--it was directed at the town and village leaders, and it gave very precise directions for how to set up a welfare system for peasants, artisans, etc who fell on hard times. A chest for collecting and distributing money featured very prominently in it, along with directions to (I think) a town council on how to gather and distribute such funds. It was interesting.
I think where you might be going wrong is in not understanding Luther's mental model of how society ought to act--though always leavened with sin, of course, which would cause malfunctions. As i understand it, Luther's mental map started with the household--father, mother, children, servants, and various other belongers. Each of these has a place, responsibilities, and expectations from the others, all ultimately based on the fourth commandment. Take a look at hits explanation of the fourth commandment in the Small and Large Catechisms, where the system of inter-locking responsibilities and expectations is laid out in detail--also the table of responsibilities at the back of the small catechism, which addresses each person by role and was intended as a help to self examination and confession. It comes down on the great for their sins as much as on the least.
And it seems to me that Luther's view of society and how it ought to function is basically the household writ larger--though now we're getting into two-kingdom theory, where the church and the government serve God separately and following their own norms. Both are equally concerning for Luther--he spent a lot of time trying to disentangle the affairs (sometimes literal!) of electors and princes who were going wrong, and in fact met his death on one of these trips as the result of a heart attack.
His problem with the peasants' rebellion was just that--that it was a rebellion, and one inspired by his own writings, as I understood it, which would have caused some personal guilt. He agreed they had real concerns which ought to be redressed--but the method they chose for it (rebellion) would have tripped every alarm in his psyche, with a world view based on order and mutual responsibility as it was. I suspect if they had come to him before the rebellion, they would have found a very ready helper who would have advised and mediated with the princess, etc on their behalf. He had done that sort of work before, and they were not wrong when they thought he had sympathies with them (beforehand, i mean). Luther himself came off such a family, his father being a peasant turned miner.
Thinking about it, I seem to remember reading somewhere that Luther's hyperbolic reaction to the Peasants Revolt was partly to disassociate himself from it. 'I didn't intend them to launch an uprising ...'
But yes, I am sure he had a 'social conscience' but one very much in line with the standards and zeitgeist of the social hegemony of the time.
Can you just stop please? It's really hard to try and engage seriously with someone who at any point will just say 'I'm joking'.
Not withstanding all of this he didn't hold a particularly clear separation between the moral, and economic and political orders, he had a fairly fixed sense of the former, but the latter only progressed as far as a Christian prince/elector who was acting justly.
It also deeply frightened him as it threatened his fairly fixed view of the moral order. It would be trivialising it to say that it was merely publishing in haste, but that was certainly part of it.
And when you deny the weaker party redress like that, then you are going to inherently enable the ruling powers to do what they will because there's no way to change the system. If you can't threaten the lords, and the lords are entitled to threaten you, that's a fundamental power imbalance.
Luther sounds like the kind of "progressive" who had deep hopes for reform within the system, assuming a certain goodwill on the part of the rulers a la "why can't we all just get along?" This is a little ironic considering how famously vituperative he was. But when the poor ones got fed up with the waiting, then he realized that you can't just open that can up a little.
I'm not saying the guy was a Marxist, and truthfully I am not a Marxist. But I do think Marx did make some pretty sharp observations about political history.
@Gamma Gamaliel, how many times are Shipmates going to need to tell you how this style of posting is unhelpful and off-putting before you start believing us?
It’s understandable on many levels.
It also reminds me of Archbishop Helder Camara’s famous comment about social disadvantage.
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist."
And I would not have expected Martin Luther or indeed just about anyone in the 16th Century to have made the comment.
But it’s in contrast to Isaiah. Amos and other prophets voicing thoughts more than 2 millennia earlier. Reading Abraham Heschel’s opening Chapter in The Prophets I think those earlier prophets were indeed criticing the social inequities of the time which led to the poverty and suffering.
After all it’s only quite recently that these lines from “All Things Bright and Beautiful were recognised as attributing to God values about the social structure which were not now thought of as Godlike.
“The rich man in his castle
The poor man at his gate
God made them, high and lowly
And ordered their estate”
So far as I can tell, the OT prophets would really not have not liked that. And the very early church had all things in common and shared, according to Acts 2.
That being said, I’m pleased to note that Luther did understand in very practical ways the duty to the immediate needs of the poor.
In that case, even trying to employ violence for simple redress in a way that was still relatively comprehensible was too much for Luther.
I wonder if there was a theory of revolt at the time, what that entailed. Was this revolt another escalation in a series of conflicts between peasants and lords?
Luther, being called to try to heal the graceless-ness of the medieval church, has more than enough on his plate, particularly after the church's reaction left him trying to establish a completely new hierarchy, worship service, and catechetical resources (but to mention pastoral training and Bible translation!). I'm amazed at what he found time to do, and suspect God was calling others (who didn't step up to the plate) to deal with the issues of the poor etc.
It's a matter I listen think on, as e we have our own overwhelming call and yet I'm being tempted by other issues! It makes you wonder: where is everybody? Well, not everybody, but you know what I mean.
Apologies to Shipmates all.
I was posting in haste as I was about to go out to a hide in the Romanian woods to watch the bears. I'm in Transylvania for a few days hiking.
The bears were pretty cool.
I should have waited until I had more time and had collected my thoughts.
FWIW I think @chrisstiles is right that Luther, like most of his contemporaries would have seen subversion of the social order as a terrifying prospect.
And @Lamb Chopped is clearly right also about social revolution not being part of the worldview.
Heck, over a century later when Parliament rebelled against Charles I none of them had any notion of overthrowing the monarchy. They wanted him to mend his ways.
Which is what I mean about not engaging in anachronisms when looking at figures like Luther. I'm not saying he lacked a moral compass. Far from it. Neither am I saying he didn't have a social conscience. He did, but one firmly framed within the standards of his time - which expected Princes to show largesse but not for them to lose their privileges and power.
@Gamma Gamaliel Ship's Commandment 2 states
Your most recent post on this thread pretty much adds up to an admission of posting without engaging brain.
While the apology is appreciated, this follows on from you recently writing a high volume of lengthy posts that the hosts are unsure that you have taken the time to sufficiently think through, re-read and edit.
Please consider whether you need to take more time to compose and edit your thoughts before hitting the post button.
Hostly beret off
la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
And 20/20 hindsight is rarely the most helpful way of looking at anything.
A confession.
I haven’t been able to look at Martin Luther with any real objectivity since I read “On the Jews and Their Lies”. My dad was in Germany in 1945, helped clear a concentration camp, saw many bodies. He had other bad WW2 experiences but this was by far the worst. Couldn’t talk about it. Definitely suffered from what we would now call severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Had dreadful nightmares for years.
His mental health broke in the early 1960s, was misdiagnosed, put long term on medication which should have been only a short term treatment and his mental health problems became worse.
After almost 20 years of this he was finally properly diagnosed and treated and my mum got her husband back, my brother and I our dad. It was extraordinarily painful. My dad was a very gentle, sensitive man who was much loved, not only by us.
One consequence is that I’m been very sensitive to antisemitism since I was very young.
I didn’t read “On the Jews and Their Lies” until after my dad’s death and had a huge, horrified, reaction to it. I was appalled that one of the founders of the Reformation could write such stuff. I was shocked to the core.
In more recent years I’ve discovered more about antisemitism in medieval England and Europe and have been able to adjust a bit to the fact that Martin Luther was by no means alone in his antisemitism.
For reasons I’m not quite clear about, this thread, coupled with some necessary reading more of his writings, has helped to draw some rage out of me.
I’m never going to be able to lose my loathing of “On the Jews and Their Lies”. But hopefully I might be able to move to a more balanced view, more understanding view.
As I understand it, he moved from
a sincere belief that Jews would come to Christianity to a more disappointed then more cynical view. There’s probably a deeper story there. I suppose some aspects of the “Hidden God” became more hidden.
Sad. Tragic even.
That's also the story I heard. I think there's a lesson to me that if you're bold enough to try to convert someone from one attitude to another, it's important not to put your weight on them, or to set up an expectation that they're going to follow your way. People don't always do that. I can empathize with him, even if I'm appalled at this attitudes. I remember being a bit shocked the first time I'd heard someone accuse him of antisemitism (in undergrad, without qualification) and later got more nuanced. It is legitimately a hard thing.
We can only speculate of course but given the turmoil of the Reformation it's hardly surprising that one of its prime movers and shakers was going to be traumatised by it to some extent.
I know it's not analogous but you can see a hardening of attitudes in various directions before, during and after the 17th century Civil Wars in the British Isles, as well as people beginning to react against 'fixed' forms of religious belief.
My great uncle was manic depressive and certainly suffering from PTSD. He was an ambulance driver and present at the liberation of Belsen. My Gran said he was never the same again.
He was also anti-semitic, as though blaming the victims as well as the perpetrators. He would talk about it and a chill goes through me every time I remember him doing so.
At the end of his life he seemed to become a sweet old soul, perhaps the brother my Gran remembered having. God rest their souls.
As I read while thinking about these posts: On one level, recognising Luther's antisemitism is to recognise the antisemitism baked into (for many of us) our Eurocentric history and societies.