POTF Blog Of The Week: Bringing the Reformation to Protestantism

The POTF blog of the week has to go to Dr. Gene Edward Veith’s post “Bringing the Reformation to Protestantism” over on his Cranach blog. Martin Luther once said the church is always in need of a reformation. In his post, Dr. Veith lays out but a few points to make the case that Dr. Luther’s point is just as applicable and valid today as it was almost five hundred years ago.

From the post:


The original Reformation, whose anniversary we mark on October 31, began in 1517 as an attempt to bring medieval Catholicism back to the Gospel, the Bible, and Vocation. It has occurred to me that today the various Protestant churches need that same Reformation.

THE GOSPEL. Luther nailed his theses on the church door to challenge the practice of selling indulgences. In effect, people were told to give their money to the church, whereupon they would get to go straight to eternal happiness in Heaven. Today, in many Protestant churches, people are being told to give their money to the church, whereupon they are told that they will get health, wealth, and temporal happiness in this world. But the Prosperity Gospel is not the Gospel!

Neither is the Social Gospel of the liberal mainline Protestants, which construe the Kingdom of Heaven as an earthly utopia. Neither is the Social Gospel of many conservative churches, which construe the Kingdom of Heaven as an American civil religion.

In sophisticated theological circles, both of mainline Protestants and among a surprising number of evangelicals, the Gospel has to do with inclusion, of being accepted into the church community. The “New Perspective on Paul” says that the Apostle did not teach justification by grace through faith apart from the Law, as Protestants used to all agree. Rather, by “Law,” he just meant the setting aside of the Judaic ceremonial law. He was concerned with inclusiveness, of allowing Gentiles to become full members of the church alongside of Jews. Not salvation from the guilt and sin that comes from violating the moral law. Similarly, the business of the church today should be including everybody, not proclaiming a supernatural salvation grounded in redemption from sin.

The actual Gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ has, through His life, death, and resurrection, atoned for the sins of the world. The Protestantism that has drifted away from this Gospel is in need of Reformation.

THE BIBLE. Medieval Catholicism did believe in the Bible. They just didn’t use it much. Today’s mainline Protestants don’t believe in it at all. Many conservative Protestants believe in it–acknowledging its authority, inerrancy and all–but they have stopped reading it in their services and their sermons sometimes have not a shred of Scripture in them. Instead, the preaching is about self-help, pop psychology, politics, or generic inspiration. Sometimes the message is “believe in yourself” or even “have faith in yourself.”

The Reformers taught that the Word of God is not only authoritative, but a means of Grace. They preached the Law, to bring their listeners to repentance, and then they proclaimed the Gospel of free forgiveness in Christ. In the words of Walther, they preached faith into their listeners’ hearts.

The Protestantism that has drifted away from the Word of God is in need of Reformation.

You can read the rest here.

A blessed Reformation Day ya’ll!

Reformation Day 2009: Plus Ca Change, Plus C'est Pareil

Tomorrow, in addition to on of my favorite secular holidays: Halloween, is Reformation Day. On Reformation Day we celebrate Martin Luther nailing the Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. What was Dr. Luther’s problem with the selling of indulgences? Plain and simple; indulgences were the forgiveness of sins; not on the account of Christ vicarious atonement on the cross but rather forgiveness based on coins placed in a coffer or through works demanded by church leadership.

Here is a portion of a Reformation Day sermon (Reformation Day was actually celebrated last Sunday) that outlines some… similarities, to what we see going on in many churches across both the country and as well denominational lines and certainly within my own beloved synod the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod:

Back in October of 1517 there was a man who was not on board with the plan. It was the church’s plan and (as usual) it involved a building and fund raising program. The more things change…

Anyway, this man was not on board either with the building or the fund raising plan. In fact, he was not on board much at all with the general plan of the contemporary church. His objection, in a nutshell? Too much work. Too much of our work, that is. Too much about me and not enough about Christ. That was essentially his objection. This man figured the Christian Church should be about Christ and His body the church which Christ Himself bought with His own blood and builds with His own hands, freely, graciously, without needing our hurrying, scurrying around, all our building and fund raising and outreaching efforts. This man figured that since Christ is God, after all, He can be trusted to take care of everything, while we simply ride the wave of Baptism all the way into the Kingdom…

This was not the plan corporate headquarters hatched. Theirs was more… fiery. Headquarters had sent mission execs to all the provinces, even to little Wittenberg in Saxony where this man lived and taught at the local university. It was listening to one of these mission executives (guy named Tetzel) that moved our man to post some theses pointing out what was wrong with the plan and what Scripture had to say about the plan. 95 theses he had, detailed objections to the plan. It’s what we’re recalling today.

As we said, the plan ultimately revolved around a building program, and every building program has at its heart a fund raising strategy. Because church fund raising goes better if it is tied to the essential mission of the church, the plan from church headquarters tied it ultimately to our eternal destiny in heaven or hell. The pitch went something like this:

“People are dying and going to hell every day. This is terrible. A terrible, tragic thing! Surely, you, dear Christian friend, don’t want to see people dying and burning in hell, especially you or your loved ones, do you? Of course you don’t want to see that. So here’s what we can do about it: the church has these little mission pamphlets. We call them “indulgences”. The name isn’t important. The mission is what drives it! You purchase one of these indulgences (they are like five bucks or so—and what’s five bucks compared to eternity in hell? Surely you can spare five bucks to get a soul out of hell, can’t you? Of course you can. Even in this economy!). You purchase an indulgence, use it yourself or share it with someone in danger of hell’s fire, and voila! They’re on the fast track out of hell, toward heaven…

“Because it’s a process, the more you buy, the quicker the trip. The more they see you care. Now it’s not like the paper itself gets a person out of hell. Of course we rely on Christ to do that, ultimately! But Christ has called us to help Him with this very big job. You wouldn’t want Jesus to have to do this all Himself would you? Didn’t He do enough, getting the ball rolling, dying for you on a cross? Don’t you want to help Jesus? Sure you do. So here’s how you can help: Jesus called 12 guys, we call them apostles, to get people out of hell. Our boss at corporate headquarters is the direct successor of Peter, the head guy. He is empowered to announce the way to life to all people and everyone needs to hear this from him. By purchasing these indulgences you create mission moments where lost souls hear how much the church can do for them and find their way to our doors. From there, the chances they get out of hell and into heaven improve exponentially. All for five bucks. Are you in, dear friend? How many do you want to buy today?”

Some of the purchasers of the indulgences had a good question: “what exactly does the five bucks go for anyway?”

“Well, of course, some of it is for overhead, to pay our international center staff’s salaries. Copying costs, advertising, etc. But half of it goes for building a new corporate headquarters. We need a visible, tangible sign of our church’s great power to save, something to inspire the heart and fill the eye. We call it “St. Peter’s Cathedral”. It’s being built right now in the holy city and will be the biggest and best cathedral in the world, as is fitting for Christ’s holy church…

“When pilgrims come to St. Peter’s, they will see how powerful the church is to save! They will want to tell more of their friends and neighbors and this will put them all on the path that leads from hell to heaven.”

“So, what,” the purchaser wondered, “is required of us to get to heaven, after we come into the church that is?”

“Well, Christ did the hard part dying on the cross! But, of course, you have to do something too! Clean up your act a bit. Live a better life. And buy more indulgences to create mission moments to get you and your neighbors out of hell…

Hmm, plus ca change, plus c'est pareil...