What would Luther say?

Christian Century, Feb 22, 2003

WHAT WOULD LUTHER SAY? Martin E. Marty, who has completed a biography of Martin Luther for the Penguin Lives series, ponders what Luther might add to the debate over a preemptive war against Iraq. When papal and other authorities solicited Luther's support for a new crusade against the Turks (Muslims), Marry says, Luther was emphatically and repeatedly negative.

In fact, he counseled a form of civil disobedience: `"Suppose my lord were wrong in going to war,'" Luther imagined a soldier asking. "I reply: `If you know for sure that he is wrong, then you should fear God rather than men, ... and you should neither fight nor serve, for you cannot have a good conscience before God.'" Luther was especially adamant against supposing that "our side" has a monopoly on virtue. In fact, the real enemies were all on "our side," and Luther named them: "greed, usury, arrogance [which bothered him most], arbitrary morality, tyranny of those in high places, unfaithfulness, evil." Although Luther saw evil in Muslims, he also said they might, in fact, be more pious than most Christians (Sightings, February 3).