Posted on 07/09/2003 9:05:32 PM PDT by AnalogReigns
Documentary was shown on various PBS stations this week... (you know PBS--will be on again, surely--got to get something out of those tax dollars spent). It's worth taping...
Very good portrayal in my opinion...but downplayed his theology, mainly highlighting the social consequences of what Luther discovered in the Bible. Understandable when telling about such an important historic figure in just 2 hours.
Personally, I think, but for Luther's courage, there would have been no eventual United States of America...and we'd live in a very different world...
Here's the speil from PBS's site:
Martin Luther (#101)
"Driven to Defiance/The Reluctant Revolutionary"
Driven to Defiance - Martin Luther is born into a world dominated by the Catholic Church. For the keenly spiritual Luther, the Church's promise of salvation is irresistible. Caught in a thunderstorm and terrified by the possibility of imminent death, he vows to become a monk. But after entering the monastery, Luther becomes increasingly doubtful that the Church can actually offer him salvation. His views crystallize further when he travels to Rome and finds the capital of Catholicism swamped in corruption. Wracked by despair, Luther finds release in the pages of the Bible, discovering that it is not the Church, but his own individual faith that will guarantee his salvation. With this revelation he turns on the Church. In his famous 95 Theses he attacks its practice of selling Indulgences, putting himself on an irreversible path to conflict with the most powerful institution of the day. The Reluctant Revolutionary - The Catholic Church uses all of its might to try and silence Luther, including accusations of heresy and excommunication. Protected by his local ruler, Frederick the Wise, Luther continues to write radical critiques of the Church. In the process, he develops a new system of faith that places the freedom of the individual believer above the rituals of the Church. Aided by the newly invented printing press, his ideas spread rapidly. He is called before the German Imperial Parliament in the city of Worms and told he must recant. Risking torture and execution, Luther refuses, proclaiming his inalienable right to believe what he wishes. His stand becomes a legend that inspires revolution across Europe, overturning the thousand-year-old hegemony of the Church. But as the reformation expands into a movement for social freedom, Luther finds himself overwhelmed by the pace of change and is left vainly protesting that his followers should be concerning themselves with God.
OK, OK, Luther was wrong. The pope wasn't the antichrist. The papacy was.
Well, the papacy wasn't the Antichrist...but 1 John talks about antichrists plural.
Heh, heh.... Zing!
No Dan, Jesus invented The Church, and he only started one. Please refer to Matt 16:18 in your Scriptures. BTW: You didn't respond to the issue. Scriptures and where they came from.
OK, from a design perspective, yes, "broad hips" does indeed correlate with bearing and bringing up children. Or do you think this is better suited for the test tube and daycare industries?
Boy, that nasty Luther. The nerve of him to label woman as a housekeeper. Why we know nobody's done that in American culture throughout the 20th century...
Oh, I know, I know. It was the "sitting still" phrasing that upset you and sent you on a crusading tirade...the same kind of tirade that you rake the apostle Paul over the coals for saying "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission {a type of "sitting still," doncha think?}." (1 Tim. 2:11).
And, of course, The Crusader believes that not just Luther screwed up by pointing to women's childbearing role, but Paul did as well: "But women will be saved through childbearing--if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propiety." (1 Tim. 2:15)
Well, at least that verse proves The Crusader's point about faith + works...can't get any more laborious than bearing kids.
Kind of like pointing out that the Amazing Grace author (Newton) was a slave trader...while failing to mention that he was a repenting ex- slave trader.
Heretics are everywhere, keeps life interesting. The filioque dispute was only one of many speed bumps in the life of a 2,000 year old organization. The Lord only promised that the gates of hell would not prevail, and they have not. He didn't promise a rose garden, that's the Methodists. ;-)
You idiot Luther! Scripturally, we all know demonic forces only inhabit pigs and it could ne'er happen to monkeys! Geez!
And snakes? Luther, don't take Genesis too seriously. Relax. Sober up.
"Idiots, the lame, the blind, the dumb, are men in whom the devils have established themselves: and all the physicians who heal these infirmities, as though they proceeded from natural causes, are ignorant blockheads...."
Yup. We know this never happens! "Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground." (Mark 9:17-18)..."...and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years." (Luke 13:11)
The nerve of Luther to paraphrase Scripture in such a raw manner!
"The Devil, too, sometimes steals human children; it is not infrequent for him to carry away infants within the first six weeks after birth, and to substitute in their place imps...."
Hey, I'm a parent of four teens and one pre-teen. What, I'd swear those cute and cuddly babes I held have morphed into teen-age imps at times.
What's wrong w/this? If you are going to sin in front of an omnipresent and omniscient God, then you better have some boldness to back it up.
I recall one school test that I didn't have a clue about re: answers. I was so desperate to at least get one answer right that when I went to turn in the test, I looked at one answer at the top of the pile, feigned that I had an "Oh, yeah" moment, and wrote in the answer--all in the immediate presence of the teacher.
Boy, was that a mistake. I was never more humiliated than to read my test result and to see his comments about the nerve I had to belittle him by thinking I could cheat so openly and so boldly--and to think I would get away with it.
If you're going to try to cheat on an omnipresent and omniscient educator, then I'll say it as strongly as Luther said his line: Be a cheater and cheat boldly (vigorously). For to do it any other way treats the teacher (God) as if He can't see what you're up to...and that belittles him even more.
Not a true catholic in the true sense of the word. For a true catholic is a universalist--one who believes that the Lord's Church is universal and has some sense of charity expressed toward brothers in Christ.
IF that reasoning is valid, wouldn't it necessarily follow, then, that --
?
Dan
I recently toured a Lutheran seminary with my son. Outside the library we were shown an object in a display case that purported to be Luther's death mask. The face portrayed in great detail was that of an old, sickly man. When I later looked at pictures online of other copies of the death mask (one in the German city of Halle as I recall), I felt that they looked more like portraits I had seen of Luther. Maybe the seminary doesn't put the real death mask on display.
The Roman Catholic Church of today claims ownership of those men
Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church owns/invented Jesus Christ
To refute: I admit that my desk is grey, that does not mean that I own it. My husband claims me on his tax return, he doesn't own my desk either.
If your logic is correct, then I freely admit that a million dollars exists on paper somewhere in Ft. Knox. Do I own it yet? Did I invent it?
Hence admission of a truth does not equate to ownership of the fact or the object to which it is applied. Pax Vobiscum.
Oh yeah, those Scriptures...where did he get those again? Oh! Now I know. The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Doh!
— was irrelevant. The Roman Catholic Church no more owns, created, nor invented Scripture than it owns, created, nor invented Jesus Christ.
Dan
The Catholic Church in 350 AD declared some of the many writings of the time to be "Divinely Inspired".
Luther was the one that decided that this particular group of inspired writings was the be-all, end-all reference for matters of the Faith. Catholics have a whole Magisterium and thousands of years of Sacred Oral Tradition to draw from.
BTW: Sola Scriptura can be refuted by the fact that no where in the "Bible" does it say that the "Bible" is the sole authority on the Faith and salvation.
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