Lutherans Quotes

Although much opposition to education comes from religious groups, it is noteworthy that the Lutheran founder saw education per se as an weapon against the Devil and that view was promulgated in Colonial America. This particular quotation was used by Cotton Mather of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in his treatise on the importance of education. See also {612014}

This document was issued in the form of what today would be called a press release or a white paper. Altmark was the Lutheran seat of intellectuality and this document was part of a major Lutheran initiative to propagandize against the rising science of astronomy. The Catholics did the same and both religions saw astronomy as an enemy and evil. See {612384}

The Nazis did not create German anti-Semitism for the first time. Germany had a long brutal history of murder and torture. Luther was a virulent Anti-Semite. But he was not always such. See {629231} for totally contradictory writing earlier in his career. The Modern Lutheran Church does not currently follow any of Luther’s anti-Semitic dicta and has repudiated his views on murder for the glory of the religion, although many did support it in WWII. What is stunning about this quotation is that this religious leader was advocating burning houses of God, schools and people for the “glory” of God and Christianity. However all major religions had viscous and bloody pasts. Most adherents have rejected that past as being misguided, primitive and incompatible with the modern, more noble view of the religion while only a few religious extremist fundamentalist still adhere to the darker history and interpretation of the religion.

Official List of groups which were prohibited from religiously criticizing the Catholic Church—the established church of Maryland. One interesting observation is that the Jesuits—a Catholic order were on this list. Catholic orders did not then subject their representatives to the authority of the local bishops and took direction only from the Pope. In the case of the Jesuits at the time, there were many who believed the Jesuits were beyond the de facto control of the Papacy and some Jesuits thought they should be—thus the two designations of Jesuits. This makes clear the fundamental intolerance that was common on many parts of Colonial America, that criticism of and heresy to the Established Church was not to be permitted. To the orthodox Catholics of Maryland, they were as concerned with the potential criticisms of Catholic Jesuits as they were with those of Puritans or Anabaptists. Compare Maryland, a Catholic colony with a huge antipathy towards Puritans, with Massachusetts, a Puritan Colony, and its strong antipathy and intolerance for Catholics. It is almost impossible to imagine a union of the American colonies without a 1st Amendment.

In this quotation the founder of Protestantism criticizes other Christians for their anti-Semitism. Luther later became a virulent anti-Semite himself. See {629230}

This historical quote is important because it shows that there was great dissention about the celebrating of Christmas even among different Christian sects. Traditionally, the celebration of Christmas in a government building or school would have offended half the Christian population. In early America, Christmas celebration was legally prohibited in some states and required in others. This was one of the reasons that the Founding Fathers wrote the First Amendment into the Constitution. In modern times, some critics accuse the requirements that Christmas celebration in public facilities as being anti-Christian. But the problem has been with America since before the Constitution.

French Protestants—Huguenots—were looking to the New World to establish a Protestant state in which they could practice their religion. They sent an expedition to the St. Johns River area of modern-day Florida and began a colony near what is now the city of St. Augustine. The Spanish sent Pedro Menendez and over 1000 troops.