In Reply to: Re: My 3rd response to Eva posted by Alan on January 04, 2004 at 21:35:04:
EVA: "He condoned the slaughter of peasants who’d risen up against the Catholic church as a response to his own teachings!"
ALAN: When you consider how much Luther came to despise and denounce the Catholic church hierarchy because of their many heresies, this accusation makes no sense at all. Where is your proof of this event? You are long on accusations, but short on evidence to back up anything you have claimed.
You both should read more history. Eva is probably remembering the movie 'Martin Luther' where the peasants in response to Luther's teachings were trashing the icons in a church. But Alan, when the peasants took Luther's teachings much farther than he wanted into the political sphere, & wanted a just, fair German society, they rose in a socio-economic revolt called the Peasant's Revolt. This was largely against their newly-converted Protestant princes, not just against the Catholic church as Eva states. The peasants wanted better economic traditions, literally to overthrow the status quo in a popular revolution, but the German princes quashed them 'to keep law & order'. Luther did say as some joker here pointed out, 'Kill them like dogs,' but his comment did not provoke the slaughter. He said it late in the game when the revolt was very nearly contained. Nevertheless he did say it. Bad on him.
On the other hand, this was a complex social-economic revolt mixed with relgious issues, nothing simple as Eva paints it.