A tale of two Luthers

 

Both of these men had a dream.

Only one came true.

In 1517, German pastor Martin Luther famously nailed a list of 95 propositions onto a cathedral door in Wittenberg. These theses, as they were known, were critical of the Catholic Church, particularly the practice of plenary indulgences, which simple people believed would help you buy your way out of hell. This action - at great personal risk to Luther, who stood trial in Rome - gave birth to the Protestant Reformation, exposing the corruption of the Catholic Church and allowing Protestant nations such as Holland and Great Britain to begin free trade free of the hypocrisy of religion, quite apart from more metaphysical concerns.

Four and a half centuries later, the black pastor Martin Luther King gave one of history's most famous speeches, in which he gave his opinion that people should be judged on the content of their character and not the colour of their skin. There are tremendous similarities between these two moments in history, not least the exposure of hypocrisy and prejudice. How sad that only one of the dreams has come true.

Protestantism was of course a necessary corrective to the corrupt Catholic Church. And it is corrupt. 30 years ago I visited a cathedral 50 km outside of Budapest in Hungary, still then a relatively poor country after its occupation by the Communists of Soviet Russia. I have never seen so much gold. And the church is supposed to be a friend to the poor. Also, Protestantism is by far the more reasonable branch of the schism in the Church, adopting a measured mix of Platonism and Aristotelianism (which is what St. Thomas Aquinas strived for) instead of the wilder shores of metaphysics the Catholic Church had long set sail for.

With Martin Luther King's thesis, things were much simpler. His dream was that human beings - that's us, homo erectus and, for the most part, homo sapiens - would one day be judged by the content of their character and not the colour of their skin.

It is difficult to fault either Martin Luther, so why did the first succeed in his reformation and the second so lamentably fail?

Partly, the answer lies in will and knowledge. The Catholic Church was so obviously corrupt at the turn of the 16th century that even the ordinary folk were starting to scent it. It may be that Gutenberg's invention of the movable type printing press 50 or so years before (essentially as important as the internet, and the Church hated it) played a part in exposing the Catholic operation. It has to be remembered that people were largely illiterate at that time. Those old Catholic churches you have been into, those pictures on the wall, the stations of the cross and so on. They weren't art, they were there to teach the poor people who couldn't read the story of the crucifixion. But I digress.

Also, the world was ready for Protestantism economically, which tends to trump everything else. So where did Martin Luther King miss out?

To begin with, the contemporary political - and metapolitical - elites thrive on division, mutual animosity between tribes, and the seeding of the idea that the races should naturally be at war with one another. It is a horrible concept.

But it is being pumped into the ideological water supply by the American media, who will soon doubtless be followed by the slavish European press.

Who wins from the promotion of racial division? Certainly not the ethnic minorities the Left claim to care so much about. Giving more black people Oscars will not bring down the black-on-black kill count in Chicago next weekend.

And even blacks who are Conservative - Candace Owens, Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, for example - are called Uncle Tom and worse by a media phalanx which is rabid with animosity as well as being - ironically - largely white.

If a race war ever takes place it will be the fault of no race but the political one, a breed unto themselves, and one we could well do without.