Luther's legacy - THE REFORMATION CHANGED THE CHURCH FOREVER
published: Tuesday | October 21, 2003
By Billy Hall, Contributor
MARTIN LUTHER NAILS HIS 95 'THESES' ON THE WITTENBERG CASTLE CHURCH
THIS MONTH is one of the most significant in Church history, for it was on October 31, 1517, that Martin Luther nailed 95 of his concerns for public debate to the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg, thereby, changing the Church, forever.
Luther's seemingly simple act has truly transformed the Church. The changes have been phenomenal. The Church has never been the same in unity or diversity, and, the Church is still in ferment, trailing from that event. Today's challenge is not so much about issues of systematic theology, as it is concern with issues of sociology, anthropology, psychology, science, philosophy, ethics, and music.
In Luther's day, theology was the issue how can someone gain right standing with God? Luther's procedure was in accordance with established custom then, for anyone desirous of having public debate on church related matters. However, his act that day would be different, for the sound of his hammer would be heard around the world, and for centuries, with the echo continuing to be heard in our time.
Luther found particularly offensive the dynamism of the Dominican friar and indulgence evangelist, Johannes Tetzel, who peddled merits of God's grace in polished propagandistic, persuasive style. Tetzel told public assemblages of mostly frightened illiterates to contribute money that could gain them the release of their deceased loved ones from the fires of the afterlife. In poetic attractiveness he used this jingle: "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs." But Tetzel's tactics angered Luther, an Augustinian monk, who had become convinced anyway, that Tetzel's tactics were no better than his theology. But Tetzel was a mere agent of something bigger. He was involved in a collection drive, approved by the Holy See, launched by the Archbishop of Mainz, for, among other things, raising funds for the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
THE 95 THESES
Indignant about the whole thing, Luther, a sincere Catholic priest, listed 95 theses against the practice of the sale of indulgences and nailed them to the Church door for open discussion. Filled with passion for purity in his personal life, as well as within the Church, the young Luther, a mere 21 years old when he joined the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt, vented his feelings in strong language. He was impatient of the slow reform developments, until then, in the Church. At age 34, he performed his historic act that led eventually to the revolutionary developments known today as the Reformation. However, some historians prefer to recognise, instead, the decisive moment to be what happened the following year, 1518, when at the public hearing (Diet) held at a place named Worms, Luther was condemned, at the Diet of Worms, as a heretic.
POPE THREATENS LUTHER
But Luther was adamant, and aggressively spread his views. The Pope could no longer ignore Luther, and so the Pope threatened Luther with the dread proclamation of excommunication and issued an official decree (Papal Bull), which Luther in dramatic fashion publicly burned. The Pope then excommunicated Luther in January 1521. In April, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V declared Luther a heretic, ordered all his works burned, and by imperial decree sought to silence him with death. Anyone could now take his life at will.
However, Luther was saved from execution by the kindness of Prince Frederick who sheltered him at Wartburg Castle, where Luther spent a year translating the Bible into the German vernacular. He was to spend 20 years in that castle, fearful of losing his life. However, it was while there, at age 42, he married Katharina von Bora, a former nun, and they had a happy, fruitful marriage. They had six children of their own and adopted five more.
At the castle, Luther wrote furiously, producing catechisms, tracts, sermons, commentaries, hymns (including A Mighty Fortress Is Our God), liturgies, and books nearly 400 literary works. Also, he encouraged his friend Phillip Melancthon to produce the Augsberg Confession, which became the 'creed' for Lutherans.
In 1546, he died suddenly of a stroke, aged 63, at just about the time the Roman Church had begun to respond formally to his charges, at the Council of Trent (1545-1563). Interestingly, the Council rejected every major charge of Luther. What distinguished his protests of that day was that he was able to have the help of the newly emerging printing press, the world's first mass medium of communication. Also, certain social developments fuelled and fanned the discord against the Church.
RESENTMENT TOWARD CHURCH
The people in general had come to resent the Church, which burdened them with taxes and threatened them with excommunication, which meant banishment into the forest and certain death. Most priests at that time were barely literate at best, and Church offices were bought, and priests dishonoured their vows shamefully. Abuses abounded.
A popular portrait of the reformer Martin Luther. For example, Luther once commented that the amount of bits of wood from the cross being sold was enough to rebuild Noah's Ark! He said too that that there were enough servings of milk from Holy Mary to sail it on!
Of course, his more substantial charges were theological. Luther differed radically with the official teaching of his church on many points. In attempting a succinct summary, perhaps the best way to state the radical differences is to note the use of the word 'alone' Scripture alone, grace alone, and faith alone.
The spread of knowledge from east to west that followed the fall of the Byzantine Roman Empire to Islam in the 15th century, it has been argued, produced three significant 'reformations', or revolutions, dependent on one's perspective. In Italy, the impact brought about a flowering of the arts known popularly as the Renaissance. In Germany, the impact manifested itself in religion and so produced what is popularly known as the Reform-ation. In England, the impact produced the Industrial Revolution.
Underlying all of those major social changes were social developments such as the rise of the middle-class as a result of the change of the system of production from gild and barter to that of money and wages. This in turn contributed to a new individualism, and eventually, a new nationalism. All these factors converged to create the political, economic and cultural environment to deepen the significance of the Reformation, of which the great symbolic leader was Luther, for he supplied the spark to the powder keg. After him came figures such as John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, Conrad Grebel, Ignatius Loyola, and others.
CHANGE SWEPT EUROPE
But it is Luther who is the towering pioneering figure. The social developments helped to change the religious landscape but even in the religious sphere, the initial impact gave rise to changes at different levels. Lutherans still remained fairly close to Catholics, particularly in rituals. The Genevan reformer John Calvin clearly defined and distanced Protestant theology from Catholic. Thomas Cranmer and the other English 'divines' attempted a middle ground. While Ulrich Zwingli and Conrad Grebel preferred yet more radical ecclesiastical positions from that of Rome. However, in the closing decades of the 20th century, and continuing, the 'great divide' between Roman Catholics and Protestants has been dwindling, pointing to possible rapprochement between these historically polarised groups. The most significant shift in such thinking has been due to Catholic initiative. Pope John XXIII in 1962 dropped the polemical language of the past and reached out in contrition and love toward Protestants, whom he termed "separated brethren".
DIALOGUE AND CO-OPERATION
The momentum has not slackened. In this regard, some documentation of the progressive inclination has emerged, of which none is perhaps more significant than Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium. Also, highly significant is the 803-page catechism of the Catholic Church, which is a most handy, authoritative reference of the Catholic position on a host of issues, and so an invaluable source for continuing dialogue and co-operation.
Alister E. McGrath, research lecturer in theology at Oxford University and research professor of systematic theology at Regent College, British Columbia, Canada, notes that already, there are evangelical churches becoming Roman Catholic.
On the other hand, churches strong on prophecy, such as the Seventh-Day Adventist, declare that from their understanding of the Scriptures, the Roman Catholic Church is destined to lead millions into lost domains, due to their false doctrines.
A MOVEMENT WITH GREAT SIGNIFICANCE
Therein lies much of the significance of the Reformation in the tensions created by differences that call today for greater union or greater opposition.
Deciding on which events are decisive turning points in Church History will always be subjective. But on every side of debate about selectivity, there is unanimity concerning the significance of the 16th century Reformation. Indeed, there are historians who see the 16th century Reformation as the beginning of a series of Reformation developments ever since that historic hammering of Luther. Since that time there can be no denying that the pace and profundity of Church reform has been more rapid and more radical than for all times before that historic moment. Indeed, the Reformation changed the Church fundamentally, forever.
