Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Happy Reformation Day everybody! I saw this video on another blog and thought it would be fun to post here!

6 comments:

Isaac said...

Haha that was catchy! I love "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," I found myself singing the words with him and then afterward singing the other verses. =^)

I wonder how protestant most of your readers think Martin Luther was? For instance, he uncompromisingly believed in regeneration through baptism, the Real Presence in the Eucharist (although he objected to the scholastic use of Aristotelian terms to describe it), and the importance of liturgical worship. He also, like the Orthodox and Roman Catholics, believed that the Theotokos remained a virgin after giving birth to Christ.

Just my two cents.

irreverend fox said...

hey zac!

certainly Luther was an interesting character and it is easy to look back with 20/20 hindsight and pick him apart.

it was Roman that slapped the title "protestant" on him and his descendants...

I'd say that Luther was very inconsistent at times...his view of baptism is the most prime example. the way he condemned the Anabaptists is very regrettable.

thank God he didn't crown himself the new Pope!

but what was started through him set the Catholic Church back onto a Biblical trajectory once again!

semper reformanda…always reforming!!!

Isaac said...

The only solution to a reformation is another reformation!

I too used to gloss over my theological differences with Luther. To me, the important thing was that he differed with Rome. RCism indeed casts a long shadow-- western protestants still speak in the Roman Catholic style of theology, and interestingly enough also still celebrate things according to the later Roman Catholic calendar.

One major example will suffice. Why do protestants celebrate the Resurrection on the same Sunday as Roman Catholics? The First Ecumenical Council decided the timing of Pascha every year, and Rome unilaterally changed this in the year 1582 (after the Reformation had already begun, mind you). For some reason, all the Protestants follwed suit... only the East celebrates Pascha according to the requirements of the First Ecumenical Council now.

Rome has a long reach, sadly.

irreverend fox said...

hey zac!

I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I gloss over my theological differences with Luther! There are certainly several big reasons why I'm not a Lutheran! (If I wasn't a Baptist I'd be ashamed, lol)

I do admire his zeal and on several points I do believe he was on the ball. He took that ball, I believe, and got it rolling generally in the right direction. Of course men like Calvin, Zwingli and the Anabaptists generated even more momentum.

I do not have a problem sharing things in common with Rome...I wouldn't care if Easter was celebrated on the second Wednesday of February frankly. Perhaps the reformed churches agreed with Rome's reasoning? I don't really care much. I don't hate everything they do or believe...I believe their understanding of original sin is more Biblical than Eastern Orthodoxy, for example. I only hate those doctrines which contradict the plain reading of Scripture (the papacy, the infallible Church, treasury of merits, justification by faith and works is the big one...) The same is true with Eastern Orthodoxy...I only hate those doctrines which contradict the plain reading of Scripture (their view of the Church, original sin, grace, deification, justification by faith and works) but that doesn't mean I hate and despise it all.

Again, the Orthodox Catholic Church was Reformed…not Restored. So since both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy do have roots that stretch back into Christ’s Church of course their would be commonalities seen in all three faiths.

Isaac said...

The example of Easter is not really about who's "right" or "wrong"... only that Rome's influence on protestantism (even after protestantism came onto the historical scene, relatively late in the game) extends to a lot more than what most protestants think.

It is interesting you mention the Orthodox teaching on original sin, or as it is referred to sometimes in Orthodoxy, the "ancestral sin." This is one of the greatest influences of Roman Catholicism upon Protestant thinking, and is based upon a Latin mistranslation of the Greek text of Romans 5:12, among other things. This shift really took hold in the West after their schism, sometime around the 13th Century, with Anselm of Canterbury's Cur Deus Homo.

This transmutation of original sin into "original guilt" is the foundation stone for almost all other Roman Catholic errors such as purgatory, indulgences, "limbo", the immaculate conception of Mary, etc.

In fact, I think my next post will be on the Orthodox understanding of this doctrine.

irreverend fox said...

hey zac!

I'd be very interested to read about the EO understanding of that doctrine!

But of course our understanding is built on far more than Romans 5...but I won't get into that right now!