A Brief History Lesson

Picture it...Wittenberg, Germany...1516...the Catholic Church is at the height of its glory in Europe.  They have never been so rich and powerful.  The practice of indulgences (a way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sin) is at an all-time high.  Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar and papal commissioner for the indulgences, is sent to Germany by the Roman Catholic Church to sell the indulgences in order to raise money to rebuild St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.  A young man, 33 years old, a priest and professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg, has been reading the New Testament for the first time and finds the actions of the Church questionable.  On October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther writes to his bishop, Albrecht von Brandenburg, protesting the sale of indulgences.  He enclosed in his letter a copy of his "Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences", which came to be known as the "Ninety-Five Theses".  Hans Hillerbrand writes that Luther had no intention of confronting the church, but saw his disputation as a scholarly objection to church practices.  Hillerbrand writes that there is nevertheless an undercurrent of challenge in several of the theses, particularly in Thesis 86, which asks: "Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than his own money?"  Luther also objected to a saying attributed to Johann Tetzel that "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory into heaven springs."  He insisted that, since forgiveness was God's alone to grant, those who claimed that indulgences absolved buyers from all punishments and granted them salvation were in error.

       I don't think that many of us would disagree with what Martin Luther stood for regarding the selling of indulgences, and while the point here is not to scrutinize everything that Martin Luther or the Roman Catholic Church believed, here is the point...are there things that the Body of Christ today believes in error?  Are we so different today than the Roman Catholic Church was then?  Do we have our own indulgences?  A hyper-grace message that is gaining more and more popularity that completely eliminates the need for repentance and confession of sin?  Alleged men and women of God who deceive the poor and naive into giving their money in order to receive a miracle or healing or financial breakthrough, all in the name of building their own basilicas?  How is any of this different than what the Roman Catholic Church was doing to its people in the 1500's?  It isn't!

The Reformation began out of the challenges and questions Martin Luther posed to the religious establishment of his day, never with the intent to tear down, but to correct doctrinal error and to mend the divide between clergy and laymen.  We find ourselves in the unique position of needing another Reformation, and it will only happen if we ask the right questions and give honest answers.

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