Posted on 10/16/2019 5:53:55 AM PDT by Gamecock
Legend has it that on 31 October 1517, a German friar named Martin Luther (1483–1546) nailed a statement of criticism of the Roman Catholic Church on the doors of Wittenberg church. It is not known for sure whether he really nailed his protest to the doors or sent it directly to the local Archbishop. But one thing is certain: his ‘95 theses’ shook Europe to the core and led to a great cultural revolution.
It encouraged the German Peasants’ Revolt of 1524–25, in which the rural poor raised an army of 300,000 to fight the feudal order, and later still the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48). Both resulted in appalling death tolls and widespread destruction of Church property and artworks. A third of the peasant army was massacred and during the Thirty Years’ War the modern equivalent of 40 million people died.
Luther’s ideas, and those of the Reformation, did not just fall out of the sky. There had been earlier critics of the Church’s corruption. However, Luther’s protest occurred at a time when the feudal system in Germany was unravelling. Not only were the plebians fed up with exploitation and taxes but towns and cities were developing with a class of merchants and industrialists being held back by the old feudal order. Luther was also supported by some among the aristocracy – the secular princes – who were more than happy to confiscate and seize Church property in the name of a higher principle. The Church owned a third of the land.
Luther’s dissent was able to gain much ground thanks to the Gutenberg printing press, technology that allowed for books, pamphlets, posters and cartoons to be printed in large numbers. Not everyone could read but there were gatherings at which the latest subversive works would be read to those assembled and, within a decade, half of Germany was ‘Lutheran’.
As with other events that turned the world upside down, such as the English barons’ revolt and the struggle for Magna Carta in the thirteenth century, Luther had no idea what he was unleashing. He thought he was just provoking a debate over issues that outraged him, such as the Church’s practice of selling Indulgences to raise money for the rebuilding of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
An Indulgence was a certificate issued by the Church and sold by priests with a guarantee that it would ensure passage to Heaven. They were very costly at about half a year’s wage.
In the 95 Theses, Luther asked: ‘Why does not the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?’
Perhaps Luther’s most subversive and radical idea was his belief that the Bible, not priests and popes, was the central religious authority. Back then, Bibles were in Latin – a language of the priests – and usually chained up in churches. Luther’s translation of the Bible into the language of the people – vernacular German – had revolutionary implications.
Essentially, Luther challenged and overturned the idea that the relationship between the individual and God requires the mediation of priests representing an institution headed by a theologically infallible source of divine authority, the Pope.
Luther is best described as an ‘accidental revolutionary’, someone who opposed actual revolution. When the peasants took up arms against the Church and other landlords, he immediately opposed them and supported their suppression; for him, liberty was purely spiritual. It has been said that Luther liberated Germans from feudal Catholicism but bound them to state power.
In asserting the individual nature of the relationship with God, and in translating the New Testament from Latin to German, he was creating the conditions for individuals to think for themselves and to doubt and criticize what had been ‘common sense’ for the previous thousand years.
By all accounts, Luther was not a nice person. He was a fanatic, obsessed with guilt and sin. He constantly prayed, confessed, fasted and flagellated himself for long periods. By today’s standards, he was an extreme fundamentalist, and anti-Semitic to boot (as were many Catholics back then).
What could such a person and his rebellion against the Catholic Church possibly have to do with democracy? Why is it that around the world millions will not just commemorate, but celebrate, his act of defiance of 500 years ago?
I do not have space in this post for the complicated detail but, again, the essence of his challenge was that the connection to God was an individual one, that faith was what mattered, not actions such as rituals and Indulgences. From this perspective, every baptised person was a pope: ‘the priesthood of all believers’. Such insights laid a basis for progress toward democracy. The free Christian eventually became the free citizen – but only when philosophy caught up with and digested the still unfolding changes occurring on the ground, changes reflected by the displacement of religion in the C18th with the Enlightenment.
In a ‘papal bull’ issued in June 1520, Pope Leo X called for Luther’s works to be burned. Luther responded in December by publicly burning the bull. In January 1521, the Pope excommunicated him and Luther responded by calling the Pope ‘the Anti-Christ’. Christianity was split in two, and then further fragmented.
When, nearly two centuries later, John Locke's ‘Letter concerning Toleration’ (1690) argued that the church was a voluntary association based on individual conscience, he was presenting a key Reformation idea that one's religious confession is a matter of individual choice rather than institutional imposition.
Today, freedom of conscience owes much to the forces unleashed 500 years ago at Wittenberg. In fighting the tyranny of Rome, Europeans learned to fight tyranny of every kind. The ‘priesthood of all believers’ was a vital precondition for the much later secular democracy of all citizens.
Yes, I was playing with Matthew 7:16, with a practical understanding of human nature, the ego and my own abilities to fool myself.
Forgive me and my ignorance about such things. I’m a believer, but not a “belong-er” to any branch or whatever.
I’m just figuring things out as I go and hopefully I’ll figure out where I fit one of these days.
And, with regards to my own “works”, deeds, acts, fruits, etc., I do think my behaviors, and the intent behind them, are one of the ways He knows me, well, IF He knows me, not sure how that works, and are also how or a standard by which He will judge me.
For those reasons, and because it’s sooo easy for me to be a hypocrite without knowing it, I think it’s good to remind my self that confession truly is good for the soul.
The broken and contrite spirit God will in no wise cast out. God is the rewarder of them who diligently seek Him. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth man confesseth to salvation.
21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.I’m still working on what the above looks like when I do it.22 Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, “Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?”
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me.
Running through my mental checklist of past events, I think I have a lot of repenting to make up if I’m going to pass this class.
Thanks.
If you really don't want to bash Protestants, perhaps you should stop using the easily and often disproven here canard about there being 40,000 - one million "Christian" sects. It is false.
Would I be correct in assuming, it was “the just shall live by faith?” 😁
How can they be brothers and sisters in Christ if/when they REFUSE to become born again??? In my experience most have a desire for Jesus Christ in their head, not their heart...Most believe they are Christians because someone dropped some water on them when they were born...And again, I find it almost impossible to engage a Catholic in a discussion about Jesus Christ...They have no interest at all...
I think it's wise to let them know that if they make it to purgatory, they aren't ever getting out...
Do you know why your religion calls Martin Luther a heretic??? For the very same reason the same religion called Paul the apostle a heretic...
Act_24:14 But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets:
Like Luther, they called Paul a heretic for believing all thing in the bible, the scriptures, the written words of God...Sound familiar???
I consider it a blessing to be considered a heretic by the Catholic religion...
You should have continued on:
Rom 2:13 (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
And then,
Jas_2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
I'd say by that, you're probably doomed...
What many don't seem to get is that early on in the ministry, Jesus came only to the Jews...He was to be THEIR Messiah...There was no Gentile church...It was to be a Jewish church...And those people were still under the law...
When those Jews rejected Jesus, and killed him, he was resurrected and came back because he still had not given up on his people...He set out to do something to draw them near, to make them jealous...
Rom 11:11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
And the way he did this was to offer to Gentiles, the heathen of the earth the same thing he offered his chosen Jews, but even better things...He would give those Gentiles everything WITHOUT the works of the law by giving each man/woman Grace (that is, unmerited favor)...
Yet to punish the Jews, he would blind them to what he was doing to a large degree til he accomplished his mission, until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled...
Rom 11:1 I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
Rom 11:2 God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying,
Rom 11:3 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
Rom 11:4 But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.
Rom 11:5 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
Rom 11:6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
Rom 11:7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded
Rom 11:8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.
When this started happening, from going from Jews to Gentiles and from being under the law to under Grace, it required a transition period...This transition period is recorded n the book of Acts and some others and ends in the time of the scriptures you posted in Romans 2...Those people in Romans 2 were still under the law...So wander on down to Romans Chapter 3...
Rom 3:21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
The transition is now complete...We are fully under Grace and not the law...
Rom 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Quite a contrast from Chapter 2, eh???
And of course one has to read around those scriptures I posted to get the entire context but NO, you are not doomed if you put your full faith in Jesus Christ that he has done it ALL for you...
That’s a good one. He also had a quick wit. Once in a debate he opined that his opponent (in the middle of a long winded tirade) planned on winning by boring him to death....
one may no more “refuse to be born again” than he may refuse to have blood pressure.
This whole thing is about grace. Grace makes us recipients.
You can’t buy half the cow and walk it home, here.
I grew up Methodist, but have been Orthodox for thirty years. It was the right move for me. But I have always appreciated Luther. Without the positive cultural and political changes that developed from the Reformation, we would have a much different world.
The first thing I wrote said exactly what was wrong, the writer had a completely erroneous definition of an indulgence. So go bother someone else that gives a damn.
If you don’t give a d*** then why did you post on this thread?
Doing such things is almost always worth the time, even if we are the only ones who benefit from the effort and research!
I am a believer in Jesus, His Father and the Holy Spirit, too!
I hope my acts throughout each day offer support for this statement.
I am also a wretched sinner who is more prone to sinning than walking in His Footsteps.
I know my acts each day throughout my life provide support for this statement.
I work to be more aware of His Commandments, but I am grateful for His Mercy and I ask Him to have mercy on me, the sinner, quite often.
He may know my heart, but it is by my actions that He, the rest of the world and I have some verification, too.
Jonah was required to act. His actions in refusal said a lot about his heart, as did his eventual capitulation.
Many of my acts are indicative of my struggle with the spirit of evil, which I’ve read, are
Many of my acts are indicative of my struggle with the spirit of evil, which I’ve read, are ...
... “a spirit of lethargy, apathy, rebellion, relentless pride that made you to apostatize, keeping you away from Me and closer to Death!”
That is a quote from this:
The Day of My Return is nearer than you think
January 31, 2019
For what it’s worth.
Many of my acts are indicative of my struggle with the spirit of evil, which I’ve read, are ...
... “a spirit of lethargy, apathy, rebellion, relentless pride that made you to apostatize, keeping you away from Me and closer to Death!”
That is a quote from this:
The Day of My Return is nearer than you think
January 31, 2019
For what it’s worth.
go harass someone else, I’ve got better things to do than listen to your drivel
Nope...Grace allows us to be recipients...Not many take advantage of it...Grace comes to ALL people...
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