Martin Luther's Views on Slander and Protecting Your Neighbor's Reputation

Today we will learn and reflect on the commandment, DO NOT SLANDER, in the
Small and Large Catechisms penned by Martin Luther.
In many of his teachings on the Ten Commandments in the Catechisms, Luther
often brings up issues we often confront in our daily lives that are not mentioned
by other commentators, so can benefit from studying his catechism, even if we are
not Lutheran. When discussing the sin of slander, Luther also cautions us how lying
and slander can derail legal proceedings.

At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources used for this video, and my
blogs that also cover this topic. Please, we welcome interesting questions in the
comments. Let us learn and reflect together!

YouTube Video:
Martin Luther on the
commandment:
Do Not Slander
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Book of Concord

YouTube Video:
Martin Luther on
commandment:
Do Not Slander
https://amzn.to/3aWgrIp
https://amzn.to/300cBfg
https://amzn.to/2YnsSKM
https://amzn.to/3wqsqrZ
Intellectually Balanced and Non-Polemical Lectures
On Luther, St Augustine, Philosophy and Theology
In The Western Tradition, Professor Philip Cary
https://youtu.be/FQmBggJAhKg

One legitimate concern Martin Luther had was that the Catholic Church was too
distant from the laymen, that the average Catholic could not participate in the
Catholic masses that were held in Latin. Many local priests only learned enough
Latin so they could deliver the Mass, not even knowing the meaning of the Latin
words they were repeating. Issuing a catechism helped bring the church teachings
to the masses, particularly to those young Lutherans attending confirmation
classes.
Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the church door in 1517, but it wasn’t until
1522 that he started organizing a new church structure. The Lutheran Small and
Large catechisms were issued in 1529 and 1530. The Catholic Catechism, issued in
response to the challenges posed by Luther, was issued after the Council of Trent
1566, and the post Vatican II Catholic Catechism, which based much of its
theological teachings on the Trent decrees, was issued in 1985.

TIMELINE OF CATECHISM
1517: Martin Luther nailed 95 Theses
to door of Wittenberg Church
1521: Luther called before Diet of
Worms to recant
1522: Luther returns to Wittenberg,
after going into hiding, translating New
Testament into German
1529: Martin Luther wrote the Small
and Large Catechisms
1530: Augsburg Confession
1545: Council of Trent called into
session.
1566: Trent Catechism issued
1985: Vatican II Catechism issued
Martin Luther as an Augustine Monk,
Lucas Cranach the Elder, after 1546

MARTIN LUTHER’S SMALL CATECHISM
Fortunately, one of advantages of the Small Catechism is its clarity, we will start
with the Small Catechism on the Commandments for DO NOT SLANDER:

Lutheran Small Catechism:
“You shall not bear false witness
against your neighbor.”
What does this mean? “We
should fear and love God, so we
do not tell lies about our
neighbor, nor betray, slander, or
defame him, but we should
apologize for him, speak well of
him, and interpret charitably all
that he does.”
Martin Luther as an Augustine Monk,
Lucas Cranach the Elder, after 1546

Many of the Church Fathers teach us that instead of making
excuses for ourselves and judging our neighbor harshly, we
should instead make excuses for our neighbor and judge
ourselves harshly. But who does that?
For example,

St Ephrem does this succinctly in his short prayer,
emphasizing that thinking and speaking well of
your neighbor comes out of living a godly life in
all respects:
O Lord and Master of my life,
Grant me not a spirit of sloth,
despondency, love of power, and idle talk.
But give to me, your servant,
A spirit of sober-mindedness, humility, patience,
and love.
Yes, O Lord and King,
Grant me to see my own faults and not to judge
my brother,
Since you are blessed to the ages of ages.

Luther starts his Large Catechism
commentary on this commandment
memorably, “Besides our own body, our
wife or husband, and our temporal
property, we have one more treasure
which is indispensable to us, namely, our
honor and good name, for it is intolerable
to live among men in public disgrace and
contempt.” Our reputation is our most
precious possession, more important
than baubles and gold, every man wants
“to maintain his self-respect before his
wife, children, servants, and neighbors.”

This commandment demands that
justice should be administered equitably
for all, for both rich and poor, and
should be blind to all influence, looking
only at the evidence presented.
“A judge should be a man of integrity,
not only upright but also a wise,
sagacious, brave, and fearless
man. Likewise, a witness should be both
fearless and upright.” “Everyone should
help his neighbor maintain his rights.”
Luther with a swan, painting in the church at Strümpfelbach
im Remstal, Weinstadt, Germany, by J. A. List

Martin Luther Preaching to the Faithful, from the Altarpiece of the Church of Torslunde, 1561
This commandment also
“forbids all sins of the tongue
by which we may injure or
offend our neighbor.” Luther
uses his quick wit like a two-
by-four to beat up on the
backbiters who, “learning a bit
of gossip about someone else,
spread it into every corner,
relishing and delighting in it
like pigs that roll in the mud
and root around in the mud
with their snouts.”

Positively stated, we not only
should avoid telling falsehoods
about our neighbor, we are
exhorted to protect our neighbor’s
reputation, even when our
neighbor makes this defense
difficult. Luther states this
memorably, “nobody has the right
to judge and reprove his neighbor
publicly, even when he has seen a
sin committed, unless he has been
authorized to judge and reprove.”
Martin Luther Translating the Bible, Wartburg
Castle, 1521, by Eugène Siberdt, painted 1898

Luther continues, “There is a great
difference between judging sin and having
knowledge of sin. Knowledge of sin does
not give you the right to judge it. I may
see and hear that my neighbor sins, but to
make him the talk of the town is not my
business. If I interfere and pass sentence
on him, I fall into a greater sin than
his. When you become aware of a sin,
simply make your ears a tomb and bury
it.” “God forbids you to speak evil about
your neighbor even when he is guilty.”

When our neighbor has seriously wronged us,
do we complain? Should we seek justice? How
should we seek justice?

Luther reminds us that the Gospel
of Matthew gives us a protocol for
settling disputes:
“If another member of the church
sins against you, go and point out
the fault when the two of you are
alone. If the member listens to you,
you have regained that one. But if
you are not listened to, take one or
two others along with you, so that
every word may be confirmed by
the evidence of two or three
witnesses. If the member refuses to
listen to them, tell it to the church;
and if the offender refuses to listen
even to the church, let such a one
be to you as a Gentile and a tax
collector.”
Martin Luther & Philipp Melanchthon, by Lucas Cranach the Younger,
painted 1558. Luther penned many tracts and theological works, while
Melanchthon represented Lutherans in various councils and was the
primary author of the Augsburg Confession and other official Lutheran
documents. Luther thought that Melanchthon was too conciliatory.

Luther enters the monastery, Ferdinand Pauwels, painted late 1800’s

We must be cautious, we could endanger our salvation by our
complaints, we must rather remember that our salvation comes from
improving our relationships with our neighbor, not allowing our
complaints deteriorate into harmful gossip and slander, which is
poisonous rather than helpful. But confronting our nasty neighbor, why,
he might get upset, or confrontational, or even violent, or we might even
learn that we are wrong!
FOLLOWING THIS COMMANDMENT IN OUR DAILY LIVES

Just as we should not lie or slander or gossip
about our neighbor, so we should not listen to
those who lie or slander or gossip and ruin
our neighbor’s reputation. We must go
further, “if you encounter somebody with a
worthless tongue who gossips and slanders
someone, rebuke him straight to his face and
make him blush for shame.” Why should we
rebuke the slanderer? Why not just slink
away and ignore them? You may “silence
someone who would bring some poor man
into disgrace, from which he cannot clear
himself. Honor and a good name are easily
taken away, but not easily restored.”
Luther at Erfurt, by Joseph Noel Paton, 1861.

What do you do at work when you have to work with someone who can be really
difficult to work with and everybody at work knows it, and everyone is tempted to
complain? This is not technically gossip or slander, because everyone knows they
are difficult to work with, but it is at least a type of soft slander, because constant
complaints like this over a long period of time can be very damaging both the
person’s reputation but can also ratchet up the meanness and cruelty of the office
chatter.
You can try to lighten up the chatter a bit, telling your coworkers that they should be
grateful, for if the company puts up with them they surely will put up with you. Or
you can point out that you really do not know what difficulties they have or had to
face in their personal life.

How should we protect our neighbor’s reputation?
Luther suggests that “we should use our tongue to
speak good of everyone, to cover up our
neighbor’s sins and infirmities, to overlook them,
and to cloak and veil them with our own
honor.” This is how we should treat our neighbor
because that is how we would wish to be
treated. It is a “noble virtue to always put the best
construction on what we hear about our neighbor,
as long as it is not a notorious evil, and to defend
him against the poisonous tongues of those who
are busy wherever they can pry out and pounce on
something to criticize their neighbor, twisting
everything around in the worst possible way.”

Luther makes an
exception for public
sins, which allows us
to criticize and
question the motives
of political and public
figures. But then he
says this allows us to
“censure the pope
and his teaching,
which is publicly set
forth in books and
shouted throughout
the world.”
Martin Luther in front of Thomas Cajetan, by Ferdinand Pauwels, painted 1872

Professor Carey in his lectures on Luther points out that Luther’s criticism of the Pope went
further than other criticisms of his day, he contended that the institution of the papacy itself was
corrupt, often calling the papacy the whore of Babylon, and sometimes worse. What good came
from this? Luther helped keep a lid on the more extreme political conflicts during his lifetime, but
soon after all of Europe erupted in the Thirty Years War first between Catholics and Protestants,
millions of Germans and other Europeans died.
Such polemics were traded between Catholics and Protestants for centuries, until Vatican II
unilaterally called a cease fire, with Pope John XXIII calling for a pastoral council with a conciliatory
restatement of Catholic beliefs, avoiding the declarations of anathemas that council decrees had
pronounced for millennia. But Facebook groups on both sides still devote themselves to trading
polemics, the enemy would rather us argue as to who is damned and who is not than discuss love
and faith and hope. These polemics and triumphalism do not increase the Love of God in
anyone’s heart, just as we should respect the religious liberty of everyone to worship God as they
believe, so we should also respect the Church and the Church Authorities, Holy Scripture, the
writings of the Church Fathers, the Pope, the Bishops, and the priests and pastors of all
denominations.
Seeing this from Luther’s perspective, Luther was afraid for his life, after the Diet of Worms the
Emperor declared him an outlaw and heretic, a death sentence meant he would never leave

Luther Posting his 95 Theses in 1517, by Ferdinand Pauwels, painted 1872

Disappointingly, Luther goes off on a minor anti-Semitic rant in
his explanation of this commandment.
We discussed the problem of Luther and his anti-Semitism in
another video, we do not need to repeat it.

SOURCES: Our primary source for this video is the Book of Concord, the
Confessional Handbook of the Lutheran Church. Luther wrote the sections on the
Small and Large Catechisms. You can also purchase the catechisms separately.
We also drew from the sources for many of the other videos from this channel. We
would also like to mention the many videos by the Lutheran Professor who is also
an Augustinian scholar, Dr Phillip Carey. He sees his life mission as bridging the
chasm separating the Protestant and Catholic Churches, and he has many excellent,
balanced, and respectful lectures on Luther, St Augustine, and histories of
Christianity and the Western Tradition that are in the Great Books, but not
Wondrium lecture series. Finally, in his final lectures on Luther, he ponders the
question I had never heard pondered for decades, How could a leading theologian
be so ANGRY? Isn’t perpetual anger spiritually dangerous?
Plus, we have a video on the history of the Lutheran and Catholic Catechisms.
And we have this wonderful thumbnail painting of Luther at the Diet of Worms.

YouTube Video:
Martin Luther on
commandment:
Do Not Envy
https://amzn.to/3aWgrIp
https://amzn.to/300cBfg
https://amzn.to/2YnsSKM
https://amzn.to/3wqsqrZ
Intellectually Balanced and Non-Polemical Lectures
On Luther, St Augustine, Philosophy and Theology
In The Western Tradition, Professor Philip Cary
https://youtu.be/FQmBggJAhKg

Luther before Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521, by Hermann Wislicenus, painted 1880

To find the source of any direct
quotes in this blog, please type in
the phrase to the search box in
my blog to see the referenced
footnote.
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Martin Luther's Views on Slander and Protecting Your Neighbor's Reputation

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