Posted on 07/09/2003 9:05:32 PM PDT by AnalogReigns
Documentary was shown on various PBS stations this week... (you know PBS--will be on again, surely--got to get something out of those tax dollars spent). It's worth taping...
Very good portrayal in my opinion...but downplayed his theology, mainly highlighting the social consequences of what Luther discovered in the Bible. Understandable when telling about such an important historic figure in just 2 hours.
Personally, I think, but for Luther's courage, there would have been no eventual United States of America...and we'd live in a very different world...
Here's the speil from PBS's site:
Martin Luther (#101)
"Driven to Defiance/The Reluctant Revolutionary"
Driven to Defiance - Martin Luther is born into a world dominated by the Catholic Church. For the keenly spiritual Luther, the Church's promise of salvation is irresistible. Caught in a thunderstorm and terrified by the possibility of imminent death, he vows to become a monk. But after entering the monastery, Luther becomes increasingly doubtful that the Church can actually offer him salvation. His views crystallize further when he travels to Rome and finds the capital of Catholicism swamped in corruption. Wracked by despair, Luther finds release in the pages of the Bible, discovering that it is not the Church, but his own individual faith that will guarantee his salvation. With this revelation he turns on the Church. In his famous 95 Theses he attacks its practice of selling Indulgences, putting himself on an irreversible path to conflict with the most powerful institution of the day. The Reluctant Revolutionary - The Catholic Church uses all of its might to try and silence Luther, including accusations of heresy and excommunication. Protected by his local ruler, Frederick the Wise, Luther continues to write radical critiques of the Church. In the process, he develops a new system of faith that places the freedom of the individual believer above the rituals of the Church. Aided by the newly invented printing press, his ideas spread rapidly. He is called before the German Imperial Parliament in the city of Worms and told he must recant. Risking torture and execution, Luther refuses, proclaiming his inalienable right to believe what he wishes. His stand becomes a legend that inspires revolution across Europe, overturning the thousand-year-old hegemony of the Church. But as the reformation expands into a movement for social freedom, Luther finds himself overwhelmed by the pace of change and is left vainly protesting that his followers should be concerning themselves with God.
Gracious, perhaps he should beg your indulgence?
1. I imagine there are 19,000 or more contradictory theological positions allowed within the RC church these days. 2. Unlike about 18,990 of those "denominations", the Lutherans have a prominent and unchanging set of written confessions.
As a Catholic, there were aspects of Luther's life of which I was unaware. I didn't realize he was so scrupulous, with his multiple confessions, daily.
He was obsessed, with many things. No wonder he sought salvation outside the Catholic Church, since the Church had brought him torment.
I don't agree with his leaving the Church; had he stayed, he would likely be one of the greatest saints in Catholicism.
He may be a saint anyway, but there were a number of huge egos involved in the Reformation, on both sides.
The Lutheran (and other) confessions state that the office or seat of the papacy has the marks of "The Great" anti-Christ. Not a popular doctrine. Individual popes may be Christians, but the office of the pope blasphemes by claiming to intermediate between humans and the true mediator, Christ, and by requiring sinful works to be added to His sinless and perfect work in order to be saved. Roman confessions (Council of Trent) state that anyone who says we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is damned to hell. This is essence of anti-Christ doctrine.
He did not leave -- he was excommunicated. He wanted to reform the church. Historically, Lutherans have been criticized for retaining so much that looks Roman. This is proof, if any were needed, that Luther only got rid of unscriptural doctrines and practices and kept everything else that could be kept -- liturgy, the two sacraments, church fathers.
I hear you, and fully agree with this point. ELCA is no longer Lutheran, since it's in communion with C of E and others. Regarding whether Rome has one set of doctrines or many, I partially concede this point since, yes, I am sure many of the Roman doctrines are espoused only by dissenters. At least Rome has written confessions, which the non-denoms and hyper-liberalized protestants do not. Unfortunately, since around Luther's (and his martyred predecessors') time, Rome has hardened in its error, codified it (Council of Trent), and added to it (infallability, Assumption, Immaculate Conception, co-redemptrix [soon?] and so on). If that were not enough, since the 1960s it appears Rome is well on the way to codifying new age / eastern extensions into its doctrine too. The way it's going, ANYBODY is going to be acceptable to Rome EXCEPT those to say that man is saved by faith alone in Christ alone, as taught by the Scriptures alone.
Tell you what. I'll stand on Christ's good works, you stand on your "good" works plus His. Remember where the faithful say "when did we clothe you?" etc? Are any of your "good" works without sin? Good enough for a perfect Judge? When you pray, do you thank God that you are not like "yonder fellow" -- not so sinful as that other guy? What do you think a "whitewashed tomb" is? Are you holy? Are you sure? Don't you think you had better have your sins and even more importantly your sinfulness covered by Christ's blood? What "good" works are you able to add to HIS sinless conception, sinless life of good works, and sinless suffering on the cross (for YOUR sins). What works of yours can be held up alongside HIS? Do you DARE hold up your dirty rags of "good" works alongside of HIS?!
We distinguish between our historical, written confessions and various opinions held by Luther. I believe he considered Mary to be a sinner by the time he died.
The above statement is one of the knocks against Luther? The whole Catholic church is built on "adding words to the Bible." Not only that, you don't understand that the issue is not Luther's mistakes, sins and flaws, it is the authority of the Word of God as the basis of the Christian faith. When Luther taught unscriptural theology, he was wrong, as is the "Pope," when he says:
In 1986 in Assisi, Italy, John Paul II joined in a circle to pray and meditate with snake handlers from Togo, shamans and tribal witchdoctors from West Africa, Hindu gurus from India, Buddhist monks from Thailand, and liberal protestant clergymen from Great Britain, as all joined hands in "pray[ing] to their gods for 'peace'." The Pope also announced in Assisi that there are "many paths to God."(Sources: Christian News in a reprint of a 1993 article by Michael A. Hoffman in Researcher, Vol. 4, No. 3; and the 4/93, Flashpoint.)
Again in 1986, in Fiji, "the Pope quaffed a potent island liquor, accepted three whale's teeth and watched a spear dance during an ancient welcoming ceremony dating back to when the Fijians practiced cannibalism. ... [Fijian tribal] chiefs handed the Pope a mud-colored, alcoholic drink called kava [a drink condemned by early missionaries to Fiji as devil worship] ... [which] he downed in a single gulp." At the Pope's next stop in Auckland, New Zealand, 15 elders of the Maoris tribe pressed noses with the Pope, "to exchange each other's breath, which is the life force." (Source: 11/22/86, Chicago Tribune.)
On January 9-10, 1993, the Pope again hosted the Dalai Lama of Tibetan Buddhism and representatives of many other false and ungodly religions. It was an incredible sight to see these weird persons, "holy books" in hand, all standing serenely, side-by-side with the Pope. In the 2/10/93 issue of the official Vatican newspaper, L 'Osservatore Romano, the Pope said he recognizes within the devil worship sect of Voodoo, "God's riches ... the seed of the Word ... solidarity among believers ... for ... human liberation."
Although it passed completely without notice in the U.S. press, a bombshell that was dropped in Rome in November of 1996 continues to send shockwaves that are being felt in political and religious circles worldwide. The explosive charge was released by Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo in an address to the Fatima 2000 International Congress on World Peace held in Rome 11/18/96-11/23/96. Addressing an international audience of bishops, priests, nuns, and laity, the archbishop charged that there are members of the Catholic Church hierarchy in Rome who are secretly involved in formal satanic worship. He accused fellow Roman Catholic clergymen of protecting Satan and his minions: "The devil in the Catholic Church is so protected now that he is like an animal protected by the government; put on a game preserve that outlaws anyone, especially hunters, from trying to capture or kill it. The devil within the Church today is actually protected by certain Church authorities from the official devil-hunter in the Church -- the exorcist. ... To the question, 'Are there men of the curia who are followers of Satan?' Milingo responded, 'Certainly there are priests and bishops. I stop at this level of ecclesiastical hierarchy because I am an archbishop, higher than this I cannot go.' Milingo cited papal statements to back up his charges. 'Paul VI said that the smoke of Satan had entered into the Vatican.'" (Reported in the 3/3/97, The New American.) [Archbishop Milingo, an exorcist, is the author of the book, Face to Face With the Devil.]
In a 4/3/91 letter written by Pope John Paul II, addressed to "my beloved Muslim brothers and sisters," the Pope said, "I close my greeting to you with the words of one of my predecessors Pope Gregory VII, who in 1076 wrote to Al-Nasir, the Muslim ruler of Bijaya, present day Algeria: 'We believe in and confess one God, admittedly in a different way, and daily praise and venerate him, the creator of the world and the ruler of this world.'" The name Allah, was not invented by Muhammad, but was the name of a pagan god, long known and worshiped in the Middle East. In pre-Islamic days, Allah worship was on par with Baal worship, both originating in the Babylon region and both being Astral religions: the Sun, Moon, and Stars were the objects of worship. An Allah idol was one of some 360 idols in the Kabah, the sacred building at Mecca, now containing the famous black stone, a place of Islamic prayer and pilgrimages., the place to which the faithful turn to pray, again not new to Islam, but a practice of very ancient origins. The tribe into which Muhammad was born was devoted to the god Allah, Allah being the personal name of the Moon god.
Similarly New Ageish in his celebrated book, Crossing The Threshold of Hope (Knopf:1994), Pope John Paul II explains that "salvation and divinization" are the "ultimate purpose" of man's life: "The divinization of man comes from God" (p. l95). Likewise, the new universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting St. Athanasius and St. Thomas Aquinas, declares, "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God. ... The only begotten Son of God ... assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods"
The RCC can't torture and burn people at the stake any more for reading the truth of the Bible in their own language. We're not going back to the Dark Ages, even if Luther was sometimes a cad. I'm a calvinistic Baptist, by the way.
It's called freedom.
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