Luther's 95 Theses
Posted on 06/08/2014 1:59:17 PM PDT by matthewrobertolson
In 2017, we will witness the 500th anniversary of one of the most important, influential and regrettable events in Church history: the Protestant Reformation, or the Protestant Rebellion, as some prefer to call it. Indeed, the latter term would suit me better, too. But, being German, I am used to the former expression and should I ever refer to said event as die protestantische Rebellion, people would think me some sort of radical. On that thought, perhaps it is worth noting that rebels are often quite radical themselves, which is one thing we can definitely say of the so-called "Reformers". To mark this anniversary, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) has planned a number of events, beginning with a "Lutheran Decade" from 2008 to 2017. Each year has it’s own theme in the form of "The Reformation and…", i.e. Education, Freedom, Music, Tolerance, Politics and others.
The decade will culminate in the celebratory year of 2017, to which the President of the Evangelical "Church" in Germany (EKD), Nikolaus Schneider, has even invited Pope Francis. But, really, how likely is it His Holiness will hop on a plane and join in the celebration of someone his predecessor excommunicated? One might ask, is there any room for Catholics to take part in some sort of event? This is the question that is circulating in the mother country of the Reformation: Germany. The Most Reverend Gerhard Feige, Bishop of Magdeburg, is the Bishops' Conference's representative for ecumenical affairs. He has dedicated a lot of thought and time to the question how Catholics should view this event.
It begins with the name: Do we call it an anniversary, something that could imply happiness, or a commemoration of an event that has wrought such great damage upon the Body of Christ, His holy Bride, the Catholic Church? The German bishops have chosen the latter term. There is still confusion on the whole thing, though: The EKD is not being very clear on what exactly they want to celebrate. One hears catchy words such as "diversity", "conscience", and the like stuck onto the Reformation in their talk, but never do we hear of heresy, schism or even the antisemitism of Luther and his ilk. Indeed, who in his right mind would celebrate the chaos and harm inflicted on the Church by the so-called "Reformers"? Not even the Protestants organizing the event dare to say thus. Yet, one gets the impression that the whole event is not actually interested in critically evaluating the past, or their theology for that matter, but rather praising it as the dawn of an era of "tolerance" and "liberty".
Could this be any further from the truth? Professor Heinz Schilling of Berlin, a member of the advisory board for the anniversary, stated in an interview that Luther was "everything but tolerant" and criticized the EKD as "quite understandably not interested in any of the research’s findings". He went even further and said that the organizers made themselves appear "laughable among scholars" by claiming what they do. Margot Käßmann, who is the anniversary’s ambassador and a former Lutheran "bishop", once claimed that it was thanks to Luther that her sect had female "bishops". The professor criticizes this as yet another inaccuracy and something that Luther certainly did not envision. Is it any wonder, then, that the EKD has not come out clearly and said what the entire occasion is about for them, as the bishops have repeatedly bewailed, if even their own board members see through their catchy slogans?
What about us Catholics? Is there any way in which we can join our separated brethren in their commemoration? I argue: no. Some will disagree, but to me, the Reformation is intrinsically connected to fracture in the Body of Christ, heresy and the resulting total chaos. I could never join any such "commemoration", even if one doesn't call it an "anniversary" for the sake of appeasing Catholics. When have we ever "commemorated" the schism of 1054, or any heresy, for that matter? I believe we would do great harm to the effort of achieving Christian unity by taking part in any way. It obscures the borders between Catholicism and Protestantism, confuses people, and may even cause scandal.
The aforementioned Margot Käßmann suggested the following kind of participation of Catholics and Protestants: Each group could begin a pilgrimage on their own route, and reach one common destination. She would also like the program to achieve that all people learn "that 31 October is Reformation Day and not Halloween", to which Bishop Feige of Magdeburg replied "and the eve of All Saints". But the problem I see with Käßmann’s proposal is this: Although the idea might seem nice, it suggests that Protestantism and Catholicism are somehow equals. They most definitely are not. And certainly not according to Luther himself! Catholics know that their Church is the Church Christ the Lord founded on St. Peter, and Protestantism's very name already suggests otherwise. The Reformers made that point very clear. From a Catholic point of view, a heretical movement that splits the Church cannot be of equal worth as the One True Faith. Just think how we would have fought Arianism if such had been our position! This is not to say that Protestants aren't Christians, of course, but we must realize that Protestantism is not what our Lord willed us to have or believe: Catholicism is. Thus, two equal pilgrimages reaching one destination à la Käßmann would cause scandal and confusion. I assume she does not want it to symbolize the way we might some day find unity, but rather the common destination means Christ. But that is precisely the point: The Catholic Church is the ark of salvation, the Body and Bride of Christ, and She alone has "the words of eternal life" (John 6:68). She is Christ in this world apart from Whom "no one comes to the Father" (John 14:6). Protestantism has distorted those words of eternal life fundamentally, and thus cannot be on equal footing with Holy Mother Church. If Christ is "the Way, the Truth and the Life" apart from Whom there is no salvation, then so is the Catholic Church, for She is His Body (Ephesians 1:22-23, Colossians 1:24).
Thus, let me emphasize again: Celebrating the Reformation, or even commemorating it with Protestants, will blur the sharp line between the One True Church and those communities that came from the Protestant Reformation. It will scandalize and, actually, almost certainly make Christian unity harder to achieve. For in pretending Protestantism is somehow equally valid or of the same dignity as Catholicism, we take away the very reason for Christian unity: to be united in the one Church that our Lord left us, founded on Peter in the person of the Roman Pontiff.
Therefore, I hope the German bishops decide not to participate – however unlikely that is. It remains to be seen whether the ecumenical progress in achieving unity hoped for will come about. Let us pray, that 2017 will bring to many people's attention the Truth of Catholicism and the scandal that the separation of Christians is, fostering in them the desire for unity with Christ in His Bride, which is Holy Church.
Luther's 95 Theses
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You're twisting the text to find something not there.
Mary, nor any other NT writer uses the term, mother of God.
Luther is not a pope to us, despite the seeming inability for papists to comprehend this, while your post is that of a typical myopic view that cannot see the same in Rome. And yet it turns out you tried this before and were shown The Popes Against the Jews that Luther, as often, had Catholic company and his animosity was not novel, and thus your duplicity is inexcusable.
• The crucifiers of Christ ought to be held in continual subjection.(Pope Innocent III, “Epistle to the Hierarchy of France,” July 15, 1205)
• It would be licit, according to custom, to hold the Jews in perpetual servitude because of their crime. (St. Thomas Aquinas, “De Regimine Judaeorum”)
In The Popes Against the Jews : The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism, historian David Kertzer notes,
“the legislation enacted in the 1930s by the Nazis in their Nuremberg Laws and by the Italian Fascists with their racial laws—which stripped the Jews of their rights as citizens—was modeled on measures that the [Roman Catholic] Church itself had enforced for as long as it was in a position to do so” (9).
In 1466,
in festivities sponsored by Pope Paul II, Jews were made to race naked through the streets of the city. A particularly evocative later account describes them: “Races were run on each of the eight days of the Carnival by horses, asses and buffaloes, old men, lads, children, and Jews. Before they were to run, the Jews were richly fed, so as to make the race more difficult for them, and at the same time, more amusing for the spectators. They ran from the Arch of Domitian to the Church of St. Mark at the end of the Corso at full tilt, amid Rome’s taunting shrieks of encouragement and peals of laughter, while the Holy Father stood upon a richly ornamented balcony and laughed heartily. Two centuries later, these practices, now deemed indecorous and unbefitting the dignity of the Holy City, were stopped by Clement IX. In their place the Pope assessed a heavy tax on the Jews to help pay the costs of the city’s Carnival celebrations.
But various other Carnival rites continued. For many years the rabbis of the ghetto were forced to wear clownish outfits and march through the streets to the jeers of the crow, pelted by a variety of missiles. Such rites were not peculiar to Rome. In Pisa in the eighteenth century, for example, it was customary each year, as part of Carnival, for students to chase after the fattest Jew in the city, capture him, weigh him, and then make him give them his weight in sugar-coated almonds.
In 1779, Pius VI resurrected some of the Carnival rites that had been neglected in recent years. Most prominent among them was the feudal rite of homage, in which ghetto officials, made to wear special clothes, stood before an unruly mob in a crowded piazza, making an offering to Rome’s governors.
It was this practice that occasioned the formal plea from the ghetto to Pope Gregory XVI in 1836. The Jews argued that such rites should be abandoned, and cited previous popes who had ordered them halted. They asked that, in his mercy, the Pope now do the same. On November 5, the Pope met with his secretary of state to discuss the plea. A note on the secretary of state’s copy of the petition, along with his signature, records the Pope’s decision: “It is not opportune to make any innovation.” The annual rites continued.
“When all is said and done, the [Roman Catholic] Church’s claim of lack of responsibility for the kind of anti-Semitism that made the Holocaust possible comes down to this: The Roman Catholic Church never called for, or sanctioned, the mass murder of the Jews. Yes, the Jews should be stripped of their rights as equal citizens. Yes, they should be kept from contact with the rest of society. But Christian Charity and Christian theology forbade good Christians to round them up and murder them.”
See more in part 5 of a series (1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5, 6 .
If you want to invoke Luther and the Jews regarding his latter exasperated negativity, then see to your own house. And Rome has been too partial toward the Muslims as regards the Promised land.
Quite the contrary...Jesus disagrees with you...Jesus is hoping people will ignore his mother...
Mat 12:47 Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.
And Jesus ran right out to greet his mother, right??? Because his mother was more important than normal Christians??? Not even close...
Mat 12:48 But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?
Mat 12:49 And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
Mat 12:50 For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.
LadyDoc please see 267
Caths are not simply asking a request of someone, but asking a distinct class of believers called "saints," which distinction Scripture knows not of, in Heaven, where the spirits of all departed believers are, to hear an almost infinite amounts of mental prayers from those on earth, which is an attribute only God is shown to have, while in all the approx. 200 prayers in Scripture, the Holy Spirit does not inspire even one to anyone in Heaven but the Lord.
But the weight of Scripture is not the basis for the veracity of RC teaching, but the premise of her assured veracity is, contrary to Scripture.
1. (when: intr, often foll by for; when tr, usually takes a clause as object) to utter prayers (to God or other object of worship): we prayed to God for the sick child.
2. (when tr, usually takes a clause as object or an infinitive) to make an earnest entreaty (to or for); beg or implore: she prayed to be allowed to go; leave, I pray you.
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
The thinking is that since Christ rose on the third day, Sunday is the new Sabbath. My problem is that while we go to Church on Sunday, we tend to work the rest of the day which is against the 9th commandment. I've been praying for clarity on this issue.
That may be your point, but the basic conclusion is wrong. NOBODY bases their faith upon Martin Luther. Even the denomination Lutheranism came about after he was gone. Some keep forgetting that the seeds of the Reformation began before he was even born, happened in other countries besides Germany, had many others involved in it and continued long after Luther died. The reforms that HAD to happen within the Catholic church, did so because Almighty God was behind it. The Catholic church was NOT holy nor apostolic for a long time. So, if you want to cast out those categorized as "Protestants" (which is a catch-all for non-Catholic Christians) because of what a part of what one man did or thought, you have FAR worse examples right there in that imagined unbroken line of Popes. Be careful with what you use to judge others.
Clarity: The Sabbath day has not changed. It cannot be changed. It was sanctified forever from the beginning.
That is the truth. You've got one eye open. now have courage and open the other one. : )
Thank you for noting that the Sabbath is Saturday and always will be....Sunday is the first day of the week, and the Bible does declare that ‘whatever day a man honors unto the Lord, let him honor it.”
I think Sunday Church recognition as a Sabbath ‘day of rest’ came about from farms being so far from the Church and tithes were paid on the first day of the week, so it was easier to have services on the day the ‘first fruits’ were brought.
The distinction of that convenience was not taught to children and Sunday became accepted as the only Sabbath, when in reality it is Saturday....no matter what faith or denomination a person is....even the Resurrection of Christ is noted as being on ‘the first day of the week’.
In Judiasm that day begins at Sundown the evening before.
Well; they should.
Anyone with GOD-like powers DESERVES to be WORSHIPPED!
Let's try some easy math:
There are approximately 1.2 billion Catholics world wide;
If merely 1% of them 'ask' Mary for help just once each day;
that means that 12 million separate prayers are headed Mary's direction every day.
Given that there are 86,400 seconds per day... (24 hours times 60 minutes times 60 seconds)
...that means that Mary has to handle approximately 139 'requests' per second!
Purty good fer someone NOT 'devine'!
I just HATE when bad thinks happen in the 'church'...
Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.[1]
Pope John XII (955–964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.
Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who "sold" the Papacy
Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who is lampooned in Dante's Divine Comedy
Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.[2]
Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), a Borgia, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.[3]
Pope Leo X (1513–1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors' reserves on a single ceremony[4]
Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), also a Medici, whose power-politicking with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked.
"Them popes were merely human like the rest of us. We make mistakes, they did; too.
Move along now as the church is RIGHT and has always BEEN right."
IF?
This is debatable.
What's not, is the FACT that the seven churches listed in Revelation were CATHOLIC.
Just ask ANY of our staunch Catholic FR posters.
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What do you see; nurse?
What are you thinking
A crabby old man,
Uncertain of habit,
|
What do you see?
when you're looking at me?
who is not very wise,
with faraway eyes?
|
|
Who dribbles his food,
When you say in a loud voice,
Who seems not to notice
And forever is losing
|
and makes no reply.
'I do wish you'd try!'
the things that you do.
a sock or shoe?
|
|
Who, resisting or not,
With bathing and feeding
Is that what you're thinking?
Then open your eyes, nurse:
|
lets you do as you will,
the long day to fill?
Is that what you see?
you're not looking at me.
|
|
I'll tell you who I am,
As I do at your bidding,
I'm a small child of Ten,
Brothers and sisters
|
as I sit here so still,
as I eat at your will.
with a father and mother,
who love one another.
|
|
A young boy of Sixteen,
Dreaming that soon now
A groom soon at Twenty,
Remembering, the vows
|
with wings on his feet.
a lover he'll meet.
my heart gives a leap.
that I promised to keep.
|
|
At Twenty-Five, now
Who need me to guide,
A man of Thirty,
Bound to each other
|
I have young of my own.
and a secure happy home.
my young now grown fast,
with ties that should last.
|
|
At Forty, my young sons
But my woman's beside me
At Fifty, once more,
Again, we know children;
|
have grown and are gone,
to see I don't mourn.
babies play 'round my knee,
my loved one and me.
|
|
Dark days are upon me:
I look at the future,
For my young are all rearing
And I think of the years
|
my wife is now dead.
and shudder with dread.
young of their own.
and the love that I've known.
|
|
I'm now an old man
Tis jest to make old age
The body, it crumbles;
There is now a stone
|
and nature is cruel.
look like a fool.
grace and vigor, depart.
where I once had a heart.
|
|
But inside this old carcass,
And now and again
I remember the joys;
And I'm loving and living
|
a young guy still dwells,
my battered heart swells.
I remember the pain.
life over again.
|
|
I think of the years, all too few:
And accept the stark fact
So open your eyes, people;
Not a crabby old man;
|
gone too fast.
that nothing can last.
open and see.
Look closer . . . see ME!!
|
So this rule was written by man...
And I answered the question,
Some characteristics of the Catholic church as recorded in the Revelation of John...
But I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first charity.
Be mindful therefore from whence thou art fallen: and do penance, and do the first works.
Or else I come to thee, and will move thy candlestick out of its place, except thou do penance.
But I have against thee a few things: because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat, and to commit fornication:
So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaites.
But I have against thee a few things: because thou sufferest the woman Jezabel, who calleth herself a prophetess, to teach, and to seduce my servants, to commit fornication, and to eat of things sacrificed to idols.
I know thy works, that thou hast the name of being alive: and thou art dead.
For I find not thy works full before my God.
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot.
But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth.
Because thou sayest: I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing: and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.
I counsel thee to buy of me gold fire tried, that thou mayest be made rich; and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thy eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
You've DISRESPECTED Marty; the Greatest of them all!
Let's try some easy math:
There are approximately 1.2 billion Catholics world wide;
If merely 1% of them 'ask' Mary for help just once each day;
that means that 12 million separate prayers are headed Mary's direction every day.
Given that there are 86,400 seconds per day... (24 hours times 60 minutes times 60 seconds)
...that means that Mary has to handle approximately 139 'requests' per second!
Purty good fer someone NOT 'devine'!
1 Corinthians 12:27
All of you together are Christ's body, and each of you is a part of it.
True. You merely venerate and adore her.
To the point of OBSESSION...
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