As I read Sara\u2019s thoughtful reflection, I wondered if a variation on that theme happens with the Protestant reformer for whom MLK was named. Like Martin Luther King, Jr., contemporary Christians often look to Martin Luther \u201cnot only for wisdom, but for comfort\u201d \u2014\u00a0as in the case of <\/span>his 1527 letter about a pandemic<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 And they often look away from the violence that Luther\u2019s words inspired, condemned, and sanctioned.<\/span><\/p>\n But if we share MLK\u2019s commitment to justice, we should find ML\u2019s commitment to order uncomfortable \u2014\u00a0and ultimately inconsistent.<\/span><\/p>\n In 1524, farmers, artisans, and other Germans organized themselves for an armed rebellion against some of the same authorities before whom Luther had refused to recant his beliefs three years earlier, at the Diet of Worms. It was the largest of many late medieval revolutions, but the German Peasants\u2019 War (sometimes called the \u201cRevolution of the Common Man\u201d \u2014 it wasn\u2019t confined to rural workers) took particular inspiration from Luther\u2019s reformation. In <\/span>a 1525 manifesto<\/span><\/a>, peasants in the region of Upper Swabia called for both religious reform (e.g., the right of the community to choose its pastor and hear preaching by Scripture alone) and social and economic change. \u201cIt has been the custom hitherto for men to hold us as their own property,\u201d lamented the authors of those <\/span>Twelve Articles<\/span><\/i>, \u201cand this is pitiable, seeing that Christ has redeemed and bought us all with the precious shedding of His blood, the lowly as well as the great, excepting no one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n If their proposed tax, land, and rent reforms were proved \u201cnot to be in agreement with the Word of God,\u201d the peasants accepted that such demands would be \u201cnull and void, and have no more force.\u201d But they believed that they had <\/span>sola Scriptura <\/span><\/i>on their side. After all, did they not cry out to the same God who had heard the pleas of the Jews in Egypt and liberated them from slavery? And \u201cif it be the will of God to hear the peasants, earnestly crying to live according to His Word, who will blame the will of God?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In that sense, the Peasants\u2019 War was an early, European outworking of a theme that Mark Noll observed in recent American history <\/span>on the 500th anniversary<\/span><\/a> of the 95 Theses:<\/span><\/p>\n The willingness of Martin Luther to stand before the emperor Charles V at Worms in 1521 in some sense was an inspiration for the civil rights leaders, Martin Luther King Jr. and others, to stand forthrightly against centuries of segregation tradition and to proclaim what they thought was not just an ethical truth, but the word of the Lord.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n But, Noll added, Martin Luther held \u201ca very different ethic [than] that Martin Luther King held when he felt that there was something amiss in society.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Proposed by the peasants as an arbiter for their grievances against the ruling classes, Luther initially responded to the <\/span>Twelve Articles <\/span><\/i>with an \u201c<\/span>Admonition to Peace<\/span><\/a>.\u201d It began by acknowledging the justice of some of the peasants\u2019 complaints: \u201cWe have no one on earth to thank for this disastrous rebellion\u201d except temporal rulers whom he accused of doing \u201cnothing but cheat and rob the people so that you may lead a life of luxury and extravagance.\u201d But \u201cthe fact that the rulers are wicked and unjust does not excuse tumult and rebellion, for to punish wickedness does not belong to everybody, but to the worldly rulers who bear the sword.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Quoting from <\/span>Romans 13<\/span><\/a>, Luther warned the peasants that revolt against secular authorities constituted a revolt against God. (As I\u2019ve noted previously, Loyalist opponents of the American Revolution and slaveholding opponents of abolitionism <\/span>used the same proof-text<\/span><\/a>.) Luther appealed to <\/span>the Sermon on the Mount<\/span><\/a> to urge the peasants not to \u201crage and struggle against the divine and natural law\u2026 not to resist any evil or wrong, but always yield, suffer it, and let things be taken from us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Every man is at once judge and executioner of a public rebel; just as, when a fire starts, he who can extinguish it first is the best fellow. Rebellion is not simply vile murder, but is like a great fire that kindles and devastates a country; it fills the land with murder and bloodshed, makes widows and orphans, and destroys everything, like the greatest calamity. Therefore, whosoever can, should smite, strangle, and stab, secretly or publicly, and should remember that there is nothing more poisonous, pernicious, and devilish than a rebellious man. Just as one must slay a mad dog, so, if you do not fight the rebels, they will fight you, and the whole country with you.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cFor we are come upon such strange times,\u201d Luther concluded, \u201cthat a prince may more easily win heaven by the shedding of blood than others by prayers.\u201d If he was right, much heaven was won, for the princes of Germany shed much peasant blood: tens of thousands were killed before the revolt ended in 1526.<\/span><\/p>\n Whatever you think of that outcome, Luther at least seems consistent in his interpretation of the purposes of political authority. In his \u201c<\/span>plague letter<\/span><\/a>\u201d a year after the revolt, Luther called it \u201ca great sin\u201d for secular authorities to save their own lives and \u201cabandon an entire community which one has been called to govern\u2026.\u201d For an ungoverned city was \u201cexposed to all kinds of dangers such as fires, murder, <\/span>riots<\/span><\/i>\u2026 the kind of disaster the devil would like to instigate wherever there is no law and order<\/em>\u201d (emphasis mine).<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, as we heard <\/span>from Tom Skinner last week via David<\/a>, it is all too easy for Christians who benefit from the status quo to invoke the language of \u201claw and order.\u201d Those of us who instinctively dislike disorder should consider that what Skinner preached in 1970 also describes 2020 \u2014 or 1520:<\/span><\/p>\n The whole existing human order is infested with ungodliness. And the whole purpose of Christ coming into the world was to overthrow the demonic human system and to establish his own kingdom in the hearts of men.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n And<\/span> appeals to \u201claw and order\u201d like Luther\u2019s (which cast the peasants\u2019 rebellion as \u201cdemonic\u201d) are rarely consistent: if not hypocritical, at least selectively applied. For Martin Luther ended up sanctioning violent resistance against those in power \u2014\u00a0 for the sake of protecting his religious reformation, though not to address economic inequality and social injustice.<\/span><\/p>\n As the same Protestant princes who had crushed the Peasants\u2019 War began to organize armed resistance against their own emperor, Charles V, Luther began to find some rebellion justifiable. In 1531, he urged German Christians to refuse to fight for Charles, whose mistreatment of the Protestant cause was action \u201cnot only against God and divine law, but also against his own imperial laws, oaths, duty, seals, and letters.\u201d At that point, Luther still urged peace, but as a religious civil war drew nearer, he grew less cautious with his rhetoric.<\/span><\/p>\n In the last years of his life, Martin Luther endorsed the position that Protestant princes were obliged to maintain \u2014\u00a0even by violence \u00a0\u2014 \u201cthe true external service of God against all unjust power\u201d\u2014 even that of the emperor. But he went even further, as in this 1538 table talk, and entertained the possibility that individuals were allowed to wield the sword against a ruler using his God-given authority unjustly:<\/span><\/p>\n If the emperor undertakes war he will be a tyrant and will oppose our ministry and religion and then he will also oppose our civil and domestic life. Here there is no question whether it\u2019s permissible to fight for one\u2019s faith. On the contrary, it\u2019s necessary to fight for one\u2019s children and family.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/168\/2020\/06\/Titelblatt_12_Artikel.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Lyndal](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/168\/2020\/03\/Roper-Luther-201x300.jpg\")
<\/a>As the rebellion grew more intense, Luther took an even harsher tone. In a polemic some printers titled \u201c<\/span>Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants<\/span><\/a>,\u201d he abandoned hope for a peaceful settlement. Because the rebels had damaged property (\u201cmonasteries and castles that do not belong to them\u201d), they deserved \u201cthe twofold death of body and soul\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Luther's](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/168\/2020\/06\/692px-Luther_death-hand_mask.jpg\")
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