Saturday, January 5, 2019

The state of the Church at Luther's "revolt"

Perhaps now that the full 500th year of the Anniversary of the 95 Theses is over, some of the hyped rhetoric will also wane.  It is good for Lutherans to remember that the good Doctor was no perfect saint in flesh but the beggar and sinner He admitted and confessed over and over again.  Hero worship is not the best way to remember Luther and he himself would be offended by the way some have made him out to be.  At the same time, his was not some revolt, some tearing away at a perfectly good structure and church, and he is not responsible for what Protestantism has become -- both the empty truth of liberal Protestantism skeptical of the Word and those who use the Gospel to legitimize every sin but those of straight white males.  Hidden in there is a truth Rome sometimes concedes and Lutherans often never knew.  The Church into which Luther was ordained was a shaky shoppe of inconsistencies, immorality, corruption, and broken promises.  The naive Luther sought to bring a rebirth of Scripture which he thought would rally the people and repair the structure.  I cannot fault him for his diagnosis although I wish I were naive as he was in presuming that a turn to the Word would erase all the ills of his day and mine.  In the end, some have counted perhaps 12 million Europeans who left Rome, more later, in what was a very huge breach and yet not all were devotees of Luther.

Luther did not break up the medieval Church -- it was ripe with rift, suffering schisms, and a bleeding body before Luther opened his mouth. In the wake of the so-called Dark Ages, Christianity found itself with a Church in turmoil and scandal on the inside and shockingly woven into the political and royal life of politics and rule on the outside.

The state of the clergy was awful.  Absentee bishops and priests ignored their pastoral responsibilities.  Rich families collected parishes, monasteries, and church offices like we would put together a stock portfolio or real estate empire.  They doled out these to their sons who were ordained but seldom functioned as religious clergy -- preferring to delegate the actual church work to underlings.  In fact it was rare for bishops of the larger cosmopolitan dioceses to be present in their dioceses, much less serve in any pastoral capacity there. These prominent sees were too often benefices for the rich families who owned them and whose sons merely collected the not unsubstantial income.  The average priest was poorly trained, knew little of the Latin of the doctrinal teachers of the Church and nothing of the Greek or Hebrew of the Scriptures.  They preached poor and mostly moralistic sermons, catechized poorly the youth, charged for sacraments, and spent the offerings of the people on themselves.  The faith suffered even with the Church and, though there had been many voices calling for reform, the faithful were poorly served and this served as a catalyst for a reformer (Luther) who could escape being burned at the stake for challenging the status quo.

In the wake of Luther and others, no one in Rome could ignore the crisis.  When the Council of Trent was convened, some hoped for an internal reform to legitimize Luther's complaints.  While the Council met only sporadically between 1545 and 1563, its reform largely too the shape of a consolidation of Roman and papal power and centralized even more the shape of the those now more accurately ROMAN Catholic.  Its decrees were not universally heralded or applied but over the years Trent would consolidate Roman identity while ignoring many of the abuses and the calls of the Reformers for a catholic renewal flowing from a Scriptural renewal.

To be sure, millions left Rome and not simply for Luther but because of this corrupt reality that challenged the Scriptural vision of the Kingdom.  Luther is the convenient target to blame and his role is easy to call a revolt, but it is not without the dream of what might have been if the Church had been renewed through the Scriptures, regained her voice to preach the Gospel, returned to the sacraments as means of grace, and taught the priests and the faithful more deliberately.  When we look at the time of the Reformation and Luther, we almost find ourselves looking at the present situation.  We have payday preachers who hawk the grace of God as if it were a product and who deliver hope with a fee.  We have scandals in which priests and bishops have ignored or covered up great immorality.  We have churches with the Gospel lite who have traded doctrinal certainty for the whim of feeling and desire.  We have a morality which moves like a barometer following the cultural direction of the moment.  We have confusion about what it means to be Christian and confusion about what it means to be the Church.  Perhaps it is time for another revolt, a synthesis of Christians who want to hear the Word and keep it, to come together from various homes around the Word that endures forever and doctrine that does not change according to poll or preference and truth that actually has power to call us to repentance and remake us into His image and likeness.  Perhaps we do need another Luther.  Like some who surveyed the situation in Luther's day, could it get much worse?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

"the dream of what might have been" ...if the Church had been renewed through the Scriptures, regained her voice to preach the Gospel, returned to the sacraments as means of grace, and taught the priests and the faithful more deliberately."
Beautiful thoughts, Pastor. You are a better Dreamer than John Lennon with his dream of "no religion" in his big hit "Imagine".
We, in our generation, can "teach the priests and the faithful more deliberately" through "Small Catechism,Liturgy and Various Vocations" to hear the Word of God as clearly stated in Scripture...one of the pillars of the Reformation.
Thank You, God Bless the Preacher.

Anonymous said...

Pr. Peters says and Anon quotes, "the dream of what might have been" ...if the Church had been renewed through the Scriptures, regained her voice to preach the Gospel, returned to the sacraments as means of grace, and taught the priests and the faithful more deliberately."
Ah, but the Church was reformed. The BoC is proof. No "ifs" about it.

Anonymous said...

I think Pastor's Peters Point is: the "Dream" has not been achieved ... not yet anyway. The Book of Concord was indeed Adopted.. but the Dream of "renewed through the Scriptures, regained her voice to preach the Gospel, returned to the sacraments as means of grace, and taught the priests and the faithful more deliberately" ...has yet to be achieved.
That should be the goal to which we dedicate ourselves as Confessional Lutherans: People of the Augsburg Confessions. Work to achieve that dream: Scripture Alone, Faith Alone, Grace Alone.

Cliff said...

Catholics in general do not accept this analysis of Luther as they to this day think Luther was wrong. Denial is the argument they rely on to vilify the reformation and reaffirm everything Roman Catholic. Even with today's moral crisis in the Catholic Church there are many voices defending the pope and Catholic theology and practice, a few even throwing barbs at Luther.

The Christian and Catholic Church of today is a mess and there seems little hope for real repentance and return to scripture. The Catholic Churches are incapable of true confession and admission to wrong doing, while Protestants are all over the map with their feel good religion.
Our only remaining hope may be if God intervened as mentioned in Mark 13 and cut short our human nonsense?

Daniel G. said...

Hi Cliff,

While you are right about our "analysis" of Luther I think you made a blanket statement in regard to defending the the pope (I'm thinking current). The Church will always be beseiged by crisis of some sort thanks to the fact that it is a divine institution run by sinful humans. Christ never promised a Church of saints only ( I know, tired argument but true). There are many, including me, that think that we need to return to the basics (read pre Vatican 2) in regard to the liturgy, music, and above all, morality. Luther had it right in regards to the sale of indulgences and any informed Catholic would be plain stupid to deny the abuses that went on in his day and today, would be woefully idiotic to say that everything in the Church is as it should be. Had Luther reined himself in, I think that there would have been a genuine and organic renewal of the Church but ultimately, that did not happen. What he did was open the door to further rupture of Western Christendom and he himself saw what unfolded in terms of Calvin, Zwingli, etc. as a result of "private interpretation" of the scriptures; that is for Luther, Calvin and Zwingli and imposing that doctrine on their followers which lead to the mess of denominations that we have today. Seriously, all claiming the Bible as their sole authority yet the wackiness that exists in denominations (read Jehovah's Witness, and Mormons to name 2).

The Church is a scriptural Church so I won't exhaust an already tired argument. What you as a Lutheran and me as a Catholic have to do is pray for the unity that Christ prayed for at the Last Supper. We have some things in common especailly in terms of fighting against an unGodly culture. The Church (all Christians) will suffer to be sure. We have to pray for the strength to continue to hold fast to what we have. God bless you.

Cliff said...

Daniel, your analogy is refreshing compared to many I've read in which it is almost wholesale denial of any corruption or wrong doing by the Catholic Church. The corrupt and immoral practices were entrenched in the the Catholic Church. Celestine V saw this and retreated up a mountain to pray for the end to these vile practices. His pontificate lasted only a few months before he resigned amidst scandal and corruption. So 500 years later, Luther did not have a lot of options before him with all this history of corruption in the past. I am not sure how he could have "reined" himself in with so much apathy and resentment towards him. As a Lutheran I am of course blaming Rome, but I know you see it differently which I respect. I am saddened as much as you on how the reformation opened the floodgates to all kinds of divisions and personal interpretations of scripture which exist today. This is indeed unfortunate. We all hope we could restore some form of unity.

On returning to pre-Vatican 2 days, I have to disagree with you on that analogy. Prior to V2, the Catholic Church was stuffy, antiquated, too authoritarian and a liturgy that was not user friendly (if I may use that term). There was more liberties taken than perhaps should have been. They threw the baby out with the wash as the saying goes. The floodgates were opened, unfortunately.

However, there are several dialogues taken place in North America between Lutherans and Catholics, so there is a ray of hope for more understanding between our two groups. A few short years ago, we were still throwing stones at each other. So as you mentioned, prayer is really the only true hope we have. We can't give up the quest for truth and unity. Peace!

Anonymous said...

Cliff,

You said, "On returning to pre-Vatican 2 days, I have to disagree with you on that analogy. Prior to V2, the Catholic Church was stuffy, antiquated, too authoritarian and a liturgy that was not user friendly (if I may use that term). There was more liberties taken than perhaps should have been. They threw the baby out with the wash as the saying goes. The floodgates were opened, unfortunately." On that note, I will say that yes, there were many "stuffy" priests and such and V2 was supposed to ameliorate that but like you said, "They Threw the baby out with the bathwater." As far as not being user friendly, if you understand the role of priest and laity in the context of the liturgy, then you would know that there are parts that pertain to the priest and those of the congregation. Since Lutherans do not condiser their pastors as priests since they deny the sacrifical nature of the Eucharist, then it is no surprise you would say what you did. So we'll have to agree to disagree.Also there were hand missals that had the English translation (I think you know that) so there is no argument as to the laity not knowing what was happening.

Further, there was a reverence that is completely absent now in the standard Novus Ordo parish because of a lack of good catechesis and the glut of priests who really don't believe in what they are doing. IT IS A MESS.

But we have Christ's assurance that HE WILL NOT ABANDON THE CHURCH AND THE GATES OF HELL WILL NOT PREVAIL.

AMEN