The Reformation – 500 Years

Eric Metaxas, author of Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World (2017), believes that:

 …Luther’s monumental faith and courage gave birth to the ideals of liberty, equality, and individualism that today lie at the heart of all modern life… .

Luther’s 95 Theses written to challenge and debate the Roman Catholic Church’s practice of selling “indulgences” – what he referred to as a ‘fastpass to heaven,’ set the entire Holy Roman Empire aflame and became the launching pad of the Protestant Reformation that indeed changed the world.

Lutheran pastor, Dr. Hans Wiersma, noted his own maternal-side, Jewish ancestry in his article entitled, “Martin Luther: Concerning the Jews.”  Lutherans are careful to distance themselves from Luther’s fiercely anti-Semitic stance taken in Concerning the Jews and Their Lies (1543), while holding fast to Luther’s, and now all Lutherans’, tenets of Christ Alone, Grace Alone, Faith Alone and Scripture Alone as the means of salvation.

Luther wrote from a different and compassionate perspective twenty years before his diatribe mentioned above. In That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew (1523), he called for respect for all things pertaining to the Jewish people and their faith. He believed the true Gospel he had unveiled would bring the Jews to belief in Jesus as the Messiah.

Luther was disappointed and angry that it did not happen. Further, beset by old age and cranky, Wiersma believes without excusing him, that Luther published his extreme views out of compulsion to respond to rumors that traditionalist Jews were spouting blasphemies against Jesus and Mary.

He did not intend to start a revolution. Rather he wanted to reform the Church, but the Vatican rejected Luther and his reforms.

Astrid Prange, writing for Deutsche Welle, said Luther would be surprised by how evangelical the Catholic Church has become. Prange believes that today:

He would be glad to be in attendance on October 31, when the current pope joins Protestants in Lund, Sweden, for the Lutheran World Federation’s celebration of 500 years since the Reformation. Perhaps it would even be reason for Luther to take back calling the then-pope the Antichrist.

Yet, 500 years later, many are calling for another reformation, another Luther.  Others say we need revival more than reformation. It seems clear in today’s divided, violent and troubled world that we need one or the other, and perhaps both.