The Protestant Reformation

Victoria Blake puts forth some undeveloped thoughts:

Every year, our church throws a big “Reformation Bash” to celebrate the anniversary of the night that Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the Wittenberg church door.

Many people—Protestants and Catholics—have wondered, why do you celebrate the Reformation? What I’ve heard from Protestants who are against celebrating the Reformation is the analogy, “That’s like celebrating the removal of a tumor.” I can only assume that the reason a Catholic would not appreciate a Reformation celebration is that they think the Reformation was the wrong thing to do and full of bad theology.

I want to make the case that the Reformation is something that should be celebrated.

First, I will address the Protestant concern. Historically, God’s people have marked big occurrences with festivals. Some of them were prescribed in the Bible, some of them were not. And of the ones in the Bible, some were prescribed directly by God and some were not. Passover was prescribed by God, Purim was not. Both were in the Bible. Hanukah is not prescribed in the Bible at all, but is celebrated by Jesus. The events in the 1500s were certainly as theologically significant as Purim and Hanukah, if not as significant as Passover.

The Catholic concern is harder to address, as it becomes more of a theological debate. But even Catholics have to admit that there were abuses of clerical power, such as the allowance of indulgences and corruption in offices, which needed to be called out and fixed. From their point of view, the reformers who became Protestants led to the counter-reformers who remained Catholic.

In either case, the important thing is that truth prevails. And since God so willed that truth prevail by the Reformation, we should celebrate that prevalence.

Posted at 3:02 am EST on the 31st of October 2009 by V. K. Blake.

Under Theology as

There are 19 replies.
 
  1. H. G. Roorda says on October 31st, 2009 at 9:56 am

    The tumor analogy is odd… I had a friend with tumor on his brain. You can bet we celebrated when that tumor was removed. That argument just sounds like those people are the stodgy brand of Presbyterians– the kind that won’t celebrate anything, even someone being declared cancer-free (Not to bash Presbyterians. I consider myself one after a fashion) and it’s not so much what you’re celebrating that they don’t like, but the actual fact that you’re celebrating. Can’t you be more sober-minded?!?! Hahah.

    I’ve never understood the Roman Catholic point of view on this one… I’d like to see an argument for the church being better off without the Reformation. Seems like it would be hard to come up with one, as the Reformation helped to bring truth to the Roman church, as you pointed out.

  2. V. K. Blake says on October 31st, 2009 at 1:53 pm

    I think where the person was going with the tumor analogy (I can’t remember who it was) was not that you shouldn’t celebrate the removal of a tumor, but would you really celebrate its anniversary year after year?

  3. R. A. Byrd says on October 31st, 2009 at 8:07 pm

    Happy Reformation Day!

  4. John R. Ahern says on November 1st, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    What about the idea that celebrating Reformation Day is celebrating a schism? Regardless of whether or not it was a schism worth having, why celebrate something that is dividing the Body? Shouldn’t this instead be a day to fervently work and pray for the union of the Church?

  5. Lillian Taylor says on November 2nd, 2009 at 2:24 pm

    I agree, John. I actually just finished an essay about unity in the Church.

    I am Catholic, so obviously, I don’t celebrate the Reformation, anyway. But I agree; why should we celebrate division in the Church?

    According to the “World Christian Encyclopedia: A comparative survey of churches and religions – AD 30 to 2200,” by David B. Barrett, et al, (Oxford University Press, 2001), there are 19 major world religions which are subdivided into a total of 270 large religious groups, and many smaller ones. 34,000 separate Christian groups have been identified in the world.

    Should we, honestly, celebrate this?

    Jesus so prays to His Father: “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21).

    And in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, “Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”

    We don’t want division in the Church. We shouldn’t celebrate it.

    Also, as a Catholic, I might add, that even if you thought celebration was called for, you should at least be Lutheran. 999 of 1000 Protestants don’t believe the same thing.

    For those who don’t know (though I’m sure most of you do):

    In the sixteenth century, one of the greatest heresy’s occurred. It began when Martin Luther rejected the Church and her teachings. Luther rejected the sacrament of Holy Orders to produce “equality in church”. His disregard for Holy Orders, proved his disregard for holy Mass. He originated the idea of personal interpretation of Scripture. Luther’s followers constituted a great number of Northern Europeans, and continued to spread.

    John Calvin, one of the more prominent heretics, came soon after Luther, and taught the heresy known as predestination.

    Henry VIII, King of England, founded the Church of England, of which he was supreme head and all authority came from him. He split from the Church when the Pope would not grant an annulment of his lawful marriage.

    Followers of Luther, Calvin, and Henry VIII may listen to what he told the Corinthians: “Now this I say, that every one of you saith: I indeed am of Paul; I am of Apollo; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was then Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”

    This is exactly to modern day denominations, even though they may deny it – though they also point to the Bible as their source of all beliefs. In Protestantism, there is no leader; there is personal interpretation, and the two combined lead to disagreement, dissension, and confusion.

    In his First Epistle, Peter warns us, “Understanding this, first, that no prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation.” We must stand fast with Holy Mother Church, and rely on her for our interpretations of scripture, on her for our leader, and on her for our teachings.

    Clearly we see (or at least, some of us) that if we do not follow her teachings, it leads to the division of many Christians.

    Once we split once, we only continue to split.

    The question, again, I ask is this:
    Should be celebrate division?

    -Lilly

  6. Lillian Taylor says on November 2nd, 2009 at 2:27 pm

    Anyhow, wishing you a Happy Church Division day!

  7. Erin says on November 2nd, 2009 at 2:38 pm

    But the deal is, Lilly, do churches have to be united institutionally as long as they’re united doctrinally in a way that’s Biblically correct?

    I would argue that hte Reformation brought a lot of people to uniting doctrinally in a way that is closer to the Bible. Which is *definitely* worth celebrating! And it’s hte important stuff. I mean, sure htey disagreed about little things but bringing botht eh Catholics and new reformers back tot he Bible in the important areas and away from sin counts as a unity of beliefs, doesn’t it?

  8. Lillian Taylo says on November 2nd, 2009 at 4:55 pm

    Hi, Erin!

    I have two questions:
    How are they united doctrinally if they each believe something different?
    How did it unite them closer to the Bible?

    -Lilly

  9. Lillian Taylor says on November 2nd, 2009 at 4:57 pm

    Oh, and I forgot to ask this:

    If they were united closer to the Bible, how is it they split more? When we are urged not to?

    -Lilly

  10. John R. Ahern says on November 2nd, 2009 at 9:51 pm

    There are a few points to bring up here, Lillian. Just for point of reference, I’m arguing from the Classical Protestant position, which could be summed up by most of traditional Lutheranism, the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church, the Three Forms of Unity, and the Westminster Confession of Faith and its Catechism, in which there is an almost overwhelming unity of doctrine. The points where they disagree are few, minor, and acknowledged hardly to be doctrinal but terminological.

    The Protestants aren’t the ones being divisive. The majority voice (to be safe…it may well be the universal voice) of the early Protestant leaders, including Calvin, was that Catholic baptisms were valid and Catholics would go to heaven. Roman Catholics are members of the Church. This far, we aren’t divisive—in fact, the real schismaticism comes not from the Protestants but from the (traditional) Roman Catholics who consider Protestantism a heresy. But, I wouldn’t be able to take them nearly as seriously if they weren’t divisive. After all, you have to be divisive when you’re combating false doctrine. Paul was. Jesus was. Protestants are and so are Catholics. But the point is this. You either have to be a “neo-conservative” Catholic, believing Protestants to be in some undefined realm between apostate and fully within the visible bounds of the Church—in this case, only, would you be able to accuse them of being divisive—or you can hold the traditional Catholic position with regard to Protestants, in which you have no more ground to call Protestants divisive than Ron Paul to call Sean Hannnity too libertarian. Catholics insist on much greater division than Classical Protestants. Again, though, I wouldn’t have it any other way, so long as we genuinely differ on theology.

    (And, just as a way of reminder, you believe in predestination too, because you believe in the Bible. There’s no way of getting around Ephesians 1 and Romans 8-9, where St. Paul says explicitly, of all words, predestination. It’s just a matter of how you deal with the reality of predestination as revealed in Scripture. Augustine has one way, Calvin has another. But you can’t ignore that predestination is there.)

    *edit* There were so many darn typos here, sorry if you read this before the first five minutes after I posted it. :-P

  11. Sarah says on November 2nd, 2009 at 10:20 pm

    John, Reformation Day is one side of a coin. We can celebrate the work of reforming God’s church on the 31st of October and celebrate Christ’s church as a whole the next day (All Saint’s Day). Isn’t that nice how it works?

    I’m coming to think that what we consider disunity in the Church is not always exactly that. Francis Schaeffer has a neat little book called The Mark of the Christian; he states that the mark of the Christian is love and goes on to argue that in some cases some forms of “disunity” are loving and necessary. That is, if you disagree with a certain group of people about some issue of relative unimportance maybe you shouldn’t be in the same local church because you won’t be able to love them the way you need to if you’re always at loggerheads.

    Also, think of how different groups have different abilities: Baptists make excellent evangelists, Roman Catholics and Lutherans do the best at hospitals and nursing homes, and so on. I think that God works through the so-called “schism” for better progress in the church as a whole. If we maintain a unity in love and in faith, I’m not convinced that our other differences are a disadvantage. As a very brilliant man I know is always telling me, God turns our liabilities into assets.

  12. V. K. Blake says on November 3rd, 2009 at 1:31 am

    Lily, and to some extent John: The question of “church unity” is the same one raised by my Mormon friend. She asked me why in the world it would be better to have a billion denominations, when you could just have one with one Prophet.
    As Sarah points out, it’s actually good for there to be different denominations. That way, there are core salvific beliefs that all Christians have (nicely summed up in the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds), important but not salvific beliefs that different groups disagree with, and minor beliefs that different groups disagree with. We are all one body in Christ insofar as we are all in the first category. In the other categories, though, why bind yourself to a group that you know you don’t agree with? Either the beliefs of your conscience will be overruled (a very dangerous thing) or it will end up being cause for personal division, which is worse than denominational division.

  13. Lillian Taylor says on November 3rd, 2009 at 10:53 am

    I believe that the Reformation was good, to some extent. We wouldn’t have any of that beautiful music we do today in the Catholic Church if not for the Anglicans – the 1960’s would have seen an end to that. And I agree that the Reformation did reform churches–taking a chisel and hammer to stone carvings on the wall and status certainly would re-form everything…

    John, keep in mind, though, you split from us, we didn’t split from you. :P

    -Lilly

  14. Margaret Ahern says on November 3rd, 2009 at 11:36 am

    To the comment, “You split from us, we didn’t split from you”: first, I’d like to point out that both Calvin and Luther were trying to stay within the institution of the Roman Catholic Church and work for its reform, but both were forced out by charges of heresy and orders to recant things that their consciences would not allow them to recant (“Here I stand; I can do no other.”). Furthermore, the Reformed understanding of the scriptural definition of “The Church” is quite different than Rome’s. We see scripture as defining the church as comprised of all those who have been faithful to God and His Word since the creation of the world. So we don’t see John Calvin and Martin Luther as having split from The Church, but as having been true to Christ and His Church.

    That said (and this is in reference to an earlier remark about Protestants not having a leader), we in the Reformed tradition have a definite understanding of the necessity of leadership, authority, and hierarchy in the church as set forth in scripture. The necessity of that leadership and authority is precisely for the preservation and proclamation of sound doctrine as well as for matters of church discipline. Furthermore, the concept of “private interpretation” has definite boundaries: first and foremost, while there may be many applications of a particular text, there is only one meaning, and each believer is obligated to seek the correct interpretation. That pretty much rules out those who want to get subjective in their interpretations. Other rules for interpretation are that scripture itself is to be the prime interpreter of scripture, meaning obscure passages are interpreted in the light of clear passages, the implicit passages in light of the explicit.

  15. Margaret Ahern says on November 3rd, 2009 at 11:39 am

    As to the church buildings being re-formed by hammer and chisel: there are many excesses by the lesser players in the reformation that are repugnant, indefensible, and inexcusable. But that goes for the both sides, actually.

  16. John R. Ahern says on November 3rd, 2009 at 12:50 pm

    I’m actually with Lillian here, Vicki and Sarah. Your arguments are both compelling, in a way, but you seem to be ignoring the Scripture behind it. I don’t really see how disunity gets beyond the ones that Lillian initially mentioned. Until you can answer that, you can’t really make a case for the sort of disunity that Baptists and Lutherans and Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox and Methodists and Charismatics exhibit. Granted, I don’t believe in the magisterial picture of institutional unity that Rome insists upon, but being united simply on core salvific doctrinal points (assuming we are) is not enough—we can’t even agree on what direction we’re supposed to take those core beliefs.

  17. Margaret Ahern says on November 3rd, 2009 at 1:08 pm

    Oh yeah, one more thing I wanted to answer: the verse cited by Lillian from 1 Peter is actually II Peter 1:20 “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation”.

    Stripped of its context, this verse could seem to be damning for the Sola Scriptura crowd. But take a look at the entire context (verses 16 – 21), and it’s pretty clear that what is being defended is the trustworthiness of scripture itself: even though it was delivered to us through human vessels, what they wrote down was not their own thoughts but was the Holy Spirit speaking through them. I’m not a Greek scholar, but I have consulted my Greek interlinear, my Greek expository dictionary, as well as my encyclopedia of Bible difficulties and a Bible commentary, so these conclusions are not subjective. I’ll type in verses 20 and 21 for you, as I think they make the point:

    “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretations. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” 2 Peter 1: 20, 21

  18. Sarah says on November 3rd, 2009 at 1:45 pm

    John,

    I agree that what I’m saying is somewhat simplistic and a bit problematic sort of thing (not to mention remarkably pragmatic; which I usually detest). And Scriptural evidence of the sort you ask for is perhaps not there. Very troubling, I’m sure. Much more thought is required, but at least I’ll flesh out my thoughts a bit more.

    I really don’t think so-called schism is going to be resolved until way into the future of Christ’s Church, as we become more conformed to His image and His plan for His Church. In the meantime, I think the back and forth and pulling and pushing of different groups may well be a means of keeping us somewhat centered. The mission of the Church is in many spheres, concerned with bodies and souls, the now and the not yet and no matter how hard we try individually we can’t do it all; it’s paralyzing!

    The Dartmouth professor and social historian/philosopher Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy had a conept he referred to as “The Cross of Reality” which has four points Inward
    |
    |
    Backward (Past) —— Forward (future)
    |
    |
    Outward

    “Man’s life, social as well as individual, is lived at a crossroads between four “fronts”: backward toward the past, forward into the future, inward among ourselves. . . , and outward against what we must fight or exploit. . . . Hence both mental and social health depends on preserving a delicate mobile balance between forward and backward, inward and outward trends. Integration, living a complete and full life, is accordingly not some smooth “adjustment” we can hope to achieve once for all, as popular psychology imagines; it is rather a constant achievement in the teeth of forces which tear us apart on the Cross of Reality.” -Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

    All individuals and all societies are pulled in those directions. This works in churches with different individuals having different emphases (one wants more evangelism, another is concerned with teaching and caring for those already in the flock, another is always trying to preserve the past: creeds, confessions, whatever history that particular church, and another is concerned with looking to the future) and it’s painful but works for greater growth in that Church.

    So my idea in my previous post was that since I think this is true for individuals and for a local churches, it may be true also for larger church organizations and even The Church: that different denominations and different local bodies may provide the pull in those directions that will make a “complete and full life” possible.

    I think this concept is similar or related to the death and resurrection concept that we can see everywhere. The being torn apart may seem to cause death, or even is a kind of death, but it’s the source of a more complete and full life.

  19. Sarah says on November 3rd, 2009 at 1:45 pm

    Rats. I was hoping I could make the thing with the dashes show up as a cross. But it didn’t work. Anyway, I hope you get the idea.