What's interesting about many of those defenders of Rome back in 2003 was their historical analysis of Luther. I don't think many of them actually read much from any treatise actually written by Luther. They read books about Luther written from a Roman Catholic perspective. In 1987, the Roman Catholic publisher TAN had reprinted one of the worst scathing attacks on Luther ever published: Father O'Hare's The Facts About Luther. By 2003, this reprint probably had more impact on Rome's newest converts than it had when it was originally published! I bought the book from on an online bookstore named Amazon. This was back before Amazon sold cat food and every other material possession one desperately needs in two days. They sent me two copies by accident.
Father O'Hare's The Facts About Luther was my major introduction into trying to understand how Roman Catholics understood Luther. O'Hare's book is filled with error, including the abuse of primary and historical contexts, as well as being poorly documented. Similarly, a lot of Rome's defenders back in 2003 were... just like O'Hare's book!
In trying to figure out what was going on with the content being put online by Rome's defenders, I did a simplistic study on Roman Catholic scholarly historical evaluations of Luther. There wasn't really anything significant online at the time addressing this. I spent a lot of time at the Westminster Seminary library trying to figure it out. Two lengthy web-articles (now available via the Internet Archive) were the result:
The Roman Catholic Perspective of Luther (Part One) Destructive Criticism of Luther
The Roman Catholic Perspective of Luther (Part Two) Constructive Criticism of Luther
Looking back on these links I was once so proud of, now I see them as glorified book reports. Back then though, I think I was one of the first people to respond to Rome's zealous converts by explaining to them that Father O'Hare's book belonged to a period of Roman Catholic destructive criticism of Luther. Rome's scholars and historians had moved on, in fact, they were downright critical of the methods utilized by Father O'Hare.,, So much for Rome's converts being deep into history... they were clueless about Reformation history according to the Roman Catholic perspective!
There is a sense in which I miss interacting with Rome's defenders in 2003. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. As I venture across cyber-space, I don't as often come into contact with the same number of Roman Catholic Luther-bashers as I used to. Then again, I'm not much of a Facebook person and I don't do Twitter. Maybe they're still out there on those platforms. I tend to think now so much more information is available, a certain number of people actually look stuff up before they hit "enter" on a keyboard. Back in 2003, there was not Google Books yet and Wikipedia was still not a force to be reckoned with. Also now besides my blog, many people have undertaken the goal of putting Luther's seemingly outrageous statements in context. Determining what Luther actually said and what context he said it in is now relatively easy. All one needs to do is care to go deep into history with a few clicks on a keyboard or asking one of those nice ladies like Siri or Alexa to look something up!
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7 comments:
The two articles written by you about the Roman Catholic perspective of Luther were some of the most extraordinary and well documented articles I've ever seen in this subject. I saved them on PC! God bless you.
Thank you for your kindness.
JS
I have not been regulatory checking your blog but it was good to see you addressing this issue, and yes, although Catholic Answers forum ceased to operate (no one left to ban?), too many Catholics still are schooled in such apologetical propaganda as you reproved, by the grace of God.
Searching Quora attests to this, with questions such as
Do Lutherans still follow Luther's teaching, which is that faith in Christ allows a person to commit adultery and murder a thousand times a day without imperiling salvation?
Why did Luther remove books from the official Bible and move them to the back of the Bible in some editions?
But which is in addition to years of refuting such as here , with your material being of substantial help, thank God.
Blogger PeaceByJesus said...
I have not been regulatory checking your blog but it was good to see you addressing this issue, and yes, although Catholic Answers forum ceased to operate (no one left to ban?), too many Catholics still are schooled in such apologetical propaganda as you reproved, by the grace of God.
Thanks for the comment and kindness. I didn't write much in 2020, I was busy with other things, so there was not much to see!
I found it odd that CA closed their forums. I never looked into it, but it is strange they would shut down something so popular.
I looked at the links you mentioned... the same old stuff, over and over again. wow.
I found it odd that CA closed their forums. I never looked into it, but it is strange they would shut down something so popular.
Well, the Inquisition also ran out of stream (while some of the CA mods likely longed for those days). And at least 10 years ago leadership was getting some pretty big money, as one the RC schismatics points out: https://novusordowatch.org/2013/09/right-on-the-money)
Yes, most of the RC prop is the same old stuff, but many post them regardless.
I think an interesting subject would be the issue of visibility when it comes of RC Eucharistic theology. Meaning since the bread and wine are held to become the true body and blood of Christ (in each and every particle, down to be sub-atomic level) at the moment of the words of consecration (only) by the RC priest (another technicality is what moment is this);
And at which point the bread and wine cease to exist (even though, as with the real incarnated body of Christ, it behaves, etc. and would scientifically test to be just what it looks like), then Catholics are told to disregard appearance.
Except that not only must the bread be the right kind of bread (resulting in the non-existent bread causing problems for those with celiac disease), but it must look like that bread.
And once the non-existent bread (AKA the body of Christ) begins to manifestly suffer decay/corruption (which actually has been ongoing at the molecular level), then in RC Eucharistic theology appearance again is critical ,since the decay must be visible to the unaided eye.
Of course, Christ never appeared as an inanimate object, and Scripture emphasizes his manifest physicality which corresponded to his appearance in earth, ( (Is. 53; Lk. 24:39; John 20:27; 1 John 4:2; 5:6,8) in contrast to a Gnostic type christ, which appearance does not correspond to what Christ "come in the flesh" was bodily emphasized to be.
Meanwhile, solemnly sequentially consuming a piece of bread and tablespoon of grape juice and thinking about the Lord's death and going home much misses how we are to "declare/proclaim" the Lord's death. Which is by showing the union with Christ and each other that His death enabled, by taking part in a communal meal with others who were bought by that sinless shed blood, thanks be to God. Which is what 1 Co,. 10+11 teaches. After examining ourselves to see if we act accordingly. Which both I come short in.
Good times, good times. Brings back lots of old memories interacting with Roman Catholic apologists back in the day. Hard to believe it’s been that long. My three kids have grown up. Two are married and one has two kids of her own.
I haven’t been involved in these interactions for a long, long time, but you’re still the one I think of and look to first when I run across one of these crazy claims about Luther. I’m still grateful for you and all the work you put into it.
Ree said...
Good times, good times. Brings back lots of old memories...
Wow! blast from the past! Great to hear from you!
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