Of dogs and vomit – The reformation at 503. Part 1

The reformation is 503 years this October. Again we are reminded of its ideals and what they should mean for the Church today. Sadly the everyday believer knows very little about it and what it means. Most haven’t even heard the name Martin Luther and if they have, they have no idea what it represents. This is a sad state of affairs that must be reversed immediately given the fact that Martin Luther and the reformation is the reason why most of us are not Roman Catholics.

Until 503 years ago, Christianity meant Catholicism. The word “catholic” actually means universal and therefore the Catholic Church stood for all of Christendom. You were either (with a few exceptions of course) a Roman Catholic or you were not a Christian. That was the church Luther broke from; leading to the birth of Protestantism through reformation.

Prior to all of this, Rome with its papacy reigned supreme. After Emperor Constantine’s supposed conversion and adoption of Christianity, Rome expanded Christianity and changed its status from a small movement that started in Judea by a supposedly mysterious miracle-working figure, to the state religion of a mighty power that literally ruled the world. Church and state become one entity as the years rolled by. The Bishop of Rome became its head and eventually gained enough political power to control even politicians. After all, the Pope is the “representative of God” on earth and therefore had the final say on everything. But that is not exactly what upset Luther—at least not yet.

His trouble started when a certain Johannes Tetzel showed up in the parish where Luther was leading an assembly, to sell a piece of paper that would save one or their relatives from the blazing hot fires of hell. It was called indulgences. Luther rebelled against the idea. Rome had sold these indulgencies all over the place. It was one of the ways in which it raised money and the famous St. Paul's Cathedral is known to be one of the projects accomplished with the sale of indulgences. Prior to this indulgence saga, Luther had visited Rome in high hopes only to walk into an unfathomable degree of corruption at the papacy. Clergymen had descended to the lowest of all debauchery as the pope committed simony among other immoral behaviors in the midst of the elitism that had become its very essence. Luther was disillusioned and disturbed at what he saw and begun to detect discrepancies between what he read in the Bible and what he saw in the Church. Salvation is by grace alone and cannot be purchased with money.

 

Luther however, was not the first to be concerned with the state of the affairs.

Before him Jan Hus had been burnt to death for challenging the theological base of Roman Catholic church and its doctrines.  End of part 1