Luther memes

These are great – I particularly like the “warning labels”. Great for adding to PowerPoint slides in adult Bible class presentations.

(tODD – it’s up to 51 now.)

I like the Bangles video. Whoever put that together did a good job of matching words to mouth movements, and to my ear, the singers sound just like the Bangles themselves.

I do think the word, “meme” gets abused these days.
The pr0per term for these kind of things is, “fad.”

This might not qualify:

http://cyberbrethren.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/6a00d834515fe569e2017d3d24dc5b970c-800wi.jpg

Indeed.

“All things are lawful. But not all things are expedient.”

kempin04 @7
They prefer to quote Luther supposedly saying to Melanchthon that they really didn’t do anything; the Reformation happened while the two of them were in the garden drinking Wittenberg beer. (I don’t know where to find that quote; I’ve heard it often enough.)
But I agree, Luther was about more than beer and other alcohol. Reading a thread about a group of pastors’ preferences in beer and hard liquor makes you wonder if they are as underpaid as they like to claim, for one thing. [But the ones you know, who really are, seldom appear on those threads.]
Beer can be as innocent as coffee, or they can both be an obsession that consumes far too much money for value received. I suppose saying so makes me a pietist!

“Martin Luther once remarked that the Reformation took place while he and Philipp Melancthon “drank Wittenberg beer. The Word did it all.”

Quote is used, but the source was not given: http://onlinepulpit.ivpress.com/2011/09/scripture_and_the_reformers_re.php

A practice I never heard of: Baptism by beer? Posted on Lutheran Satire: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lutheran-Satire/173746872678423

Kempin04@15 I guess it is inevitable that these quotes will continue to surface even though possibly invalid. (They must “like” the quote. Even reputable people do this.) Too bad people don’t use legitimately sourced ones and eliminate the confusion!

“Beer is the greatest thing since the Beatles.”
-Martin Luther

@18 Uh, oh — now you just sent that flying through the internet Next on a t-shirt!

I found it! Here is a great setting of one of Luther’s most favorite and beloved settings of the Divine Service: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbLl2C3ChYY. Music by Bach.

Kempin04 @ 18 – I’ve heard a very similar quote before, but I’ve never seen it attributed to Luther: “When we drink, we get drunk. When we get drunk, we fall asleep. When we fall asleep, we commit no sin. When we commit no sin, we go to heaven. So, let’s all get drunk and go to heaven!”

Nathan,

See the link at #15

According to the internet Luther said this in a Sermon on Soberness and Moderation, delivered on May 18, 1539:

“It is possible to tolerate a little elevation, when a man takes a drink or two too much after working hard and when he is feeling low. This must be called a frolic. But to sit day and night, pouring it in and pouring it out again, is piggish… all food is a matter of freedom, even a modest drink for one’s pleasure. If you do not wish to conduct yourself this way, if you are going to go beyond this and be a born pig and guzzle beer and wine, then, if this cannot be stopped by the rulers, you must know that you cannot be saved. For God will not admit such piggish drinkers into the kingdom of heaven [cf. Gal. 5:19-21]… If you are tired and downhearted, take a drink; but this does not mean being a pig and doing nothing but gorging and swilling… You should be moderate and sober; this means that we should not be drunken, though we may be exhilarated.”

Seems pretty long and detailed to be made up out of whole cloth. Can anyone verify?

“Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate good beer and the freedom to drink it in moderation without guilt, but please stop using Luther to justify your drinking!”

Maybe just need to be a little clearer, like a beer mug or cask held by a smiling Katie Luther since she was the one brewing the beer.

Kempin (@29), I found a reference for Joe’s quote (@28), which I had also stumbled across while Googling for [Luther beer] and finding the usual suspects.

If you go to Google Books and search for a snippet of that quote (in quotation marks), you get two results. The first is “Luther’s works – Volume 51 – Page 293” from CPH — Google appears to cite both Pelikan/Oswald and Oswald/Lehmann. I’m not familiar enough with these volumes to know about all that. Anyhow, there is no preview available, so it’s hard to see any context, much less make sure the result is accurate.

Google also returns a result from Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe by Coster and Spicer, though, and it cites, after an extensive quote, “‘Sermon on soberness and moderation against gluttony and drunkenness, I Pet. 4:7-11, May 18, 1539’ in J.W. Doberstein (ed.), Luther’s Works, vol. 51: Sermons I (Philadelphia, 1959), pp. 291-9, esp. 292-3.”

Seemingly different editors and publishers — and, again, I don’t have a personal set with which to check — but, for what it’s worth, both cite Volume 51 of Luther’s Works. Seems pretty legit to me.

Also, should you wish to pursue other Luther quotes in the future, I highly recommend using Google’s book search tool. The Internet, as you know, is a cesspool of misattributions and misquotes, if not outright fabrications. Plenty of books contain spurious quotes, as well, but they tend to be fewer and more glaring (e.g. a book of “inspirational” quotes, none of which are sourced).

” Martin Luther once wryly said, “Do you suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused? Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we then prohibit and abolish women?”
From: “The Search for God and Guinness: A Biography of Beer that Changed the World” Stephen Mansfield

tODD, #32,

Thanks. I am increasingly impressed with the power and usefulness of Google’s online offerings, to the extent that I have even purchased a chromebook (the Samsung ARM) and now do my word processing on Google docs. I am still discovering additional things I can do on the cloud of which I was previously unaware. I am almost completely on the cloud now, with very little need for resident software. (Perhaps it’s easier for me because I don’t do that much–mostly text composition with a smattering of spreadsheet and prezi usage.)