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.
People get angry at the facts, and if they're living in the error of those facts I don't blame them. Lutheranism is indeed very closely tied to Catholicism, their service is almost identical in form---- this is because it was created from the bosom of Catholicism. It's sort of like "Catholic light". Why not just go for the real thing? The True Church needs good people, and converts are always the best.
One more point... "church" or ekklesia simply means a group of people identified by their allegiance to some cause. I believe there would be a lot more of the unity that Jesus prayed about if people would simply think of themselves as belonging to the group of people or "church" who believe in Jesus and live by his teachings. You can enjoy a lot more fellowship that way!
Luther taught his personal doctrine of "predestination", (or election), which is similar to eternal security - the "once saved always saved" concept. I don't know a thing about the doctrine of "spiritual suicide", except that I believe Luther surely committed it when he left the Truth to follow his personal beliefs and founded his own church.
How is it that you can get away with "We don't follow the pope, we only follow Christ" but that any Lutherans/Protestants are guilty of following Luther's lead, and not Christ?
Predestination is taught in Scripture. Read Romans 9:14-29. Clear as day.
"For he chose us in him before the creation of the world...he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ..." (Eph. 1:4-5). So how long have you had this problem with the apostle Paul? (Why do you "blame" Luther for a clear teaching within Scripture?)
Even beyond the "choosing" from eternity--the power of God is operative within time & space re: folks coming to him: "No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3); "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent" (John 6:29); "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him..." (John 6:44).
Because Scripture teaches that God has predestined some to salvation and eternal life, John Calvin concluded that God must have also predestined some to damnation. Scripture does not make such a statement or support Calvin's conclusion. On the basis of Scripture Martin Luther also believed (and the Lutheran Confessions teach) that God has predestined some to salvation and eternal life. Luther did not, however, reach the conclusion that Calvin reached. He did not teach a "double predestination."
Ah, a fave quote of mine: "As I sit here and drink my mug of Wittenberg beer, the gospel runs its course."--Martin Luther
What? Just because these two beliefs are part of Calvin's 5 points of belief (TULIP), they are "similar" and Luther taught them? Give me a break. What a pathetic argument.
First of all, Luther never taught once saved, always saved (eternal security). He taught the opposite: You can lose your salvation because salvation is, after all, a relationship with God/JC (John 17:3)...as we all know, relationships are never static...we either are moving closer to God or further away each day...and sometimes that's a roller-coaster...and some folks cut off their relationship with God 100%.
Jesus said many are called, but few are chosen...so just because many folks have been called by God, doesn't translate that they are predestined never to fall...or that they were ever in Christ to begin with. Although Luther taught in BONDAGE OF THE WILL that folks don't have the power to receive Christ, they indeed possess the ability to continue to reject Him.
It would seem clear to me in reading Ephesians 2:8-9 that none of our works are meritorious for salvation. We are saved UNTO good works, and rewarded for same in eternity, but we are not saved by them. We are saved by grace so that we can't boast.
Both Old and New Testaments are full of condemnation for those that participate in interfaith. We are to witness to the lost, not participate in pagan prayers or give any appearance of acceptance of darkness. This is not the first time religious leaders of many 'Christian' walks have have given credence and acceptance to paganism. We have NO place in darkness except in the proclamation of Christ.
Jesus was very clear as to when peace would be achieved and by whom, the entire meeting by its existence disregards Christ's own words. This 'prayer meeting' was simply wrong. No matter who participated you must stand against it. Making excuses only defames your truths.
Remember this?
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
There is an online copy of the book that is Google'able... Quite different look at the time in question. Interesting to boot...
I also watched the PBS program and enjoyed it very much.
P.S.-
A ping for Pastor Henrickson......
I saw the first hour the other night, but was not able to see the second. I did tape it, though, and I plan to watch it tomorrow or Sunday. I'll let you know what I think then.
My initial reaction, based on the first hour, was that it was well-produced, but that they don't really "get" the true theological reasons that animated Luther. But then, I wouldn't expect that they would.
Foxes Book of Martyrs? LOL. A heretical book written by a heretic for heretics. Full of the usual anti Catholic diatribes, this apostate book helped inspire Luther to leave the true Church and go start his own "church". I'm wondering why Protestants think Jesus Christ lied to the Church when he promised: "I am with you always, even to the end of time". (Mathew 28:20). When exactly did Jesus break His promise and leave His beloved bride the Church to fall into desperate error? And where is it prophesied in Scripture that Christ's Church would fall into apostasy and need to be rescued by a "reformer" who would then found his own Church?
Does Jesus want His Church divided into 25,000 different Protestant denominations, each teaching a different doctrine on salvation? "By their fruits ye shall know them", and the "fruits" of Protestantism is rebellion from lawful Church authority through the succession of Peter and devastating divisions within the Flock. "Is Christ divided"? (1 Corinthians 1:13).
You gotta be kidding? Entire volumes have been written by Protestant scholars refuting age old Catholic doctrine. Protestantism, after all, is based on the refutation of the authority of the pope. After his initial complaints about some legitimate clerical abuses, condemning the office of the Pope and his teaching authority became Luther's constant, divisive theme and that's how he came to invent his doctrine on "sola scriptura" and "sola fide", (Bible alone and faith alone). According to Luther, (who was a veritable pope unto himself through his own teaching authority), the Bible was all Christians needed for their authority. Nevermind that for 1,400 years there was no printing press and Bibles were rare because they had to be hand printed by specialized monks. Nevermind that even up to Luther's times a great many people didn't even know how to read. Nevermind that for the first 400 years of Christianity there was no 'New Testament' that appeared under the cover of one book. Nevermind that for the first 90 years of Christianity the Bible hadn't even been completed yet. All these poor Christians who predated the Bible's completion, or who never saw a Bible because only a few thousand existed before the printing press, or who couldn't read, they all went to hell according to Luther's theology.
Luther was all full of himself --- the Christian Church was a TEACHING Church from the beginning, as the Apostles and disciples taught by mouth, so did their counterparts throughout the ages. The Church never was intended to be a book club. In fact, the Bible itself condemns this idea. 2 Peter 1:20 and 2 Peter 3:16 warns us NOT to interpret the Bible ourselves. And Jesus commanded the Apostles to "go and PREACH TO all nations",(Mark 16:15) not "go and write a bible and let them glean from it as they wish".
Can't hear it without getting goosebumps.
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Oh, I agree! And I get a thump in my throat when I hear "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" from Handel's Messiah.
*I've heard that more than a few churchs wouldn't (won't?)allow this to be say, saying it was to "militartistic". True or no? Frankly, at this point in time nothing would surprise me.
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