Martin Luther: Saint or Sadist?

Martin Luther changed the face of Christianity forever. But the Father of Protestantism has a dark side that will shock you out of your pew!

While on vacation in Europe in 2019, my wife and I visited St. Sebald’s Church in Nuremberg, Germany which was established around 1225. A breathtaking, well-preserved Catholic cathedral in the Gothic style that escaped the Allied bombing during World War 2, the church had adopted Martin Luther’s principles of Reformation around 1525, continuing Sunday services in the Lutheran tradition to this day.Having a friend who is an ordained Lutheran pastor, this visit was of particular interest to me. I emailed him a number of images knowing these would fascinate him. With my friend in mind, I wanted to learn more about Martin Luther, the revered religious leader that stood up to the most wealthy, most powerful religious institution of his time, turning the world of sixteenth century Christianity upside down. Upon my return home I decided to investigate. I did not realize I was in for quite a shock. 

Luther the Saint

Martin Luther (1483-1546) was a German professor of theology, priest, author, composer and former Augustinian monk. He was most famously known as the founder of modern Protestantism having successfully protested against the authoritarianism of the Roman Catholic Church. Breaking the Catholic monopoly, Luther’s doctrines provided the catalyst that eventually led to the establishment of over 45,000 different Christian denominations over the past five-hundred years. (Source: Center for the Study of Global Christianity, 2019). 

To Luther’s delight, having St. Sebald’s Church converted from Catholic to his namesake version of Christianity was certainly a coup d’état against the Pope in Rome. There were no less than 21 printing presses running day and night in the city of Nuremberg, allowing Luther to quickly spread his doctrines far and wide across Germany and beyond. 

To this day, Luther is highly revered in Germany. By many, he is considered a Saint in Heaven sitting at the right hand of God—on a par with Jesus himself. The German government continues to maintain well-preserved historical sites where Luther lived and worked, all of which are considered sacred. Pilgrims flock to these places to pay homage to this important religious figure providing tourist income to local economies. As well, numerous streets, squares and structures are named in his honor, replete with statues of the man. Most anywhere, one can find a host of souvenirs, utensils and artwork which bear his name and likeness. And, of course, Martin Luther’s portrait is proudly displayed in the foyer of every Lutheran church around the globe. 

Worldwide, there are an estimated 77 million adherents to Lutheranism, with about one-eighth of those in the United States. But that is changing. In spite of Luther’s ostensible popularity in Germany, Lutheran church membership began a steady decline in the 1960s and 1970s. (Source: Losing Heaven. Religion in Germany since 1945). 

Concerned, the German State has chosen to subsidize the institution by providing significant financial welfare to prop up the faltering Church, even paying the salaries of theologians and providing benefits to Lutheran seminary students using taxpayer euros. Surprisingly, this is done in violation of the German Constitution which states that the government shall remain neutral in regards to any specific religion. Even German media exhibits an overt bias for Lutheranism, unabashedly encouraging discrimination against all non-Lutheran versions of Christian worship and businesses. In the media, non-Lutheran churches are labeled pejoratively as “sects”, just as Americans would use the word “cult” to describe any non-mainstream religion that does not meet their approval. Could it be this is the German government’s attempt to balance the decrease with a significant increase in non-Christian religions within the country, most notably Islam?

As well, this decline in membership is occurring in the U.S., although more severely. According to projections from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s (ELCA) Office of Research and Evaluation, the whole denomination will have fewer than 67,000 members in 2050, compared to 3,458,839 members in 2017. Based on current trends they are worried that the Lutheran Church will cease to exist in the next generation—at least for the evangelical version. (Source: https://faithlead.luthersem.edu/decline )

The Dark Side of Lutheranism

Continuing my research, to my great surprise I discovered that Martin Luther and Lutheranism was not what I imagined it to be. Not unlike the Catholic Church which Luther opposed, Lutheranism has its own sinister dark side which, apparently, today’s adherents either are unaware or have chosen to conveniently ignore. 

At a glance, reading Martin Luther’s writings during the course of his life, he appears to be mentally unstable, becoming worse over time. One could describe him as having a split personality, the personification of author Robert Louis Stevenson’s fictional character Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. To wit: when someone agreed with his religious views Luther was the gentle, kind Dr. Jekyll, gushing with praise and support for that friend or colleague. But if that same person were later to change his mind or challenge Luther’s beliefs, he transformed into the hideous, evil Mr. Hyde and went on a vicious attack of his new foe. This personality defect (I will let the psychoanalysts debate a diagnosis) was evident every time he took a position whether for or against–even as he tried to moderate conflicts. As soon as one side or the other appeared to betray him, he turned on them publicly and with a vengeance. By doing so, over time he became either directly or indirectly responsible for the persecution, prosecution and execution of hundreds of thousands of innocents for purely imaginary crimes then and in the centuries to follow. An early example of this behavior occurred during the Peasants’ War of 1524-25. 

The Peasants' War

During Luther’s day, society was feudal with Lords and Ladies owning most of the wealth in the form of land and agricultural production. They were served by peasant tenants who lived on and worked the land as indentured servants. Decades earlier the Black Plague had decimated the population of Europe by an estimated 100 million. With far fewer mouths to feed, the wealthy landowners that survived were left with an oversupply of grain and other crops. With lower demand, commodity prices plummeted forcing those on the supply side into financial ruin. In desperation, the once wealthy landowners tried to recoup their costs by raising rents on the peasants, fencing the land and charging them for fishing and hunting rights, and by raising prices on goods and services. Peasants who could not pay their debts became permanent slaves or were jailed, their personal property confiscated as payment.

At first Luther sympathized with the peasants’ plight, denouncing the unjust practices of the landlords. The peasants were motivated by this man of God, finding support in his writings, especially his most famous treatise, On Christian Freedom in which he stated, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.” With God on their side, these words inspired uprisings among the persecuted peasants. 

Although at first Martin Luther sympathized with the peasants’ plight, he soon learned that, in spite of his support, many peasants remained in their chosen version of Christianity as Anabaptists, having still not converted to Lutheranism as he expected. To Luther, this was a betrayal of the worst sort. So when the revolts began to turn violent, Luther turned Mr. Hyde loose on them. Responding to the revolts he penned, Against the Murderous, Thieving Hoards of Peasants. In this essay he claimed the peasants had misunderstood what he had written, that he was writing in purely metaphorical terms, and therefore could not support their insurrection. This immediately gained him favor with the landlords. Through this written work of Christian love, the now powerful Luther instructed the German nobility in no uncertain terms to strike down the peasants, and to do so mercilessly. 

Luther wrote:

“To kill a peasant is not murder; it is helping to extinguish the conflagration. Let there be no half measures! Crush them! Cut their throats! Impale them. Leave no stone unturned!“ — “Let whoever can stab, strangle, and kill them like mad dogs!” 

This was all the encouragement the landowners needed. And crush the peasants they did. When the smoke cleared over 100,000 peasants and their families were slaughtered, thanks to this man. 

After the peasant revolt was put down and therefore most of the religious opposition eliminated, Lutheranism became the exclusive religion of the elite. To Luther and his elitist following, other denominations were for “fools, the ignorant, the poor”. And for Luther, who depended on tithing for income, appealing to the wealthy suited him just fine. 

Luther the Anti-Semite

As if the peasant genocide was not enough, Martin Luther became an outspoken anti-Semite. Historians have drawn a direct line from Martin Luther’s preachings to another infamous German Jew-hater, Adolf Hitler. The evidence is found in Luther’s book published in 1543, On the Jews and Their Lies. The title gives a glimpse of what was to follow. 

In the book, Luther did not mince words calling the Jews a “base and whoring people” full of the “devil’s feces . . . they wallow in like swine.” He proposed all sorts of creative ideas for sharing Christian love with his Jewish neighbors. He called for the wholesale liquidation of their synagogues, homes, and a ban on teaching by rabbis “on pain of loss of life and limb”. He commanded his faithful adherents to confiscate all Jewish money for “safekeeping”, and to murder any Jews who dare leave their home confinement. Since the Jews weren’t going to simply stop practicing their religion, Luther’s proposal would justify the persecution and murder of rabbis and their successors which would continue for centuries to come, culminating in the Holocaust. 

Interestingly, Luther’s rhetoric seemed to not be directed at Jews as an ethnic group, but at their unwillingness to abandon Judaism and convert to the state religion, his religion. To Luther and his enthusiastic followers, this was an anathema to be dealt with harshly. As well, he promoted severe persecution of any other person or group that did not accept his self-proclaimed divine precepts, writing them off as “ignorant, stupid or evil”. This included Roman Catholics, Anabaptists and non-trinitarian Christians (those who did not believe in the concept of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.)

Luther the Hypocrite

Luther was the sixteenth century poster boy for hypocrisy. As a young man, he preached vehemently against the sins of gluttony and drunkenness, while in his later years he succumbed to obesity and became excessively fond of beer. He promoted “drinking until one is drunk” because when one drinks, one is prone to sleep. And when one is asleep, one cannot sin. Luther may have been the first to put a religious spin on alcoholism! His state of deteriorating physical and mental health made his subsequent preachments increasingly vociferous and vicious. 

Luther the Sadist

Examining his words, psychologists suggest Martin Luther was a narcissist and a cold-hearted sadist who reveled in detailing descriptions of hideous punishments to be inflicted on his fellow countrymen through his many denouncements. When questioned whether he and the other ‘blessed’ will not be saddened when looking down from their perch in Heaven to see those rebellious friends and family tortured in hellfire, Luther smugly quipped, “Not in the least.” 

Forget abortion. Beyond anything imaginable in today’s society, Luther called out loud for the drowning of any living child afflicted with any physical handicap or mental illness that he believed would make them of no use to society. 

Authorized by the sixth Commandment found in Exodus of the Old Testament, Luther called for the death penalty for adulterers. (Surveys show there are Christians living among us that still agree with this commandment! In fact, some church leaders such as Pastor Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Arizona have called for the government to make adultery a capital crime, claiming “adultery rates would plummet and so would divorce rates.” By contrast, as found in the Gospel of John, Jesus purportedly intervened in the public execution of an accused adulteress, causing the mob to back down. In the end, Jesus forgave her and sent her on her way saying simply, “Go, and sin no more.”

Luther promoted the view that clerics should not marry because that would be committing the worst kind of adultery, the "adultery against one’s marriage to God”. Then one day an opportunity suddenly presented itself and Luther flipped, marrying a woman half his age. This was more than scandalous as she was a Catholic nun who had renounced her so-called marriage to God, a “perfect whore” in the eyes of the pious. A marriage of convenience for both? Maybe. Luther had ignored what he once condemned as the capital sin of adultery as he claimed his innocence, “[For] the Lord has plunged me into marriage!” For an unattractive, overweight, 41 year old woman-hating drunkard, it was a convenient cover for his secret. And for a destitute 26 year old unemployed woman, it was financial security and protection from the Catholic Church. 

Luther the Misogynist

In keeping with the prevailing Christian beliefs of his time, Luther called for the torture and execution of midwives which he considered sorcerers. The reason? It irritated him to no end that they could perform a life-saving service to women that surpassed anything that he or any priest could provide. “I should have no compassion on these witches; I should burn them all,” wrote Luther. Because of this, tens of thousands of innocent women were imprisoned, tortured, drowned and burned alive for such imaginary crimes. However, Luther was scripturally on firm ground where in Exodus 22:18 Yahweh commands, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!” 

Although later in life he married for dubious reasons, up until then Luther exhibited the worst degree of misogyny, unabashedly spewing his personal disgust, mistrust and hatred of women. Here are but a few lovely tidbits from this revered Christian leader’s foul mouth: 

Menstruating women were created stupid and filthy:

“God created man with a broad chest, not broad hips, so that in that part of him he can be wise; but that part out of which filth comes is small. In a woman this is reversed. That is why she has much filth and little wisdom.”

Woman’s only purpose is to bear children:

“If women wear themselves out in childbearing, let them go on bearing children till they die.”

Dead women don’t gossip: 

“What goes in through women’s ears comes out again through their mouths. For that reason a secret is to be entrusted only to a dead woman.”

God made women weak and seducible idiots:

“And who can enumerate all the ludicrous, ridiculous, false, vain, and superstitious ideas of this seducible sex? From the first woman, Eve, it originated that they should be deceived and considered a laughing-stock.”

God made women naturally promiscuous. They can’t help it:

“Although women are ashamed to admit such things, both Scripture and experience teach that among many thousands there is not one to whom God gives the grace to maintain pure chastity. A woman does not have the power to do this herself.

Disgusting. After learning about the true Martin Luther, one of the most unsavory characters in Christian history, the burning questions in my mind are ‘why would any person calling themselves a Christian—you know, a follower of the man who is best known for his message of love and forgiveness—why would they name a child after this man, let alone place membership in a church bearing his name and image? Why would anyone with even a smidgen of human decency proudly label themselves a Lutheran after a nasty, filthy, sadistic drunk who, as evidenced in his writings, sermons and deeds, was the very antithesis of Jesus?’ 

As evidenced by his words against all things female, some suggest Martin Luther may have been a repressed homosexual obsessed by scriptural guilt. I don’t know. But as a young monk having taken a vow of celibacy he was often in extreme denial after which he would capitulate, inflicting physical punishment upon himself. Today psychologists label such self-harm as a serious mental health condition believed to be caused by—you guessed it—extreme guilt, among other things. Such individuals actually reportedly experience relief and calm after such episodes. For Luther, it was a sick form of atonement for his sins. 

During his lifetime, Luther certainly behaved more like the evil Lex Luthor character from the Superman comic series than behaving like a follower of the gentle Jesus, meek and mild. Is it pure coincidence that Luthor’s creators were of German-Jewish ancestry and chose the German surname Luthor for this supervillain described by them as a narcissistic, egotistical and power-hungry? They never said so we will never know. 

By his wicked words Luthor, I mean Luther, was responsible for the misery and death of many hundreds of thousands of Christians and Jews—anyone who disagreed with his version of Christianity. Right out of the Catholic and Islamic playbooks, his message was convert or die.  

Luthor Still Revered

In stark contrast, 500 or so years later, German sculptors were commissioned to create several bronze statues of Luther to be placed on the campuses of four Evangelical Lutheran seminaries in the United States to demonstrate their “commitment to carrying on Luther’s work of preserving God’s word in truth and purity—spreading its light from age to age.” Really? 

In 2014, Lutheran pastor and apologist Jerry Larson, without mentioning Martin Luther’s name—or anyone in particular—claimed, “In the Bible we often see God using imperfect people to do great things. Every prophet, disciple and great leader had their dark side.” Almost prophetically, since 2016 and continuing to this day, versions of this statement have been employed ad nauseam by Christian leaders of all stripes in defense of thrice-married, serial adulterer, twice impeached, four-time indicted, former president, Donald J. Trump. 

Today the ECLA website attempts to explain the reasons for Lutheranism’s failure to gain and retain adherents. Noticeably, not once does it mention, let alone implicate, its founder. I have no evidence, but I cannot help but wonder if some members are silently beginning to discover this denomination’s dirty little secret: their beloved Martin Luther was a sadist, not a saint. 

Postscript: [August 2022] Three years have passed since my trip to Germany. As for my friend who dedicated his life to the Lutheran Church, I have yet to have a conversation with him about this most despicable man, Martin Luther. In the interest of preserving our friendship, I doubt I ever will.