"'You Either Have It or You Don't Have It. And If You Have It, You Can't Get Rid of It.'"

"Prejudices borne of past violence are difficult to overcome. For more than a century following Luther, Christian reformers and their political allies across Europe battled with the Catholic Church-aligned Holy Roman Empire. Catholics slaughtered Protestants; Protestants slaughtered Catholics; and both persecuted groups like the Anabaptists, who championed adult rather than infant baptism. Most traditions did not develop their distinctiveness by accident; many religious leaders staked their lives on their particular interpretation of the Bible."

Emma Green at The Atlantic looks at the state of ecumenism five hundred years after Martin Luther.

And at The Nation, Elizabeth Bruenig reviews new books on Luther.