Nehemiah and Martin Luther

 

  

 

 

“Martin Luther might blanch at the comparison, but the exemplary attitude of a Jewish political lobbyist named Nehemiah might be a model of how we should handle our complicated history and murky future”.

 

Titus Willis

 

  

 

Who was this Martin Luther?

A complex character indeed, Luther does bear some comparison with reforming Old Testament prophets and holy men.

He was somewhat, too, like Girolamo Savonarola whom Luther is thought to have admired.

See my article:

 

Prophet Jeremiah and "Savonarola". Part Three: Savonarola “another Luther”

 

https://www.academia.edu/35137830/Prophet_Jeremiah_and_Savonarola_._Part_Three_Savonarola_another_Luther_

 

In the above series I have likened Savonarola, for his part, to the Portuguese Jewish Abravanel (or Abarbanel), thought to have been a Bible commentator and philosopher of c. 1500 AD, and also to the prophet Jeremiah.

 

Protestant writer Titus Willis has suggested a further biblical comparison with Martin Luther:

https://medium.com/@tituswillis/martin-luther-and-nehemiah-1ea24a0f002d

 

Martin Luther and Nehemiah

 

How should we reform the American Protestant Church?

 

Tuesday, October 31, 2017, marks 500 years to the day since a pious, vicious, inspired, anti-Semitic monk named Martin Luther penned his Ninety-Five Theses and forever altered the constitution of Christianity. All over the world, curmudgeonly Catholics are still rolling their eyes. I, for one, am thankful that we have resolved our holy wars and turned our swords into tweets.

 

While we don’t need to spend much time parsing the many horrific things Catholicism has gotten us over the years, Douthat has a point: Protestants have not been much better. We aligned with the Catholics on chattel slavery, rewrote the book on church dysfunction, and allowed an anti-Christian heresy called the prosperity gospel to somehow get grandfathered in with us; not to mention the fact that Luther’s fingerprints are all over the Holocaust, an unparalleled crime that spat in the face of God Himself. Modern Protestants, particularly in the United States, may not be responsible for these enormous grievances— and our accomplishments, which have improved both the Churches and States of the world, should not be overlooked — but there is still a great deal of reformation-work to be done.

 

Today, the ideological descendants of Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli fall under two common labels: Mainline Protestantism and Evangelicalism. The former group, which primarily consists of theological liberals and liturgy enthusiasts, has consistently hemorrhaged attendance for decades. My Upper West Side neighborhood here in New York is chock full of Mainline churches, but few of them are better-attended than they were in 1960. That these congregations struggle to maintain their membership is not surprising, as Christians from Mainline denominations are far less likely to share their faith with others, or pass it down to their children. And why should they? After all, according to a recent Pew Research Center study, only about 1 in 5 Mainline Protestants believe the Bible is God’s literal word. No need to tell your kids or coworkers about a belief system that’s based on a book you don’t actually trust. Your guess seems to be as good as theirs.

 

What Mainline Protestants lack in proselytizing, however, they attempt to make up for with their social agenda. Every Mainline denomination proudly supports abortion rights, LGBT clergy, and a host of other polemical stances that most Christian sects have historically opposed. In other words, Mainline Protestants are more likely than anyone else to distance themselves from your perceptions of Christianity — the type that tell you they’re not those kinds of Christians, and they don’t go to that kind of church. Given the aforementioned realities of Church history, perhaps this is not the most problematic stance, but Mainline Protestant pews are getting emptier and emptier every Sunday, and that counts for something.

 

As their name — from the Greek term for Good News — implies, Evangelicals pay greater attention than their Mainline counterparts to numerical growth, and they generally believe in their holy book. But this faction of the Church is not without its issues. In our hyper-politicized age, if Mainline Protestant platforms have fallen largely in line with the Democratic Party, Evangelicals have sided with the Republicans.

Famous Evangelical leaders like Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Robert Jeffress practically campaigned for President Trump while Southern Baptist luminary Russell Moore faced resistance for speaking out against the morals of a thrice-married philanderer who now runs our country. White Evangelicals voted for Trump at an 81% clip in 2016. On the other hand, black and brown Evangelicals have gone unaccounted for in modern political analysis, and they may be poised to migrate from Evangelicalism entirely. Chart-topping rapper Lecrae, a seminary graduate who frequently broaches Jesus on his records, explains the ethos for an exodus on his new song “Facts.”

 

I will not oblige to your colonized way of faith
My Messiah died for the world, not just USA
They say, “Jesus was Conservative”
Tell ’em, “That’s a lie”
No, He not a Liberal either if you think I’ll choose a side
They say, “‘Crae, you so divisive, shouldn’t be a Black church”
I say, “Do the math, segregation started that first!”

 

The goal of these bars is not to paint the entirety of white Evangelicalism as inherently racist — there is a difference between individuals who miss the good ol’ days and full-on white nationalists (though plenty of both will be worshiping in Evangelical services this weekend). However, like Trump and the modern GOP, white Evangelicals are more than eager to dismiss any culpability they have in the continued presence of racial tensions in this country.

 

Lecrae speaks for many racial and ethnic minorities who feel completely excluded from white churches, where the worship band plays white music and white pastors keep talk of diversity and police brutality out of their pulpits entirely. True God-fearing Christians should never respond to injustice or inequity by sticking their heads in the sand — they must openly rebuke it, even if that means occasionally adopting the talking-points of the political left. While the Mainline Protestant is quick to remind you that he is different from the 19th-century Southern Baptists or bigoted reformers like Luther, the white Evangelical feels little remorse for the sins of his forebears, or even the cultural sins of omission he is committing himself.

 

How should Mainline Protestants and Evangelicals reform their churches to make them better for the next 500 years? Martin Luther might blanch at the comparison, but the exemplary attitude of a Jewish political lobbyist named Nehemiah might be a model of how we should handle our complicated history and murky future. Nehemiah is a Hebrew exile in the Persian Empire; the Babylonians had sacked his homeland more than a century before and he now serves at the pleasure of a foreign king. God had long promised Israel that He would bless them when they were faithful to Him and punish them when they weren’t; Nehemiah knows this was one of the dry times, especially when some friends from back home tell him that even the broken-down remnant of Jerusalem is in peril. The man of God took this matter immediately to heart, fasting and praying for days, pleading that God would restore the people he loved:

 

“Let your ear now be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant … confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have sinned against you; I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses.”

 

 

Nehemiah was not born when Jerusalem fell, not even close; and he had spent his adult life faithfully working for the King of Persia. He has sinned at times, certainly, but his sins are not directly connected to his people’s suffering. Modern Evangelicals might be tempted to say that Nehemiah is “being too politically correct” by asking God forgiveness for the sins of his family and the sins of his tribe. Yet we see this man, whom God blesses with all kinds of favor throughout his biblical biography, penitent because the ones who came before him had made major mistakes. Perhaps he also feels some personal responsibility for not doing enough for other Jews in captivity; but regardless, Nehemiah fasted and prayed for days — have you ever felt that kind of remorse in your entire life?— in the hopes that God would forgive his people for 150-year-old sins, because their effects were still prevalent. White Americans (especially Protestants) have a very obvious 150-year-old sin that still has disastrous effects, along with centuries of other prejudices and vitriols that were propagated by Luther and his legion of converts. Maybe God wants us to repent of these offenses even today — He certainly doesn’t want us standing idly by while the national wounds continue to fester.

 

With divine blessing and royal edict in hand, Nehemiah marches to Jerusalem to rebuild the city’s encircling wall, an expensive project miraculously funded by Persian taxpayers. It becomes apparent very quickly in the narrative that Nehemiah is not suffering from his B.C. version of white guilt; he has an invigorating pride in his tribe. He whips the builders into shape and keeps a watchful eye while Israel’s enemies sneer at them from afar. Ultimately, in chapter 9, he leads his people in another fast, this time with sackcloth and ashes, and together they “stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.” The people recite a poem, glorifying God for their past and promising to do better in the future. Nehemiah is not afraid of his people’s history, nor does he want to run from it, as a Mainline Protestant might. He knows that God can work through even the most broken people, and that He has before.

 

This is the self-aware optimism that should mark the modern Protestant Church. Martin Luther was a deeply flawed man who also helped free Europe from a choke-hold administered by money-laundering indulgence salesmen and power-hungry clerics. Misinterpretations of the Bible have been the root of all kinds of evil, but the book is still the inspired word of God, a powerful weapon when used properly. In fact, the prayer of the people in the book of Nehemiah remains relevant for us today:

 

But they, our fathers, acted arrogantly; they became stubborn and would not listen to your commandments. They refused to listen, and did not remember your wondrous deeds which you had performed among them. … But you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness; and you did not forsake them. ….

[End of quotes]

 

 

Even more emphatically, we read at:

http://www.reformation.org/luther.html

 

Saint Martin Luther was a latter day Nehemiah!!

 

In the book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament, Nehemiah was the prophet who led the Jews back from Babylon to Jerusalem. Nehemiah re-built the ruined Temple and re-established the worship of JEHOVAH after the Babylonian Captivity.

Saint Martin preaching the Word by German artist Schorr.

Luther is known as the "Prince of Preachers." He knew how to keep the hell bound spellbound. His sermons alone total over 100 volumes. Luther was another Nehemiah who rebuilt the Jewish Temple after the Babylonian Captivity. The two men are almost carbon copies of each other. You can read about him in the Old Testament. Nehemiah punched one of the Jews in the face because he refused to leave his heathen wife. Luther never punched anybody . . . but he sure laid the Papacy low with his preaching and pen!! Luther threw plenty of ink at the devil. During his brief lifetime as a Reformer; he published over 100 volumes and thousands of sermons. His translation of the Old Testament into German was a Homer task.