Which postwar Lutheran institutions have officially repudiated Luther’s antisemitic writings and when did they do so?
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Executive summary
Several major postwar Lutheran bodies have formally repudiated Martin Luther’s antisemitic writings: the Lutheran World Federation issued a public acknowledgement in 1983 (recognizing “the sins of Luther’s anti-Jewish remarks”) [1] [2]; the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America made a public repudiation in 1994 (denouncing Luther’s “anti-Judaic diatribe” and the “violent recommendations” in his later writings) [1] [3]; German regional and national Lutheran bodies—including the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria—have produced formal statements in the 1990s and 2010s that acknowledge and condemn Luther’s anti‑Jewish texts [4] [3] [5].
1. Major global repudiations: the Lutheran World Federation and the ELCA
The broadest institutional repudiations came first from the Lutheran World Federation, which in 1983 declared that “the sins of Luther’s anti‑Jewish remarks … must be acknowledged with deep distress,” language later cited by scholars and national churches [1] [2], and from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which in 1994 formally stated that Luther’s “anti‑Judaic diatribe” and his violent proposals against Jews must be acknowledged and deplored [1] [3]. These two declarations are the clearest post‑war, institutional renunciations documented in the reporting and have served as templates cited by other Lutheran bodies [1] [2].
2. Germany and the regional churches: EKD, Bavaria and the Reformation 500 reckonings
In Germany, the process of reckoning has been intermittent and public: on the 60th anniversary of Kristallnacht in 1998 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria issued a declaration urging serious engagement with Luther’s anti‑Jewish utterances [4]. The EKD approved a statement in November 2015—titled “Martin Luther and the Jews – A Necessary Reminder on the Occasion of the Reformation Anniversary”—that acknowledged the tradition of anti‑Jewish thought in Reformers and urged reflection on consequences [5]. German churches’ statements follow a longer chain of controversy, including documented wartime compliances and earlier nineteenth–twentieth century uses of Luther by antisemites [6] [7].
3. Other national churches: Norway, the Netherlands, and broader European responses
Reporting indicates that several state Lutheran churches in Europe followed suit with public condemnations during late‑20th and early‑21st century reckonings: the Lutheran churches in Norway and the Netherlands issued formal condemnations in the 1990s or thereafter, and other national bodies have produced apologies or critical statements linking Luther’s texts to Christian–Jewish relations in modern Europe [3] [4]. These statements typically framed repudiation as both theological correction and civic responsibility after the Holocaust [3].
4. Churches that reject Luther’s antisemitic writings but qualify their repudiation
Not every Lutheran body speaks in the same register: some churches formally denounce Luther’s anti‑Jewish remarks while simultaneously defending his theological legacy. For example, the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) has official resolutions that “deplore and disassociate” the negative statements about Jews while reaffirming that Lutheran doctrine rests on Scripture and confessions rather than Luther as an infallible authority—a nuanced rejection rather than an unconditional institutional renunciation of the founder [8]. Scholarship also notes differences between outright repudiation and contextualized disassociation across denominations [9].
5. Why these repudiations occurred, what they mean, and reporting limits
The wave of repudiations in the late 20th century grew out of ecumenical dialogue and post‑Holocaust moral pressure: Jewish communal demands for formal recognition of harm and the broader Lutheran World Federation process propelled declarations in 1983 and the 1990s, and Germany’s own public memory work intensified statements in the 1990s and around Reformation commemorations in the 2010s [1] [3] [5]. The sources document which bodies issued statements and when, but they do not provide a complete catalog of every regional synod’s language or every date; where national churches issue iterative or local declarations, exact wording and date may vary and are not fully compiled in the reporting available [9].