Ask ze German

[thesummerqueen]

How do folks look at Martin Luther (acknowledging a diversity of opinion) nowadays ??

Mostly uncritically (I'm from a protestant background - not precisely Lutheran, but close enough). He's mostly perceived as the guy who fought against church decadence, composed a lot of hymns, and, last but not least, translated the bible and thus shaped our language in ways few other individuals have. There's a relatively new statue of him in a town square where I grew up, and it always pisses me off that they would still put up such a thing in the 80s. I went through years of religious instruction in school and was confirmed, and only years after that I stumbled across all the stupid stuff he said and was like - wtf, why did no one ever mention this shit?

The republicans are willing to ignore all manner of stupidity from their leaders just because they HAVE leaders, if you know what I mean. I imagine it was the same regarding Luther. It behooved people to continue holding him up as a paragon, despite his stupid outbursts.

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Fascinating stuff about the regional differences, btw.