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Reformation Day
Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of the church for debate
This Sunday, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, a confessional Lutheran church of which I am a member, that subscribes to the unaltered Augsburg Confession and the Defense of the Augsburg Confession, commemorates Reformation Day, marking the formation and break of Protestants with Roman Catholicism. Some would say we celebrate, but that is not a word I am in concord with. As when the Pope initiated the Great Schism in 1054, effectively separating the Western and Eastern churches, ostensibly over one word added by a pope to the Nicene Creed without Eastern participation or consent, Luther set in motion a cascade of revolts against a corrupt Roman Catholic majesterium that resulted in the public emergence of a passel of theological views that had lived just below the surface, often in local enclaves, for centuries.
The advent of the printing press and the inevitable explosive spread of literacy served as the kindling for the fire of theological rebellion. Local rulers soon realized their opportunity to cut the steady flow of gold from their dominions to Rome, with its brothels for clerics and a thousand traditions and pilgrimages all calculated to separate the faithful from their money. The recently completed Sistine Chapel (1508) stood as an example of a Roman white elephant built on coin drained from distant parishes, and construction on the much more ambitious Saint Peter’s Basilica was already under way. Also bear in mind that, historically, the popes held territory which they would both try to expand and be forced to defend. The Papal States were a mundane commitment that, in the most favorable construction, gave the church security rather than placing it under the thumb of mundane rulers. A fair criticism was that it served to reduce the pope’s dignity to that of one more ruler of many, lending a whiff of mundanity to the office.
The practice which Dr. Luther targeted when he posted his 95 theses on the church door in 1517 was indulgence selling. Indulgences were and are a Roman innovation where, for a monetary fee and following some ritual instructions, the Roman Catholic Church would reduce the designated beneficiary soul’s time in Purgatory. Purgatory was another Roman innovation that never penetrated to the Eastern Roman Church and was universally rejected by Protestants. Johann Tetzel, a Dominican Friar, excelled so thoroughly at terrifying the masses (literally, in mass as well as city squares) into buying indulgences that the Pope himself acted to halt Tetzel’s abuses. Indulgences are still around today, as described in Pope Paul VI’s Indulgentarium Doctrina, 1967. But I am assured by Catholic friends that the dynamic is not now as it was in Brother Tetzel’s day.
Is there a Purgatory? I do not know, and certainly do not mean to decide such an awesome question here. I do know that Jesus and Paul and John spoke frequently in scripture on Heaven and Hell without mentioning or warning their disciples of Purgatory. I commend my soul into His mighty hand and His will be done.
My point is not to shame Catholics because Tetzel was Catholic or because the Roman Church was beset by corruption and human frailty, how could it be otherwise. Nor to exalt Protestants for fracturing the church and worshipers of Jesus Christ. Protestant churches were and are also filled with fallen human beings capable of unspeakable things. The church was already fractured, Dr. Luther applied a nail to a church door and the cracks became undeniable. He became the most read man in Europe thanks to the printing press. 20% of the material published in the German language between 1500 and 1530 was written by Luther. And every ambitious churchman that could get away with it latched onto a local ruler and seized or cobbled up a theological novelty and every doctrine was challenged somewhere.
There is a lot of room for humility on both sides. Rome eventually held the Counsel of Trent, 1563, to address issues raised by Protestants and even invited Dr. Luther to attend, promising him safe passage after decades of offering a price for his head. Dr. Luther understandably declined. Rome went to Trent to close the barn doors, but the horses were long gone.
This does not mean that 16th Century Europe became the religious marketplace we see today. As I write, there is an Adventist church down the street from me, Bruton Parish Episcopal (Anglican when Jefferson and Madison attended there) Church in the Colonial Williamsburg exhibit, still an active church today, a Presbyterian Church next to a Baptist Church a few blocks away, the National Shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham, Saint Bede Catholic Church, Saint Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, and many, many more. All denominations with their own history, their own culture, their own traditions, and their own doctrine. I can attend any or all and can donate to any, all, or none, freely, Covid and my anti-Christ governor notwithstanding. Not back in the day.
There was nothing like that in 16th Century Europe. Instead there was an officially sanctioned church, occasionally some other churches at the periphery of the domain tolerated for whatever reason or about to be quashed or already quashed with remnants meeting in houses and such. And where Jews were tolerated, some form of synagogue. If you expected to get anywhere and be someone, you got your tuchus to the right church every Sunday. In fact, it was the law. And fines were steep.
The Roman Church was often the primary legal authority on the ground depending on how land was held and population centers organized. They had their own courts, collected taxes and fees as well as tithes. The shakers and movers were lesser sons of nobles consigned to a clerical life of nominal chastity to frustrate later claims against noble estates. The Romans themselves found the vow of chastity a useful tool after early disputes over what bishop’s child should inherit a bishopric and where “church” lands held by the bishop personally. And the congregants in a parish were as much under the rule of their priests as a serf was under the rule of their noble. The slackening of the chains that bind would eventually occur, but there was a lot of argument and violence and a whole new continent to conquer on the way to making that happen.
I took part as one of four associate justices sitting with a chief justice in a mock trial at the Courthouse in Colonial Williamsburg. One of the cases was that of a man who had stopped coming to the Anglican services where he was registered, and declared his interest in attending a church under a different denomination, which was allowed for at the time in the colony. The court granted permission for the change of his registered worship congregation, and then came to the matter of fines for a month or so of failing to attend. The head judge, played by one of Williamsburg’s excellent reenactors rather than just another tourist like myself, expressed mild disdain when the four associate judges on the panel elected three to one to wave the rather stiff fines. That is a portrayal of the climate in 1774 as religious liberty was still feeling its way into American culture. We talk today of how the churches used to be full. How God-fearing we were. Whatever happened to us. It’s not the whole story, far from it, but dropping the fines had some impact, I am sure.
Reformation Day is rooted in an era radically different from our own, but if we are to understand where we are, we need to understand where we have been and how we arrived here.
So yes, I commemorate Reformation Day. But I do not celebrate it. It did not begin the fissuring of His church, that had begun by the time of the First Jerusalem Council where Saint Paul contended with Saint Peter over whether gentile Christians were to be saddled with a long list of Jewish customs, but it mapped the cracks for the print age, for the world to see.
Jesus said:
49 “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled 50 I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! 51 Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. 52 For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. 53They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
– Luke 12 (ESV)
I spend this day reflecting on the state of His worshippers, among all peoples and in all languages, and pray that they may firmly find themselves firmly in His mighty hand and live in the eternal peace he promises in the next world after persevering the discord of this world, as we have made it.
I am a Christian first and foremost, and I hail any man earnestly and humbly seeking to learn about and worship my Savior, the only begotten son of the living God, regardless of which fragment of His church they might embrace, and pray that He would somehow guide then and save them all, and unite us under His eternal rule. His will be done. Amen.
The peace of the Lord be with ye, always. Amen.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
If you have seen the Son you have seen the Father.
And, ultimately, the Roman Church came to agree with you. After a few decades of catastrophe. But Tetzel was the fully licensed face of the pope on that topic in 1517, very much the end-all and be-all on the topic and so designated by the Roman Catholic Church at the highest level, and the cruelty and foolishness of Tetzel’s arguments contributed mightily to set off the Protestant revolt. The subject of this post.
The Protestants agreed with you on Johann Tetzel’s arguments, imposed on them by the claimed vicar of Christ. They shared your outrage and rejection of the church’s position.
Thank you for your response.
If Tetzel had been put in charge, and he had, and Tetzel’s method was odious, ant it was, it called into question the judgement of who it was that put him in charge.
Why are you quoting Tetzel who is completely discredited? That doesn’t represent the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. Why don’t you go directly to the horse’s mouth and look it up in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Here are paragraph’s 1030-1032 on purgatory and praying for the dead:
Those numbers are footnotes, which I did not include but it is interesting to note that last one (609) comes from St. John Chrysostom (347-407) who is from the Eastern Church and is a giant in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the equivilent of St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas. All this goes back to the beginning.
I have never experienced the Hail Mary as part of the liturgy. The only time a Hail Mary might be prayed is at the end of Mass when the liturgy is over. For instance on Mother’s Day or some such occasion the priest in his dismissal have the congregation recite it as a tribute. It is not part of the liturgy proper.
Exactly. I had never heard of him either, and as I have read up on him, he has been discredited.
Well perhaps that was part of the abuse that occurred that led the break. Everyone acknowledges there were abuses. The Catholic Church does so. It’s unfortunate the break was irreconcilable. Whether it was part of Catholic doctrine or not at the time I’m not wholly sure. As the Catholic Church currently quotes Church fathers for their support of Purgatory and the praying for the dead, I suspect that was a 15th century abuse. It does not seem to go to the beginning and it was certainly corrected.
Yes, St. Chrysostom was a major figure and his liturgy is still in common use today. But prayer for the dead does not imply or necessitate the doctrine of Purgatory. It is one of the most common expressions of grief across all religions. Reliance on such weak citations actually works against their case, belying the question of where is the doctrine hiding if these are the best evidence.
And the guy who sent him? Or does the buck stop with Johan?
But, let’s also remember that the final sign off is the Pope himself. We can have all sorts of wackiness; just look at some of the various branches of the tree of Protestants and they don’t have a pope. You never know until someone speaks in absolutes.
… and they haven’t.
OK, I guess that’s in the eye of the beholder. Praying for the dead only makes sense if there is some efficacy for it. Some Protestant denominations are categorically against it. The fact that it is natural as an expression of grief implies it is ingrained in the human heart, just like the desire for God. The Apostolic Churches agree on some sorting of cleansing before meeting God. The Catholic Church has decided to elaborate on it. I think I’ve beaten this horse to death. We’re just going to have to disagree. ;)
Well, the Pope sends lots of people. Do you see how many people across the world respond to the current Pope now? Do you think he has control over everything they do or say now? They didn’t have mass communication back then either. I don’t know how wide spread it was. I did find that Johann Tetzel was specifically identified as discredited.
I look forward to comparing notes with you in the next age. His peace be with you.
OK, I get it. You aren’t addressing the doctrine of Purgatory in general, but as specifically encountered by Luther through Tetzel. I can see why Tetzel would loom large in the history of Lutherans as a very significant Catholic, while for Catholics he’s just another minor figure in a 2,000 year history.
As for Purgatory itself, in the OP you write of it as “another Roman innovation.” The unwary hearing that word “innovation” will think it implies that Purgatory was invented one day in Rome and imposed the next week on surprised Christians by overbearing Popes and Bishops. I know from your comments that you know this isn’t how it works. In this latest comment, you reference Thomas Aquinas, who was writing on Purgatory 400 years before Luther. Like praying to Saints, the Church only ratifies such doctrines when they already have widespread support among the faithful, especially among men and women of demonstrated sanctity (like Thomas Aquinas), and have shown good spiritual fruit over an extended period of time. Sure, it can still be dismissed as something just made up, but the impression a lot of people have that the Roman Church just invents things and imposes them on the faithful is, as you know, non-historical.
Personally, I don’t find the doctrine of Purgatory, and redemptive suffering in general, off-putting. Just the opposite, actually. We suffer in this life whether we accept redemptive suffering or not; by rejecting redemptive suffering, we don’t avoid suffering itself, just any meaning it might have that would make it more bearable. That such redemptive suffering might carry on in the next world doesn’t surprise me or bother me. Christ did not come to eliminate suffering. By uniting our suffering with His, our suffering changes from mere meaningless pain to a redemptive act that renews the world through Him.
Continuing my last comment – any spiritual practice or doctrine can be abused or corrupted. Luther wasn’t the first or the last Catholic (and he was a Catholic at the start) to perceive corruption in the Church. Purgatory and Redemptive Suffering can be corrupted like anything else, as it was through the sale of indulgences. So can the practice of praying to Saints or the Sacrament of Confession. The latter can be abused as a “get out of jail free” card (while for a lot of Catholics today it is simply ignored).
What should our response be to such corruption? To break from the Church and start our own spinoff of the Faith? Will that spinoff itself be free from corruption? Probably initially. In the initial excitement and enthusiasm of creation of human organization, anything seems possible. Just as anything seems possible for a married couple on their honeymoon. But as time goes on, human nature asserts itself, the enthusiasm fades, and the old corruption resurfaces, just in a different way. The real challenge in a marriage isn’t in year one, but in year five or ten, when things start to seem stale and your spouse’s flaws become all too apparent. Similarly for any human organization, especially a religious one. The challenge is what to do when the institution has grown and matured, and inevitable human corruption creeps in. Most institutions fail; I’ve always found it very impressive that the Catholic Church is still here after 2,000 year, despite the bad Popes, Johann Tetzel, and the corruption. Somehow she finds a way to renew herself.
Thank you for the reply. I used the word innovation with a view to 1500 years of the development of tradition, with strong orthodox branches in the East and the West, where the doctrine of Purgatory developed peculiarly in the West under the Papacy. Not a lot was happening quickly, unlike today when doctrines rise and fall hourly in some denominations. And, as you say, the West, as well as the East, have traditions of slow doctrinal simmering before elements are served as core doctrine. I have a very deep respect for that principle. The Protestant explosion and the religious history of the United States are rife with counter-examples at least as troubling as Brother Johann Tetzel. I have more issues with Calvin than with Rome or Constantinople.
Thank you for the note. His peace be with you, always.
We are not angels in our character. He who says he is without sin is a liar, and the truth is not in him, as someone once shared. When I consider the rediscovery of the scriptures under Josiah, 2 Kings 22:8ff, I think His body is doing relatively well the last two thousand years, overall. Of course, He has His own more than formidable standards. But also, fortunately, grace.
When a spouse grows unrepentantly abusive, physically or by adultery, for example, the separation becomes necessary for the health of one or both spouses. I do not celebrate a schism in His church, but I do not discount that it might be his will in order to shape our image as a sculptor tears and reworks his clay. The part of His work that I am given to do I do as best I can discern, with His help. In this age and the next. His will be done.
His peace to you and yours.
Sounds like he was a fall guy.
Peace to you as well.
My theory pending further evidence is that Pope Leo was ambitious in his projections for funds to emerge from Tetzel’s project and Brother Tetzel responded with unfortunately directed zeal. Brother Tetzel was, after all, expected to provide funds sufficient to support the construction of the largest cathedral in history, Saint Peter’s Basilica. These are human beings on an epic tableau. Mistakes were made.
I can accept that theory. Don’t think it matters now.
Yeah, but it blows the doors off of General Hospital.
What doesn’t?
Purgatory isn’t torture or a punishment. It is a cleansing. Just as Moses was told to remove his sandals, for he was entering holy ground, so to do we need to be cleansed of our fallen nature before entering G-d’s presence. Whatever the temporal period of that cleansing may be, all need it. As to the good thief, do you not believe Jesus could accomplish that cleansing in a day, if He so chose?
I think people are getting hung up on the word “punishment” as opposed to a “cleansing.” A punishment can be a cleansing, although it might not be. That’s true even in the secular world. A man sentenced to prison can take his time in prison as an opportunity to cleanse his spirit and renew himself, or spend it raging against his suffering and hating those who imprisoned him.
The punishments the damned suffer in Hell are not a cleansing. The punishments the suffering in Purgatory endure are a cleansing, because those sufferings are united with Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross. I love Dante’s Purgatorio, showing the souls in Purgatory praising God as they suffer, even embracing that suffering as they look forward to Heaven. The contrast with the souls in Hell, in some cases suffering less than those in Purgatory, yet raging against God and their fellow men nonetheless. The lesson is salutary in how we approach the suffering we inevitably endure in this life.
Hey Bryan, I’ve been thinking about this. I think the difference is also a matter of respect. Hail Mary is not exactly sacred but it is respectful. You’re asking a saint to pray for you. Saints are people who are known to have had holy lives. Anyone who I knew was a “Saint” living or dead, if I asked them to pray for me, I wouldn’t say, “Hey, you know, prayers are appreciated. If you feel like it….” I’d probably say something more like, “Please Mr. Your Holiness Pope JP II, pray for me and for others.”
I don’t really remember what we said when we met him. But it was something along those lines.
And the Hail Mary is intended as a structured prayer to guide intercession on specific things. You’re asking Mary to pray for you because God surely is with her (’cause, you know, Jesus) and because we are mortal sinners and we’d really appreciate her prayers. That’s it.
If you want to, you can always use your own words. Just like when you pray to God or to Jesus. You are reverential because you’re talking to a holy being.
But again, YMMV. Maybe you do talk to Jesus like he’s your Dude-Bro. “Yo Jesus, I woke up today and the sunrise was awesome. Just sayin’ that I dig it. Thanks for everything. I appreciate you saving me from Hell and all. Pretty cool of you. You’re the man! Peace, out.”
Of course! This was fun. Sometimes I need to refresh on why I believe what I do. God bless. Let’s start a Ricochet club up there…lol.
I don’t know. Do you have evidence that the Pope directed such error? Or that it was spread across the breath of the clergy? I’m sure there abuses elsewhere, but one guy (who was not even a bishop, by the way) at the far end of Europe from Rome hardly proves this was widespread.
Also, unlike the modernist view of some sort of barrier between the physical and metaphysical, the ancient Christians believed in a continuum between the two. So asking the saints and the dead to pray for you was sort of the same thing. And actually, the term saint refers to a dead person who is believed to be in heaven. They ultimately created a title for such holy people.
Since we were discussing Purgatory for a good bit of this thread I wanted to share a post I just happened (are there really any accidents?) to come across titled, “What does Purgatory Look Like?” It’s at the website, Aleteia, which is a cultural Catholic website, not a deeply theological one. Of course it doesn’t get specific (“It is difficult to understand how we can experience something without our body, but it is a mystery we will only understand after our own death.”) but I thought the description “as a “washroom” before reaching the Wedding Feast of the Lamb” was apt. But what I really thought interesting was how it quotes C.S. Lewis, a Protestant who believed in Purgatory. Here’s the quote they pulled from Lewis’ book, The Great Divorce.
Now that is a Protestant speaking. You can read the entire article here.