Luther’s theology never pushed forward on this issue of the precise boundaries between church and state, so those who belonged to the church—which is to say all true Christians—were not given clear parameters on when they were permitted to take up arms against the state. Dietrich Bonhoeffer would four centuries later bump up against this again and would do his best to resolve the dilemma and formulate a solution, but by then he was so far ahead of the Lutheran ministers in Germany that they could not follow him, and the National Socialists had no resistance from the churches and were able to
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