God and the People: Reformation Part 1
Read Part 2 here.
Tomorrow is the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation, so this Saturday I went to a seminar on the history of the Reformation at my friend's church. I was anticipating a talk, but instead we watched a documentary series with breaks for discussion.
The Reformation kicked off on October 31st, 1517, when Martin Luther famously posted his 95 theses, a list of topics of debate that had been bothering him.
One of the primary things he questioned was the practice of selling Indulgences. An Indulgence was a piece of paper you could buy from the church that said that the Pope had forgiven your sins. The construction of many great cathedrals was funded by the selling of these Indulgences--which were like a shortcut around other, less pleasant or more time-consuming, types of penance practiced by the Church at the time. And Indulgences were not just a side act either; they were being mass produced. When the printing press was invented, the first documents printed were Indulgences.
But Luther asked the question: if the Pope had the power to forgive sins, just like that, then why is he making poor people pay for it? Why wouldn't he just forgive them?
Luther was a monk. He had given away everything he had and given his life to the Church. Why did he suddenly start questioning it?
Let us rewind a little bit. For a long time, Luther felt the burden of his sin quite heavily. He is described as feeling so constantly guilty that he gave confession multiple times a day--so much so that he was told to stop coming!
Luther did well as a monk. He was soon ordained as a priest, and eventually ended up teaching. As he was studying, he came across Romans 1:17, and realized that salvation is by faith:
"For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: 'The righteous will live by faith.'" (Romans 1:17)
This revolutionized Luther's thinking. In the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed that your good actions and acts of piety needed to outweigh your sins. But from this verse and others, Luther came to believe that salvation comes through faith alone, not through some heavenly balancing act.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
At the end of the day, you cannot earn your way into Heaven, and you cannot pay your way either. Salvation is by faith alone.
The Catholic church did not respond well to their practices being questioned. Perhaps they were worried about losing the income from the Indulgences.
Before long, the Pope responded by publishing a papal bull (like a memo) condemning 41 of Luther's theses and giving Luther 60 days to recant. Instead, Luther published three books. (If only I could write my dissertation that fast.) And here the printing press made another contribution to the Reformation: it allowed Luther's ideas to spread like wildfire.
And so the Reformation was not only a religious revolution, but a social revolution as well.
Luther believed in the priesthood of every believer--basically that we don't need a priest to intercede to God for us, but that every baptized believed had access to God.
"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." (1 Peter 2:9)
Rather, Christ gives us direct access to God.
"Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us." (Romans 8:34)
And, all of a sudden, the common people had permission to read and interpret the Bible for themselves. Which, of course, also meant that the Bible needed to be translated into the vernacular--and that people needed to be taught to read it.
"No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest." (Hebrews 8:11)
Another major tenet of the Reformation was sola scriptura--only Scripture, the Bible--meaning that church tradition, as well as the Pope, were no longer authorities about what was right and good, but that only Scripture was an authority. So people begin to comb through the Bible to figure out what parts of church tradition came from the Bible, and which parts were added later. There were two main schools of thought. Luther, the leader of the Reformation in Germany, thought that if it wasn't in the Bible, it was neutral territory and okay, while Zwingli, the leader of Reformation in Switzerland, thought that if it wasn't mentioned in the Bible it was not okay.
This led to a lot of friction, which I will write more about next week.
But both came to the same conclusion about celibacy--there is no command for universal celibacy in the Bible, and so both concluded that marriage of the clergy must be okay. Both then married for love, challenging the Medieval conception of marriage--Zwingli in secret, and Luther to a runaway nun.
Another cultural idea of the Middle Ages which was overthrown was the idea of a natural hierarchy of people. As there was no support for such a hierarchy in the Bible, democracy* and the idea of human rights began to emerge.
One movement that emerged from the Reformation and which championed democracy was the Anabaptist movement (modern Anabaptists include the Mennonites and the Amish). The Anabaptists thought that faith should be a personal choice, and that church membership should not automatically be extended to everyone who happened to live in the region of the church. Instead, once you were old enough to make the decision for yourself, you should be able to choose to get baptized (or, by extension, choose not to) and join the church. In a society where baptism was linked to citizenship, this was seen as subversive. All of a sudden, the church was no longer a social and cultural institution for the entire community, but instead only included those who chose to become members. It was the Anabaptists who began advocating for the separation of Church and State.
One of the names of Jesus Christ is Immanuel, which means God with us. On the first Christmas, God was born in human form and became one of us. But in practice, He didn't truly become of the people until Reformation, in many ways.
*Of course, democracy was present in Athens a long time before this, but it wasn't in place in Europe during the Middle Ages. At this time, it began to emerge, according to the video we watched. I suppose they mean it began to emerge again. Thanks to Ruth for pointing this out. Likewise, a lot of the other ideas that emerged in the Reformation and which I discussed here were not new ideas, just rediscovered ideas.
Tomorrow is the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation, so this Saturday I went to a seminar on the history of the Reformation at my friend's church. I was anticipating a talk, but instead we watched a documentary series with breaks for discussion.
The Reformation kicked off on October 31st, 1517, when Martin Luther famously posted his 95 theses, a list of topics of debate that had been bothering him.
One of the primary things he questioned was the practice of selling Indulgences. An Indulgence was a piece of paper you could buy from the church that said that the Pope had forgiven your sins. The construction of many great cathedrals was funded by the selling of these Indulgences--which were like a shortcut around other, less pleasant or more time-consuming, types of penance practiced by the Church at the time. And Indulgences were not just a side act either; they were being mass produced. When the printing press was invented, the first documents printed were Indulgences.
But Luther asked the question: if the Pope had the power to forgive sins, just like that, then why is he making poor people pay for it? Why wouldn't he just forgive them?
Luther was a monk. He had given away everything he had and given his life to the Church. Why did he suddenly start questioning it?
Let us rewind a little bit. For a long time, Luther felt the burden of his sin quite heavily. He is described as feeling so constantly guilty that he gave confession multiple times a day--so much so that he was told to stop coming!
Luther did well as a monk. He was soon ordained as a priest, and eventually ended up teaching. As he was studying, he came across Romans 1:17, and realized that salvation is by faith:
"For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: 'The righteous will live by faith.'" (Romans 1:17)
This revolutionized Luther's thinking. In the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed that your good actions and acts of piety needed to outweigh your sins. But from this verse and others, Luther came to believe that salvation comes through faith alone, not through some heavenly balancing act.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
At the end of the day, you cannot earn your way into Heaven, and you cannot pay your way either. Salvation is by faith alone.
The Catholic church did not respond well to their practices being questioned. Perhaps they were worried about losing the income from the Indulgences.
Before long, the Pope responded by publishing a papal bull (like a memo) condemning 41 of Luther's theses and giving Luther 60 days to recant. Instead, Luther published three books. (If only I could write my dissertation that fast.) And here the printing press made another contribution to the Reformation: it allowed Luther's ideas to spread like wildfire.
And so the Reformation was not only a religious revolution, but a social revolution as well.
Luther believed in the priesthood of every believer--basically that we don't need a priest to intercede to God for us, but that every baptized believed had access to God.
"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." (1 Peter 2:9)
Rather, Christ gives us direct access to God.
"Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us." (Romans 8:34)
And, all of a sudden, the common people had permission to read and interpret the Bible for themselves. Which, of course, also meant that the Bible needed to be translated into the vernacular--and that people needed to be taught to read it.
"No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest." (Hebrews 8:11)
Another major tenet of the Reformation was sola scriptura--only Scripture, the Bible--meaning that church tradition, as well as the Pope, were no longer authorities about what was right and good, but that only Scripture was an authority. So people begin to comb through the Bible to figure out what parts of church tradition came from the Bible, and which parts were added later. There were two main schools of thought. Luther, the leader of the Reformation in Germany, thought that if it wasn't in the Bible, it was neutral territory and okay, while Zwingli, the leader of Reformation in Switzerland, thought that if it wasn't mentioned in the Bible it was not okay.
This led to a lot of friction, which I will write more about next week.
But both came to the same conclusion about celibacy--there is no command for universal celibacy in the Bible, and so both concluded that marriage of the clergy must be okay. Both then married for love, challenging the Medieval conception of marriage--Zwingli in secret, and Luther to a runaway nun.
Another cultural idea of the Middle Ages which was overthrown was the idea of a natural hierarchy of people. As there was no support for such a hierarchy in the Bible, democracy* and the idea of human rights began to emerge.
One movement that emerged from the Reformation and which championed democracy was the Anabaptist movement (modern Anabaptists include the Mennonites and the Amish). The Anabaptists thought that faith should be a personal choice, and that church membership should not automatically be extended to everyone who happened to live in the region of the church. Instead, once you were old enough to make the decision for yourself, you should be able to choose to get baptized (or, by extension, choose not to) and join the church. In a society where baptism was linked to citizenship, this was seen as subversive. All of a sudden, the church was no longer a social and cultural institution for the entire community, but instead only included those who chose to become members. It was the Anabaptists who began advocating for the separation of Church and State.
One of the names of Jesus Christ is Immanuel, which means God with us. On the first Christmas, God was born in human form and became one of us. But in practice, He didn't truly become of the people until Reformation, in many ways.
*Of course, democracy was present in Athens a long time before this, but it wasn't in place in Europe during the Middle Ages. At this time, it began to emerge, according to the video we watched. I suppose they mean it began to emerge again. Thanks to Ruth for pointing this out. Likewise, a lot of the other ideas that emerged in the Reformation and which I discussed here were not new ideas, just rediscovered ideas.
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