Founder’s Slurs on Jews Renounced by Lutherans : History: The denomination is officially repudiating Martin Luther’s virulent anti-Semitic attacks. The action will deplore the impact his tirades may have had on Nazism.

Lutherans respect and honor most of the insights of 16th-Century church reformer Martin Luther, but they’re likely to cringe in shame at what he said about Jews.

Although it was four centuries ago, and many people remain unaware of some of Luther’s anti-Jewish tirades, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is firmly and formally renouncing those attacks.

It has directed its ecumenical affairs department to prepare a declaration to Jews “repudiating the anti-Judaic rhetoric and violent recommendations” of Luther and grieving at “the tragic effects of such words on subsequent generations.”

The denomination bears the name of that blunt reformer who sparked the general Protestant break from Rome. His diatribes against Jews have often been discounted as an aberration of old age.

Also, they have been rarely mentioned, except among scholars.

The Rev. John Stendahl of Amherst, Mass., who initiated the action, said the church must openly and strongly disavow these “ugly, poisonous Lutheran words, which spread seeds for a deadly harvest.”

If they aren’t frankly rejected in faith and love, he said, “our children may wonder what other dirty little secrets we may not have told them about our heritage.”

The little-reported action, begun by Stendahl at the church’s governing assembly in Kansas City, Mo., Aug. 25 to Sept. 1, was approved overwhelmingly.

It specified that the declaration affirm “our desire to live out our faith in Jesus Christ in love and respect for the Jewish people by pledging to oppose the deadly workings of anti-Semitism in church and society.”

Bishop Robert Isaksen of Worcester, Mass., said he feared that many Lutherans had not actually heard the hateful words written by the elderly Luther in a 1543 tract titled, “On the Jews and Their Lies.”

He termed Jews “alien murderers and bloodthirsty enemies” who “practiced all sorts of vices.” He urged the burning of synagogues, destruction of Jewish homes and prayer books, and confiscation of Jewish property.

Isaksen said such vituperation fed anti-Semitism in contemporary times, including the Nazi Holocaust.

Bishop Mark Herbener of Dallas said not all German church leaders in World War II were like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who resisted Nazism and was executed for it, but “some were Nazi to the core.”

The bishop said that in public inter-religious ceremonies he often apologized and repented for Luther’s denunciation of Jews.

Klaus Wehrmeister, a delegate from Lyford, Tex., went to a microphone to announce, “I am a Jew; that is, I was born of a Jewish mother” but became a Lutheran. He said much of his family died in the Holocaust.

He said it is important for the church to thoroughly repudiate Luther’s vilifying of Jews at a time when some “people are actually questioning whether the Holocaust ever happened.”

Luther’s attacks on Jews came in the three years before he died in 1546. He suffered various infirmities--headaches, insomnia and kidney stones. He was nearly blind in one eye, hard of hearing and had angina attacks.

However, throughout his turbulent career, he regularly admitted he was too vehement, sharp-tongued and stubborn.

Just as harsh as anything he later said about Jews were his denunciations of the Pope and cardinals as idolatrous blasphemers who should be nailed to the gallows and their tongues torn out.

In early phases of his work, he had accused Roman Catholics of unfairness to Jews. “I would request and advise that one deal gently with them. If we really want to help them, we must be guided in our dealing with them not by papal law but by the law of Christian love.

“We must receive them cordially, and permit them to trade and work with us, hear our Christian teaching and witness our Christian life. If some of them should prove stiff-necked, what of it? After all, we ourselves are not all good Christians either.”

But Luther’s attitude hardened as time went by, in frustration over Jews’ refusal to convert to Christianity. He referred to Rabbinic teaching as blind madness and spurned any fellowship with “obstinate (Jewish) blasphemers” who “defame this dear Savior.”

Friends begged the aging Luther to stop such outbursts, but he kept them up, calling for repressive measures against Jews.

Lutheran leaders and scholars, usually in academic settings, have voiced regret at Luther’s invective against Jews and disavowed it.

Now the 5.2 million-member denomination is officially abrogating those slurs, promising love and respect for Jewish people.