[AnalogReigns]

Being the 484th anniversary of Brother Martin's nailing the 95 Theses on the Wittenburg door...I thought such a posting appropriate.

Sola Fide! Sola Gracia! Sola Scriptura! Sola Christos!

[zest for life]

Martin Luther, helped usher in the Reformation, translated the Bible into German, & focused the church on the Grace of God. He was used by God. But he was also used by the devil. At the end of his life he let bitterness consume him. The Bible says to bless the Jewish people. But Luther wrote, "...set fire to their synagogues..to be done in honor of our Lord and Christendom..I advise their houses also be razed and destroyed..all money and treasure be taken from them."

It is written we are to give no room to the devil. But Luther gave the devil not only room, but a country. The evil fire of anti-semitism would grow through his words, untill Nazis republished his tracts, his words against the jews, to ultimately lead to the death of 6 million men, women and children. Luther let satan have a foothold. It was all the devil needed to accomplish his genocide of the children of Israel. Do not allow a satanic foothold in your life. All it leads to is holocausts.

[BplusK]

I have no doubt that Martin Luther was right in what he believed and taught. However, another question may come to our minds: Was Martin Luther right when he "pushed" his views so strongly that he created a new division in the Church? Someone may speculate that if Martin Luther did not defy the Pope, "maybe" the Roman Catholic church could have eventually accepted Luther's views or at least a certain Reformation. (but I am skeptical!)

[Jim Noble]

>>Whatever happened to the Reformation? Was Martin Luther wrong, after all? Or does it really matter?<<

I was raised in a "mainline" reformed church. The Reformation project does not seem to be going well lately to me.

I have seriously considered (to the point of going through RCIA) and rejected, for now, Roman Catholicism (my wife and daughters are RC, and I wish I could join them).

But it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the fruits of the Reformation, as manifested by the tide of apostasy and heresy in American and European Protestant churches, are sour and getting rapidly worse.

Unlike you, I am not at all sure what to do.

[RaceBannon]

Martin Luther was just a man. The reformation was necessary, but the Baptists never needed to be reformed, they had it right all along.

[hsszionist]

Martin Luther was wrong in that his hatred of the jews stopped him from attaining a greater rejection of the false Roman doctrine that grew from the conquest of the Roman emperior Constintine.

[mo'shea]

Ole' "Brother Martin" checked at the doorway of faith the notion that God loves us so much that he gifts us with a free will, to believe in His Son or not to, and even if believing in His Son, to nevertheless reject the salvation that His Son's blood offers. Sola Scripture unfortunately teaches in effect that believing by definition means relinquishing one's free will. It also utterly ignores Jesus' many exhortations to do good, among the most powerful being the parable about the damned and the exalted, who respectively ignored and took care of "...the least of their brothers."

Martin Luther was plagued by scrupulosity, and his narrow, erroneous theological "by faith alone" finding was simply an unfortunate remedy to keep himself out of the nuthouse.

[txzman]

"Rome saw justification as meaning "making just," based on the Latin roots for the word justificare (Justus and facio, facere), which in Roman jurisprudence meant "to make righteous." For Rome, God only declares to be just those who have first been made just...

Well, this should change soon anyway as soon as the RCC declares it was Mary after all who forgives. As an ex-Catholic I will never be able to re-accept that the RCC thinks of itself so magnificently as to stand in the sunlight of God - between me and God, and claim to be able to interpret and re-interpret His love for me and how God will accept me again.

Purgatory, indulgences, sinlessness of Mary, her deathless entry into heaven, baptism at birth, works required for slavation, confession only to a priest, the infallibility of the Pope, the Pope's ability to speak to me as would Christ - just a few of the many problems one has in accepting RCC's version of what I read with my own eyes in the Bible.

Luther's discourses with Erasmus concerning "sola fide" are wonderful. Even Erasmus could not spin his way out of Luther's burning arrows directed at the RCC's corrupting of the Word.

[Timmy]

And let us not forget the great John Wyclif (the "Morningstar of the Reformation") and John Hus, who set the stage 150 years before Luther. In fact, it could be argued that had the printing press been invented at the time (it came along about 1450), the Reformation would have occurred then.

[JmyBryan]

Having been raised a Lutheran, I would say a discussion of Luther without mention of the sale of indulgences, would miss a big point.

Whether Luther was wrong - for you literalists - he called the Epistle of James the "Epistle of Straw".

[Claud]

...as long as we remain outside of Christ we are continually heaping up judgment against the day of wrath. The only way an unjust person can escape the day of God's wrath is to be justified.

Unjustified = remaining outside of Christ.
Justified = proclaiming faith in Christ.

Proclaiming. Hmmmmmm......

Sounds like a "work" to me.

[Petronski]

Yes.

[maestro]

Your#1) Correction!!
1. Sola Christos
2. Sola Scriptura
3. Sola Gracia
4. Sola Fide
(Thanks for posting)
:-)

[maestro]

Your#1) Correction!!
1. Sola Christos
2. Sola Scriptura
3. Sola Gracia
4. Sola Fide
(Thanks for posting)
:-)

[maestro]

Your#1) Correction!!
1. Sola Christos
2. Sola Scriptura
3. Sola Gracia
4. Sola Fide
(Thanks for posting)
:-)

[maestro]

Your#1) Correction!!
1. Sola Christos
2. Sola Scriptura
3. Sola Gracia
4. Sola Fide
(Thanks for posting)
:-)

[AnalogReigns]

bump

[SEA]

Was Luther wrong?

Yes.

[Charles Henrickson]

Regarding the oft repeated but little examined cliche that Luther somehow was responsible for the atrocities committed by the Nazis, see the definitive challenge to this charge:

The Fabricated Luther: The Rise and Fall of the Shirer Myth, by Uwe Siemon-Netto (CPH, 1995).

See also:

Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Judeo-Christian Worldview, by Gene Edward Veith, Jr. (CPH, 1993).

The Rev. Charles Henrickson
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

[freemama]

This life-long Lutheran thanks you for the thought provoking reading on this day we celebrate the Reformation. From my perspective Luther was right in his 'faith alone' view. But, once again, I am a (Missouri Synod no less) so that isn't a stretch for me.

[sendtoscott]

From another Luther thread:
Indulgences were payments of money to the church for the forgiveness of sins.

Now we pay taxes for the forgiveness of sins. How many people forgive Kennedy (any of them) and Clinton because they 'give' my tax money to the poor. At least church indulgences were bought with the sinner's own money - I had to pay for the Toon's indulgences.