Martin Luther and Flatulence

[wildboar]

I am currently in the process of going through all of Luther's works dealing with the extent of the atonement and trying to determine if there is some way of harmonizing these passages into some sort of theology or if Luther just contradicts himself at different times. The general index has not been much help. It left out several key passages-whether intentionally or not I do not know. But the benefits of electronic search capabilities are quickly making themselves known as I can easily search for a word such as 'satisfaction' and it will find every instance in which the word comes up. I then have to go through the laborious task of sifting through to find passages which deal with what I am actually looking for and the search engine isn't nearly as fast as it is on my Bibleworks program so this is looking like it could be quite a project.

Meanwhile, I keep coming across references of one sort or another to farting. Compiling a collection of all of Luther's references to farting has proven to be a far easier task. Please do not read if you do not have a sense of humor or if you find alternate words for dung overly offensive. It certainly is not nearly as profitable as my larger task, but it may be just the thing to cheer you up if you're feeling a bit blue.

My favorite of the bunch starts at the bottom of page 3 and continues on to the top of page 7. It deals with the pope declaring that priests may not marry. There are also some very funny ones in the TableTalk quotes which are found at the end some of which deal with spiritual warfare. It seems that rather than acting as most in our day who would act as if demons don't exist or others who live in terror finding them under every rock, Martin Luther treats them as being very real but chooses to mock them and fart in their faces. Perhaps someday I will write a book called Spiritual Warfare According to Martin Luther. It would have to be better than most of the books in the Spiritual Warfare section.

[Skeuos Eleos]

Interesting reading!

I wonder what would happen if we were to attack heretical teaching in a similar style in our day?

[wildboar]

By farting at them?:p I think we have to remember the intense persecution that the Luther experienced and how apostate the church had become at the time particularly in what it taught about justification. I'm not sure any of us here are in the same situation. There are those today who become obsessed with a particular doctrine often a false one and they believe that the church stands or falls with this particular doctrine. They then declare that every church which does not agree with them on this issue has become apostate and since they are unable to find a church which teaches exactly what they believe in exactly the way they would like it to be teached they determine that God's wrath is upon the instituted church and all the churches have gone apostate. Others spend their days looking up the various false beliefs of various individuals who are involved in organizations of which they have no dealings with just for the pleasure of calling them heretics and ranting and raving. Neither one of these activities are God-glorifying and I'm sure not all of Luther's rants were either which is why I hesitated to post this.

[ray kikkert]

Interesting reading!

I wonder what would happen if we were to attack heretical teaching in a similar style in our day?
It is proving to be very helpful in explaining how pathetic I think one's doctrinal stance is;)

In fact today I asked the question on another forum. "How was I relieving myself , on myself? "
:p

The ultimate Luther paradox question.

greetings and salutations, el rana