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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