Martin Luther warned about appeasing Islam 500 years ago…how familiar
does this sound today?
Bill
Federer remembers Augustinian monk’s concerns about Muslims
AMERICAN MINUTE
On Oct. 31,
1517, an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther posted 95 debate questions on the
door of Wittenberg Church, which began the movement known as “the Reformation.”
In 1521, 34-year-old Martin Luther was summoned to
stand trial before the most powerful man in the world, 21-year-old Holy Roman
Emperor Charles V. Charles V of Spain’s empire spanned nearly 2 million square
miles across Europe, the Netherlands, the Far East, Philippines, North and
South America, and the Caribbean.
At the Diet of Worms, Charles V initially dismissed
Luther’s theses as “an argument between monks” and simply declared Martin
Luther an outlaw. Martin Luther was hid by Frederick of Saxony in the Wartburg
Castle, where he translated the New Testament into German.
Charles V’s unruly troops sacked Rome and
imprisoned Pope Clement VII for six months. He oversaw the Spanish colonization
of the Americas, and began the Counter-Reformation. He eventually responded to
the pleadings of the priest Bartolome’ de Las Casas and outlawed the enslavement
of native Americans.
During this time, Muslim Sultan Suleiman the
Magnificent invaded Europe on land and sea. In 1529, 35-year-old Suleiman the
Magnificent sent 100,000 Muslim Turks to surround Vienna, Austria.
Martin Luther wrote: “The Turk is the rod of the wrath of the Lord our God. … If the
Turk’s god, the devil, is not beaten first, there is reason to fear that the
Turk will not be so easy to beat. … Christian weapons and power must do it…”
Martin Luther continued: “(The fight against the Turks)
must begin with repentance, and we must reform our lives, or we shall fight in
vain. (The Church should) drive men to repentance by showing our great and
numberless sins and our ingratitude, by which we have earned God’s wrath and
disfavor, so that justly gives us into the hands of the devil and the Turk.”
In an attempt to unite the Holy Roman Empire against
the Ottoman Muslims, Charles V agreed to a truce recognizing the Protestants, “Afraid of losing the much-needed support of
the German princes for the struggle against the Turkish threat from the south,
Emperor Charles V agreed to a truce between Protestant and Catholic territories
in Nuremberg in 1532. Thus the Lutheran movement was, for the first time,
officially tolerated and could enjoy a place in the political sun of the Holy
Roman Empire.”
As the Islamic threat intensified, reformer John
Calvin wrote to Philip Melanthon in 1543 “I
hear of the sad condition of your Germany! … The Turk again prepares to wage
war with a larger force. Who will stand up to oppose his marching throughout
the length and breadth of the land, at his mere will and pleasure?”
Followers of the reformers, who “protested” certain
doctrines, were generally referred to as “Protestants.”
Some Protestants
refused to help Charles V who was defending Europe from the Muslim invasion.
Finally, Charles V made a treaty with the German Lutheran princes by signing
the Peace of Augsburg, Sept. 25, 1555, ceasing the religious struggle between
Lutherans and Catholics. A line in the treaty, “cuius regio, eius religio,”
allowed each king to decide what was to be believed in his kingdom.
A month later, Oct. 25, 1555, suffering from severe
gout, Charles V abdicated his throne and lived the rest of his life secluded in
the monastery of Yuste, leaving his son Philipe II to rule.
As
different kings in Europe chose different denominations for their kingdoms,
millions migrated from one country to another simply for conscience sake, and
eventually spilled over into the colonies in America.
New York
University Professor Emeritus Patricia Bonomi, in her article “The Middle
Colonies as the Birthplace of American Religious Pluralism” wrote: “The
colonists were about 98 percent Protestant.”
Of the 56
signers of the Declaration, most were Protestant, with the notable exception of
Catholic Charles Carroll of Maryland.
British
statesman Edmund Burke addressed Parliament, 1775: “All Protestantism … is a sort of dissent. But the religion most
prevalent in our Northern Colonies is a refinement on the principle of
resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the
Protestant religion.”
Samuel
Adams stated when he signed the Declaration of Independence: “This day, I trust, the reign of political
protestantism will commence.”
Martin Luther,
who died in 1546, wrote: “I am much
afraid that schools will prove to be the great gates of hell unless they
diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the
hearts of youth.”
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