Let the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany be opened!
When will the next reformation begin? Who will be the unlikely leader? Martin Luther stood against the abuse he saw in the Catholic church, he was deemed a heretic by the Catholic church. What are the abuses that the church today is guilty of and who are they calling heretic? What is the purpose of the church?
Luther wanted the power of the church to be shifted away from clergy to the masses. He wanted a priesthood of all believers where people would have access to the Bible, the Word of God, for themselves. He wanted them to know God as loving and kind, a God of compassion. Martin Luther never intended to start a new denomination, he never intended to be schismatic, he just wanted to correct the injustice he saw. He argued against relics, they led to worshipping something other than God. He argued against indulgences, paying for grace that is God's gift to us.
What are the relics we worship today? How do we deal in indulgences in this day and age? What do we worship that isn't God and why do we ignore the grace we are given? When will the next reformation start?
4 comments:
I think there is a huge reformation that we are in the midst of today. It is not as cataclysmic as the one that started on this day, but the shifts that it is produce is no less important. Unfortunately, we in the PCUSA seem to be largely insulated from this change because of our collective affinity for the 1950s (it should really have its own affinity group). The redirection that is happening currently that is moving more and more churches towards a missional mindset is a drastic change from the PCUSA's normal stance of being inwardly focused and striving to draw people into the church. There has always been a great deal of resistance about evangelism and outreach in the PCUSA, so this new shift will be quite daunting but entirely necessary. One of the greatest challenges to this new outward focus will be achieving the level of spiritual maturity and discipleship for people to be sent missionally even into their own neighborhoods. The shift is being made though.
I almost think that it would take a cataclysmic shift to jar many Presbyterians out of the 1950's (I like the idea of the affinity group). And as we talked yesterday...change is ssllllooooooooooooooooooow.
May the shift begin to occur in the PCUSA.
I know one thing is for sure in the PC(USA). We don't believe in the priesthood of all believers anymore.
We say we do, but really, we don't. We believe in clericalism and professionalism. I hope a Reformation concerning this is already beginning to happen!
You know what I was shocked to find out? Michael said a couple of weeks ago in class, "The Presbyterian Church doesn't have clergy." Boy, is that news to me! But then I discovered that he's right. He mentioned that we have teaching elders and ruling elders. I am thrilled that the new Book of Order is going back to this language.
Eileen Lindler had a great take on this when she spoke on Friday night at the "Hope of the Church" conference at Montreat last summer.
She contends the church has a reformation every 500 years... whether it needs it or not.
We begin with Christ...
About 500 years later we have the Nicene Creed...
500 years after that was the split between the Roman and the Eastern Orthodox churches...
500 more years later is the Protestant Reformation...
And 500 years after that is today.
As Eileen said, we're due.
I don't know if that's the good news, but it is something to chew on.
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