On October 31 1517, Martin Luther’s is supposed to have nailed his 95 theses, “Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum” on the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg. The German Protestant Church (EKD) is preparing for the 500 year celebration and has released a paper entitled “Justification and Freedom” in commemoration of the history of Protestantism.
I will touch on the rest of the paper at a later date, but the opening words made me sit up and think. I’ve taken the following statements out of the text and translated them myself, so if there are mistakes, they are mine:
The first statement, that the reformation was an event of world-historical importance, can hardly be doubted. To quote Wikipedia:
To say as hindsight, “At the center of the Reformation stood the question of the relation of man to God” is very blasé in my mind. If that is true, then you could say that Christianity was purged for its sins, which is what many Christians were convinced of. If you read some of the songs of the church in that time, they weigh heavily on the soul, loaded with the suffering of millions.
Even if you take the position that it was a struggle to “awaken the true faith”, which the early reformers hoped God would himself do, the result has been only to stop the madness of Christian civil war, but the religious implications have in fact moved away from the earlier belief “that God would himself awaken the true faith and so renew the relationship of man to God.” In fact, far from doing that, the long term result has been that the protestant church in Europe is fading away, and the Roman Catholic Church is reeling under evidence of child-abuse crimes within its walls. The question “whether the relationship with God was in accord with what God requires of man” is no longer a question that immediately moves people, except perhaps the theological faculty.
I would suggest then, not only that Protestantism was a big mistake, but that it is slowly bringing about the demise of the church, because of its focus on “the true faith”.
With regard to the Prostestant Reformation as an actual historical phenomena [event], a so much more intriguing analysis is made by folks who subscribe to what is often called “dialectical materialism”. For them, it is not a question whether Protestantism [vis a vis Catholicism] is a mistake or not but why at this particular historical juncture it came into existence at all.
They argue that, basically, it was necessary because the Feudal world had [increasingly] begun to give way to mercantilism which, over the centuries, evolved [in the context of increasing world trade] into full-blown capitalism.
Catholicism is less compatable with capitalism because [aside from the riches accummulated by those in the Vatican] the emphasis was always “other-worldly”. What mattered was not in accummulating material possessions and wealth in this world but in being pious to the Church so that in the next world they would more likely be chosen by God.
Thus, with the increasing incursion of capitalism as a political economy, all of that had to change. Somehow Christianity had to be made more compatable with “this world” too. And not just in the sense being “pious”.
So, from the point of view of the left-Hegelians, Prostestantism was not “essentially a religious event” at all. Instead, it was sold that way to “the masses”. Or even genuinely believed to be by some of “the faithful”.
Of course, for many of the same faithful, this sort of analysis is frowned upon. Better to keep all of this revolving only around the “spiritual” element.
The church has pretty much always put itself forward as the one true faith, the Reformation did not create that. If what the Catholic church was doing was not in line with good methods to be close to God or be a good person or whatever, then the Reformation was simply a critical reaction to the faults of the Catholic church. If there is no true faith then the demise of the Christian Church is not a bad thing. And you certainly can’t blame the Reformation for the behavior of priests, since part of the Reformation led to allowing ‘priests’ to have sex.
But I think the primary issue I have with the OP is that it makes it seem like the Reformation was a single act - one that could be a mistake. It was billions of acts, obviously some more critical than others. And those need to be evaluated separately and together and seen as things happening over time. The Catholic Church was very corrupt so a strong reaction to that was likely to come from somewhere. The wars that came certainly used religious premises and perhaps to some degree religions caused the wars, but likely much of it was PR use of religion for struggles between the wealthy and powerful.
[quote=“Moreno”]
The church has pretty much always put itself forward as the one true faith, the Reformation did not create that. If what the Catholic church was doing was not in line with good methods to be close to God or be a good person or whatever, then the Reformation was simply a critical reaction to the faults of the Catholic church. If there is no true faith then the demise of the Christian Church is not a bad thing. And you certainly can’t blame the Reformation for the behavior of priests, since part of the Reformation led to allowing ‘priests’ to have sex.
[quote]
And not only that, but the Reformation didn’t take us towards the idea of ‘the one true faith’, it opened the door for endless denominationalism and individualism that created the “Who can possibly say they are right” sentiment we have now. That’s not to say that I think the Protestant Reformation was a good thing- there we certainly downsides. But it pretty much had to happen.
Yes, you are quite right with regard to the reformation being an event of world-historical importance, leading up to full blown capitalism, but my issue regarding Protestantism being a mistake is linked to the original belief of the reformers that God would install the “true faith” himself.
I was reading Berndt Hamm, who in his, “How Innovative was the Reformation?”, wrote the following points:
As has been noted, Protestantism has given birth to a myriad of creeds and sects, all claiming to have the “true faith”, all claiming to take up the original form of the congregation of Christ. But there is a distinct non-uniformity about the developments after the Reformation, which was more about grievances that people had with the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope (see Henry VIII) than about moving God to install the “true faith”.
The one innovation, the “strikingly new way of interpreting the old Holy Scripture and asserting it against the authoritative structure of traditional interpretations, rituals and institutions”, has encouraged people to interpret the Scripture as they see fit, and assert their findings against others. Whether this is progress, is a matter of debate.
… and I certainly wouldn’t, since it seems to be celibacy amongst the Roman Catholic priests that has caused the problem.
I think that the intention of the Reformers named in the OP was similar to what the Pharisees were doing in their day, also trying to force the hand of God with their piety, and that the Reformers of the 16th century hadn’t seen the pitfalls that led to the “billions of acts” you mentioned, which certainly were critical.
It certainly seems to me that we need to assess the intention and results of the Reformation critically, and not in the way the EKD is doing it today.
It would seem that one can explore an historical event like the Protestant Reformation from within the faith…or from the vantage point of not having any faith at all.
From within the faith though how can one not advocate the “true faith” with so much at stake: immortality, Salvation, Judgment Day, Heaven and Hell; and the need to worship God so as to be judged by Him worthy of one route rather than another?
Personally, I have never understood how an “ecumenical” approach to God and religion could ever be justified with so much at stake.
After all, for many folks who embrace any denominational religious faith, what is at stake here is nothing less than the fate of one’s very soul.
It contributes, I would guess, and that’s what I meant. But also groups with power who many people cannot question, tend to abuse their options. And then the whole anti-body, anti-sex aspects of religion which priests are supposed to really whip into themselves can’t help much either. If you sit on your anger it will tend to come out in twisted ways, desires likewise.
Hm, say more. I’ve had the impression, a guess at this distance, that ML was sincere in thinking that there were both fundamental - doctrinal - and individual abuse issues in the Catholic Church. IOW he thought it was misguided - and frankly I just cannot see the vatican, archibishops, and so on and things like the purchasing of God’s forgiveness in the Bible. I don’t think we need to see him as trying to force God’s hand.
Nor did Jesus. Did he make a mistake? Should he have kept quiet about God? Is he to blame for the way the colonists treated Native Americans?
The way the OP is framed, with the title, it is as if it does not matter if they are right in their critique. Think about the moral position that people are put in if it can turn out someone is wrong for, say, pointing out an obvious wrong because at some point in the future negative consquences can be traced back to this act, even if other people’s moral failures and weirdness led to the problems. That said, I can think of situations where one could shout that Anne Frank should stop biting her nails, or whatever, loud enough for the nazi soldiers on the street to here and run up and find her. Not the best little story but I think you get my idea. I do not think one is free from responsibility even if one meant well or simply told the truth, in all situations. But we as humans must be able to call immoral BS immoral BS and even if this leads to problems, even horrendous ones or the next few hundred years, we are going to have to deal with those. I find it hard to believe we would have not found other ways to justify wars and killings - and generally underlying economic causes can be found for these things. As far as the confusion over the right path, that is an existential situation WE HAVE TO FACE. We also have to face the fact that many people who should not be are sure of things. That’s the way things are. If someone comes forward and suggests something is a problem and it is, we can’t look back a few hundred years later and think it was wrong for them to mention it. This implies we can evaluate the parallel universe where he or she did not say this. It also, it seems to me, it a kind of giving up. Even Buddhists have gone to war and been harshly sexist and not just in the martial Zen versions. I can’t see saying the Buddha should have kept quiet. And that’s with me thinking there is a serious problem with Buddhism as doctrine.
OK, you may be right, but there is certainly something about believing that God himself is guiding your hand and preparing to bring about the true faith in believers and seeing how things turned out. There is also a big difference between the younger reformer and the older man, who seemed to become bitter and blame the Jews for all misgivings. Originally he had tried to follow Paul in invoking envy and acknowledgment that God was in the Church, but then …
ML had very vivid dreams about the wrath of God and was seriously troubled when he recognised that there was no way to be justified in the eyes of a righteous God. There was only one solution, as Paul had discovered centuries before: The Grace of God. However, it couldn’t be that God just forgives everybody, there had to be a pre-requisite, and it turned out to be the true faith that ML and friends had been advancing. If people would accept this condition, they could be saved, otherwise it was hell’s fire with the devil – cloven hoof, tail and all. In effect, Martin Luther was opening up a new department of hell, as if the Spanish inquisition hadn’t caused enough pain and misery half a century or so before. Indeed, ML sounded a lot like the inquisition shortly before he died.
It is true enough that the main body of the Church was corrupt, but it had been on and off for centuries, which had unconsciously initiated the mystical movement, which was always around but mostly underground. Occasionally mystics were accepted and some, like Francis of Assisi, were even made Saint. But for Luther it was “too passive and sentimental and shrunk from conflict. It was a theology of feeling rather than of action. Luther was a born fighter, and waxed stronger and stronger in battle.“ ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc7.ii.ii.xiv.html
So we have a born fighter, an arm of God, not only fighting a corrupt and sacrilegious Church, but also the Jews and the Farmers and soon the whole world was burning. He obviously isn’t responsible for it all, but he was a lighted wick in a gunpowder store. The question remains, whether this was God himself using Luther?
I think what I have written above is answer enough to this rhetorical question.
I agree with you to a point, but what I am talking about is the portrayal of Martin Luther 500 years onwards, ignoring a whole body of knowledge about a controversial figure. We should acknowledge the innovation of allowing people to judge for themselves, by finally encouraging education, which at a later point led to breaking away from the literalism of the early reformation (curiously, German protestants rebuked the attempt of a Jewish scholar to join him in the beginnings of historical criticism in the eighteenth century and went on to go down the same path at a later date).
But there are enough people who, in their minds, are still where Luther was. It has to be clear that Martin Luther was one of many, and if not originally, later he was a brute. Yes, he was a child of his time, but that is the point. Luther is dated, as is his reformation, and the original ideals came to nothing, even if the historical importance of the reformation is undoubted. To build him up in the way the paper does throws dirt in the face of an ecumenical movement that is trying to overcome the trenches that grew between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. Romanticising him forgets that he was directly quoted by the Nazis when exterminating the Jews, and that it still isn’t forgotten.
I wasn’t saying that ML was a perfectly moral guy. I was thinking about the reformation being a mistake and his mistake. This seems like a different issue. For me the issue, though I may not have been clear, is not so much - did ML do the right things through his life? The issue is more around this idea of grandfathering blame in for people actions given all the various things through times those actions had effects on, and whose contribution to those effects may even be minimal, the negative ones, the positive ones, some, all. If I agree that ML made a mistake, by necessity since bad things followed or some or enough bad things, it seems to me I am agreeing I should not act at all. I see a kid about to be stabbed by a man. I feel certain morally that I should save him. I do and he later saves some other kid who becomes the next Hitler. Therefore I made a mistake. O perhaps a better analogy, I say God wants us to protect children and someone else saves HItler. I realize that example is stacked the other way, but I am doing that to make clear where I am coming from. I find out some guy is taking bribes in the local council. I call him on it. Turns out to be true and that he is Jewish or ARab or white and suddenly it dominos into months of rioting. I made a mistake. I should not have complained about corruption that was corruption. It is my fault things got messed up. This is oversimplifying, but again, I am trying to make clear what I am resistant to. So to me that ML was anti-semitic is beside the point as far as the Reformation and his reaction to it.
Sure, I don’t like this much either. But what it did was shift something that was already present between Christians and non-Christians - the Catholic church and catholics certainly justified all sorts of killing on similar grounds. The idea that there was true faith, not having it was evil and led to hell was there. I can’t see modern times being reached, in it more positive senses, without this going on internally also.
Or a partially deaf person hearing God and projecting his own shit on some of it. And the Bible might have been written by people who were a little more deaf or a little less deaf, or the Catholic church projected more or not. After Luther Christians were making choices - a bit more. Christianity was not a monolithk, a given. A little bit of responsibility taking for choosing was involved, certainly subliminally. And that is the truth - in my opinion. That wasn’t his intent and it isn’t quite what he believed, but it is what he did.
I guess I don’t think so. Jesus said that statement about him being the way to the father. That statement has caused millions of deaths and untold suffering by someone who claimed to be, in a special way, the son of God. Did he realize this would happen? If not, should he perhaps have not couched his nature differently? Might a more clearly humble presentation of his ideas saved millions? Does it matter if he was right or not?
Sure, we should look at the whole man. I agree. I was going with the thread title, perhaps too much. Focusing on the act. I am not making the case that we should just look at the good aspects of ML. NOt at all. I hate that kind of stuff.
yes, more or less the same reaction as to the last paragraph. Perhaps we have in part been writing past each other and this has been my fault. Absolutely do I think that ML should be looked at, and the Reformation also, of course to. What it led to. How I took things I explained earlier in this post. It was that kind of retroactive blame that I think, if accepted as valid, would mean no one could act. Though, of course, not acting would likely damn them also as being immoral. Might as well roll dice to make decisions.
Sorry for not having answered – one of those weeks again.
I think it was his mistake to the degree that he was completely convinced of an outcome that, according to his belief, his God would bring about. If his God didn’t do that, then something is wrong with his belief (or his God). This can be said of all of those instrumental in the Reformation, who had the same beliefs.
No, I don’t think so. But it does mean that I have to think through what I am doing or saying before intending to challenge something as immense as the church. I get the feeling that he and his friends were in their own (ivory) version of the universe, in which “the whole life of believers should be repentance” … “Yet it means not inward repentance only; nay, there is no inward repentance which does not outwardly work divers mortifications of the flesh.” “The penalty, therefore, continues so long as hatred of self continues; for this is the true inward repentance, and continues until our entrance into the kingdom of heaven.”
You just have to savour those words, “…hatred of self … is the true inward repentance, and continues until our entrance into the kingdom of heaven.” It is so at odds with our understanding today, at odds with the Bible as I understand it and the basis of numerous neuroses and of psychological instability in the church.
Consider an episode in my life: I remember sitting down with Christian academics that I had invited to a discussion group “around the fireside”, and we discussed those words until the final statement upon everyone seemed to agree was, “The Christian life is to be spent in the service of God, wasted in the service of love, and given up to all necessary sacrifice.” That is some statement and I lived a while trying to uphold that thesis, becoming a male nurse and working in elderly care, following a biblical statement that said that only the nation that looks after widows and orphans has a right to persist. (I later found that this is also something that Buddha is said to have told a King asking if he would succeed if he invaded another country).
However, during my training I started realising that psychology had already recognised this “sacrificial attitude” as a problem and with time, it became clear that service which wore itself out was really self-serving and short-term, trying to get a window seat in heaven, rather than serving people out of love for them. I started seeing the need for compassion in my immediate surroundings as imperative and got a lot of people working on that for a while, but I soon saw that it was to be short lived. People were satisfied to give money for the children of the third country and leave it at that. I’ve been in elderly care for over twenty years now, and wouldn’t have been able to keep up, if that sacrificial attitude had persisted. I have tried to speak to people about this fallacy, and show Christians how we were following an understanding that comes from the dark ages, which didn’t go down well, as you can imagine. This isn’t the way I understood Christ.
I am no friend of such speculation, and I also believe that benevolence is always appropriate (perhaps a little karma in my thoughts there)
I agree that the historical implications had to come about, either this way or through some uprising or revolution – which are always bloody. That is less what I am looking at. It is the idea that “God himself” will bring about a change that in the end decimates the population but doesn’t bring about the “true faith” either.
See above …
The statement in itself didn’t cause anything, but the use of the statement to warrant millions of deaths and untold suffering. There is a difference, since Luther actually agreed to violence and betrayed the farmers who put their hope in him.
I understand you, and perhaps I am jumping in with a huge chip on my shoulder that nobody could be expected to anticipate. I hope this post makes it clear where I am coming from.
