Saturday, December 30, 2017

In Honor Of Martin Luther On The 500th Anniversary Of His Reformation Pleas   




By Frank Jackman

It probably seems odd today that I/we who write in this space from a mainly secular if not profane perspective should be honoring a religious figure from some 500 hundred years ago. But some of us take our historical materialism to speak nothing of our humanist values seriously and honor our forebears, at least our forebears in the West on this occasion. What Martin Luther allegedly pinned up to the door of that Wurttemberg archbishop sounds pretty tame today by secular historical standards but in it time was radical if not revolutionary. Bring the high holy universal apostolic Catholic Church down several pegs, down to that original mission that got lost during the 1500 hundred years when it gathered enough strength to dominate Western thought (and choke off at the stake any dissenters) and run wild in its demands from everybody from high lords to ignorant peasants working the lord’s manor to fill it chests, war chests included. So yes despite the hell broth conflict and fights to the death that ensued between Catholic reactionaries and Protestant dissenters here is a tip of the hat to brave Martin Luther back in scary 1517.  We would have been marching under the banner of those Protestant hymns that sent their defender soldiers off to battle-and not be ashamed of doing so.        




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