Wednesday 13 November 2013

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow


Not Really Luther

We confess to referring to the quotation attributed to Luther, which urges Christians to defend the truth of God at the point at which it is facing attack.  But, according to Douglas Wilson, it would seem that Luther did not make that observation at all.  Someone else did.  It turns out the original statement is even more compelling.  [Ed]
There is a famous Luther quote that he actually didn’t say, and which my son-in-law Ben Merkle recently tracked down. Here is the quote, and it is a hummer.


“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”

The source of the quote was Elizabeth Rundle Charles, in a book called The Chronicles of the Schoenberg-Cotta Family, published in 1865. She was referring to Luther, but somewhere and somehow, it was attributed to Luther himself and has been cited merrily as such for some time.

That and, in my opinion, the one about the wise Turk and the foolish Christian. Somebody ought to track that one down.

I am posting this under Retractions because I know I have mis-cited it before, and probably more than once.

No comments: