Luther on NOT Obeying Rulers

What he says directly contradicts the wide-spread notion that Luther taught total submission to earthly rulers and that the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms contributed to German authoritarianism by insisting that whatever the rulers dictate is to be accepted as God’s will.  But this is what Luther actually says about rulers:

They actually think they have the power to do and command their subjects to do, whatever they please. And the subjects are led astray and believe they are bound to obey them in everything. It has gone so far that the rulers have ordered the people to put away books, and to believe and keep what they prescribe. In this way they presumptuously set themselves in God’s place, lord it over men’s conscience and faith, and put the Holy Spirit to school according to their mad brains. (p. 230)

But when a prince is in the wrong, are his people bound to follow him then too? I answer, No, for it is no one’s duty to do wrong; we ought to obey God Who desires the right, rather than men. (270)

Luther is alluding to the practice of some of the princes who outlawed possession of Reformation writings, including his translation of the New Testament, requiring their subjects to turn them over to be burned. They also required their subjects to confess their belief in the teachings of the pope.

If then your prince or temporal lord commands you to hold with the pope, to believe this or that, or commands you to give up certain books, you should say, . . .

Dear Lord, I owe you obedience with life and goods; command me within the limits of your power on earth, and I will obey. But if you command me to believe, and to put away books, I will not obey; for in this case you are a tyrant and overreach yourself, and command where you have neither right nor power, etc.

To be sure, Luther did not counsel rebellion in these cases.  Like his namesake in the American civil rights movement, he counseled non-violent resistance, including accepting your punishment for doing the right thing.

Should he take your property for this, and punish such disobedience blessed are you. Thank God that you are worthy to suffer for the sake of the Word, and let him rave, fool that he is. He will meet his judge.

This may be where Luther got his reputation for quietism in the face of unjust rulers, but that is far from Luther’s point.  He believed that God would judge the evil rulers and vindicate those who suffered for standing up against them.

There is a great power in being willing to undergo suffering for what is right.  Sometimes, it even wins over one’s persecutors.  Martin Luther may well have agreed with Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, paraphrasing Gandhi,

“We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. We will not hate you, but we cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children; send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities and drag us out on some wayside road, beating us and leaving us half dead, and we will still love you. But we will soon wear you down by our capacity to suffer. And in winning our freedom we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process.”

Not that Luther was a pacifist as King was.  The charge that Luther and Lutherans were political quietists is absurd, given that Luther defied the major temporal authorities of his day, the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, as did his followers in the Smalcald War and in the Thirty Years War.  Under the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, earthly kings are subject to the laws of God, who reigns over them as their King.

Illustration:  Emperor Charles V (1533) by Lucas Cranach, via Picryl, Public Domain