Luther never boasted of the judgment of his reason. “The Word they still shall let remain,” was the only thing that turned this man into steel and iron. He himself made this known as he concluded his declaration, standing before the Emperor and the council: “Because my conscience has been taken captive by the Word of God I cannot and will not recant. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen!” – C.F.W. WaltherAfter reading this, another Internet search turned up the short 3 minute clip from the 1953 film "Martin Luther" (YouTube here; I own the full VHS tape) as he spoke his most famous phrase "Here I Stand...":
The full version of this film is
The 3-minute clip can be viewed in the full version at the interval from 1:14:35 to 1:17:36; it has better sound quality. — The film has its problems – it was a unionistic production. One of the screen producers, Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan even left the Lutheran faith. Nevertheless, there is quite enough merit to recommend this film as mostly faithful to Luther's life, especially for those being first introduced to Luther.
The clip covers one of the greatest moments in church history since the days of the New Testament. This fact is not lost on today's Walt Disney Pictures and its songwriters for they use Luther's words "Here I Stand" in their Frozen movie 2013 theme song "Let It Go". Indeed, I can thank the Disney's Frozen producers and songwriters... not for their words that turn Luther's words into their opposite meaning (and in reality anti-Christian meaning), but rather to remind us all that it is Luther's words that STAND, and Frozen's use of Luther's phrase proves it.
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But now I must return back to Franz Pieper's textbook teaching presented in Part 1, a teaching that perfectly follows THE Reformer, Martin Luther. In the next Part 3, I ask some pointed questions concerning the relation of the LC-MS to Franz Pieper... How come...?
Like a number of other "quotes" attributed to Dr. Martin Luther, the legendary "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise." (also available on socks from the CPH) may not have been said by Luther at the 1521 Imperial Diet of Worms. Different publications include or don't include that statement, as noted in a March 4, 2014, comment elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteHistorian Diarmaid MacCulloch claims Luther’s “Here I stand” quote was later added by Georg Rörer, the editor of Luther's collected works.
Your comment regarding this controversy was far too significant to give a brief response in this section. See my next 3-part blog series. I will return to Part 3 of this series later...
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