A
brief look at major events and figures within the Protestant Reformation
In
honor of its 500th anniversary
Dear Friends in
October 2017 I put together for St. Luke & St. Peter’s Episcopal Church a
brief look at the protestant reformation including an introduction, a brief
look at two great figures of the reformation Martin Luther and John Calvin, the
Church of England’s break from the Catholic church and how today the Anglican/Episcopal
Church is both reformed and Catholic. Each article appeared on a Sunday in our
bulletin and is now available as a booklet and online. I hope these five very
brief articles are a blessing and help to you in your faith as we take a moment
to remember the reformation and it’s legacy today as we mark 500 years since
Martin Luther nailed his ’95 to the door of All Saints Church Wittenburg,
Germany.
In
Christ, Fr. Rob+
History, Legacy
and Anglicanism today
On October 31st, 2017 protestant churches around the world will mark and
celebrate the 500th anniversary of the
protestant reformation. The reformation is marked in time by the actions of the
Catholic monk and priest Martin Luther nailing his ‘95 Theses’ on the door of
All Saints Church in Wittenburg, Germany. This treatise we not meant as a break
from the Catholic Church, but as an argument against the Church selling of
‘indulgences’ to absolve sin. However, Martin Luther’s ‘95 Theses’ which
propounded two central beliefs—that the Bible is the central religious
authority and that humans may reach salvation only by their faith and not by
their deeds—was to spark the Protestant Reformation.
The Anglican Church, of which the
Episcopal Church is a communion member, is the result of the English part in this
reformation. The Catholic church in England and King Henry VIII originally
resisted the ‘protesters’ of the protestant reformation and King Henry VIII
penned a defense of the Catholic faith. For this Pope Leo X granted Henry the
official title of ‘Defender of the Faith’ in 1521. However by 1530, and for
political reasons more than theological ones, King Henry VIII decided to break
from the Catholic Church so to allow himself to be the supreme authority over
the ‘Catholic Church in England’.
From this historical point forward the
Anglican church was now separate from the ‘Catholic church’ yet retained much
of the form of worship and Episcopal structure of the church. Today we as
Anglicans/Episcopalians might be termed catholic and reformed. Over the next
four Sundays, we will be offering you brief written summaries of the
reformation and what it means to be a part of this reformation as
Anglican/Episcopalians. These will include Luther’s protests, Calvin’s reforms,
the English church, and our legacy today as Anglicans/Episcopalians.
Part
II Martin Luther (1483-1546) instigates a reformation
of the church.
Over the last
500 years Martin Luther has on one extreme been called ‘The ogre who destroyed
the unity of the church.” On the other “A great hero whose efforts the
preaching of the pure Gospel was restored.” Today among Christian scholars and
historians, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, “Few doubt Luther’s sincerity,
and many catholic historians affirm that his protests was amply justified, and
that he was right on many points of doctrine.”
Martin Luther was a monk before he became a priest and
theologian. We was sent to a monastery in Wittenburg, Germany to both study and
teach at the University of Wittenburg. Upon Luther’s ordination his demeanor
changed in so much that it frightened and even terrorized him that in the
Eucharist he was holding and offering nothing less than the very body of
Christ. This fear turned into a feeling of unworthiness of God’s love and that
he was not doing enough to be saved.
It was in his study of the Bible in
preparation for his teaching duties that Luther began to study in depth the
book of Romans. In this book he saw that Paul described a God whose justice was
not based on punishment for sin but that in Romans 1:17 ‘the justice of God is
revealed’ and that ‘The righteous shall live by faith’. Justice is then not
determined by our sin, but on God’s grace. We receive that grace through faith
in Jesus Christ and nothing else. With this understanding in his heart Luther
wrote, “I felt I had been born anew and that the gates of heaven had been
opened. The whole of scripture gained new meaning. And from that point on the
phrase ‘the justice of God’ no longer filled me with hatred, but rather became
unspeakably sweet by virtue of a great love.”
It was
from this revelation in the heart of Luther in which he challenged his own
Catholic Church’s sales of indulgences for the forgiveness of sins as
incompatible with the Bible. The church can not sell that which God has already
given freely. Neither can the church allow that which the Bible most clearly
forbids. With his 95 Theses Luther called upon the church to reform it’s
practices based solely on scripture. From this call Luther’s theses and the
reforms for which they called began to gain traction and even made great
strides inside and outside the Catholic Church.
Did Luther know that his 95 Theses calling the Church to
recognize the Bible as the ultimate source of God’s authority and that
salvation is not offered through the church, but only through faith in Jesus
Christ cause the division and disunity of the church? Perhaps it was merely the
spark to ignite what was already happening.
History tells us that Luther never desired to reject or
leave the Catholic church and had great criticisms for those did. Yet in the
end Luther was called by no less than the Pope to recant his theology. Luther
refused and publically burned the Papal Bull which called him to do so. In the
end Luther stood before the authority of the Church and declared he would be
willing to recant if only someone could show him where he had erred. The result
being he was excommunicated from the church.
Yet Luther still found salvation in the grace of God offered freely
through Jesus Christ and was a leader of the movement he began with his 95
Theses.
Part
III John Calvin 1509-1560
Our Continued series in
honor of the 500th anniversary of the
Protestant Reformation on October 31, 2017
‘Without
any doubt, the most important systemizer of protestant theology in the 16th century was John
Calvin. While Luther was the daring trailblazer for the movement, Calvin was
the careful thinker who bound the various protestant doctrines into a cohesive
whole. ’ The Story of Christianity, Justo Gonzales, pg. 61
John Calvin was born in a small town in Noyon, France in
1509 a part of the rising middle class. He was 8 years old when Martin Luther
nailed his thesis to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenburg, Germany and
was a student during the firestorm of the early reformation. During his studies
he became familiar with the doctrines of John Wycliffe, Martin Luther and Jan
Huss. After receiving a Master of Arts degree Calvin then went on to study law
under two of the great jurist of his day.
It was from his study of Theology and Law that Calvin found
himself drawn to the issues and arguments surrounding the protestant
reformation. In his early writings Calvin was obviously sympathetic to the
reformation as he began writing treatise to help clarify the faith in confusing
times. His first was on the state of the souls of the dead before the
resurrection. It is not known when Calvin officially broke from the Roman
church, but in January 1935 he went into exile in the protestant city of Basel
in Switzerland.
From this time forward Calvin felt
called to spend his time in study and literary labors and in 1536 His first Institutes of Christian Religion was published. This work would
move from 6 chapters and 516 pages in its first edition in 1536 to 4 books and
80 chapters in its final definitive edition in 1560. This work would become the
most famous work of the protestant reformation and spawn many Christian
denominations such as ‘reformed’ Presbyterians, ‘United Church of Christ’,
‘reformed Baptists’, and influence greatly the Anglicans, Lutherans, the
Methodists and really almost all protestant denominations.
The core of
Calvin’s original work focused on Theology and ‘the Law’, The Creed, The Lord’s
Prayer, Sacraments, false sacraments and Christian Freedom. The most visible
legacy of Calvin’s work in the Episcopal Church may be our understanding and
practice of Holy Communion. Calvin argued against both the Catholic
understanding of the ‘Real’ presence of Christ in Communion and the no presence
of the memorialist. Communion in neither simply commemorating what Jesus did at
the last supper. Calvin argued that in communion the real presence of Christ
dwells within the bread and the wine in a spiritual way and so we partake of
Jesus Christ and are taken into heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit and
‘share with Christ in a foretaste of the Heavenly banquet.’
Today many who
adhere to Calvin’s Theology may be called a ‘Five point Calvinist’. This refers
to his central five assertions of the Christian faith. These are the total
depravity of man, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace
and the perseverance of the saints. If these terms are confusing to you I
understand as they need more fleshing out than we can accomplish in this brief
pamphlet.
Just as it is perhaps today, the understanding of
the Sacrament of Holy Communion was the greatest source of division between the
reformers and the Roman Catholic Church and between the reformers themselves.
In this division is perhaps the greatest challenge we have faced in regards to
the unity of the church. In his lifetime Calvin signed several accords with
other great reformers respecting and holding together in fellowship even though
they had different views of the presence of Christ in the sacrament of
communion. Those who came after these first reformers were not so kind to each
other and these divisions became both nasty and deadly with the killing of
‘Heretics’.
To
understand Calvin’s legacy in the reformation we need to understand this:
Through his systematic work of theology in The Institutes of Christian Religion and his founding of a university
in Geneva, there is no reformer with a greater influence on our Christian life
and worship today than John Calvin. -Fr. Rob+
The
Reformation in England (1534 and counting)
Henry VIII,
Thomas Cranmer and the breakaway of the Church in England
from
the Catholic Church
The Formal break
with the English Church from the Catholic Church happened in 1534 under the
authority and leadership of King Henry VIII and the Arch Bishop of Canterbury
Thomas Cranmer. This is 17 years after Martin Luther began the reformation with
his 95 Thesis against what he saw as abuses and corruption in the Catholic
Church. Our Church History books tell us that the break happened because King
Henry wanted a divorce from Catherine of Aragon. But rarely are such incidents
so cut and dry.
England was effected by the religious and political
turmoil of the protestant reformation as much as anyone in Europe at that time.
The teachings and religious leanings away from the Catholic church toward a
reformed understanding of the Christian faith centered on the authority of
Scripture and salvation through faith alone were finding quite a foothold in
England. This was particularly true with religious leaders such as William
Tyndale, John Wycliffe, and Thomas Cranmer who would become the first
independent arch bishop of Canterbury and the author of our first Anglican
prayer book. Yet Henry VIII was not a fan of the reformation and published a
treatise against Martin Luther which was acclaimed by Pope Leo X who conferred
on him and His descendants the title of ‘Defender of the Faith.’ Yet by 1534
Henry VIII solidifies a break with the Catholic Church. Why was this?
Justo Gonzales writes, ‘As Henry
saw matters, what was needed was not a reformation like the one on the
continent, but rather a restoration of the rights of the crown against Papal
Intervention.’ Where Luther criticized the abuses of the church upon its people
through unbiblical requirements and practices, Henry VIII was tired of undue
influence of the Pope upon the rights of princes. Henry, who was forced to
marry the widow of his older brother Arthur, was seeking an annulment
upon the grounds that such a marriage is unlawful according to church law and
therefore should never have been granted. The denial of an annulment and
divorce from Pope Clement VII should have been granted according to church law,
but it was not. Thus this event precipitated and really solidified Henry’s
decision to break from Rome. Upon the break from Rome All clergy were required
to give an oath of loyalty to the King as head of the church in England.
For
several years the break from the Catholic Church was little more than schism
and no doctrinal content was put forward to justify the schism nor a
reformation of the church (except the king was now it’s head) was attempted.
Yet the reformation could not be held at bay and its influence which had been
pressing upon the English church and clergy for years. In the years that
followed, Henry’s motivations relating to the church we almost always political
though he always sought to maintain the worship of the church be as close to
the catholic ideal as possible.
Yet the King did begin reformation in England. He
allowed Arch Bishop Cranmer to order the bible be translated into English and
placed in every church where it could be read by all. Henry continued to
suppress the monasteries, which were allied with the Catholic Church. All of
this saw the allies of the reformation in England have a strong foothold in
England and when Henry died took the opportunity to both push the reformation
further with the Church and country of England. Yet as we will see next week,
the English or Anglican church it is now known, of all the churches that are a part
of the reformation, see itself most closely with the Catholic church in its
worship and its theology.
The
Anglican Church Today: Catholic and Reformed
Today’s Anglican
Church has 38 provinces, over 300 million members and is the legacy of much
more than a Church begun upon the political and marital machinations of a
British Monarch. To understand who we are today as a church we really need to
understand the Anglican Church as something much more than what it was when
Henry VIII first broke away from the Papel Authority or what so many call
‘Catholic light.’
As you might imagine 500 years does something to a
person or in our case a Church. Yes Henry VIII declared independence from Papal
authority, but he still retained the structure of the Catholic Church in
England and its worship. Churches did not look any different and the man in the
pew would not have noticed much of any difference in the worship. In fact the
church as we now see it has had several very significant changes in how it
looked when it broke from the Roman Catholic Church and none of them came with
Henry VIII.
Henry’s daughter Queen Elizabeth established much
more of a protestant hierarchy in the church with key leaders from the English
protestant movement being made bishops. She also passed the the Act of
Uniformity for the church which says worship in all churches must follow the
same form. This is why no matter where you go in the world a service at an
Anglican or Episcopal Church will look very much like the service we have here
at St. Luke & St. Peter’s.
Following well after Queen
Elizabeth, the 1662 prayer book (which laid out Anglican forms of worship and
theology) set forth what is even now is our standard for said worship and
theology. Today we still consider ourselves a church whose theology is founded
in the Bible, but whose worship is secured in the prayer book and it’s more
modern revisions.
Though worship today actual would
look familiar to the church in Henry and Elizabeth’s time, there was well over
100 years in which the worship of the church tended to move closer to the
Anabaptist movement which got rid of things such as crosses, Altars, and
stained glass windows. The focus of the church at that time tended be much more
about the Bible, personal devotion and corporate worship without the use of
anything that could be mistaken for an idol or an icon. In Shorts, churches
were bare with only a pulpit and bible.
Yet in the Early
1800’s a movement began in England and in the United States which looked back
upon the church in the era of Henry and Elizabeth and saw in it the deep
connection to the worship of the Roman Catholic Church and brought back into
our worship both the vessels and the Sacramental look of our sanctuaries for
the purpose of Eucharistic Worship. It’s leaders were such Anglican clergy as
John Henry Newman, John Keble, Edward Pusey and Richard Froude. They reminded
the Anglican Church of its deep connection with and dedication to liturgical
worship. Without their influence, today a worship service at St. Luke & St.
Peter might look more like a non-denominational church than a Catholic one.
Today
our worship is decidedly Eucharistic and Sacramental. Yet our preaching is more
on the Authority of the Bible and the focus on a personal faith in Jesus Christ
for Salvation. So to understand the Anglican Church as either Protestant or
Catholic would be a false dichotomy for we are both. We are both steeped in the
Bible as the authoritative word of God and trusting in our faith in Jesus
Christ to receive salvation. And we share the ministry of the Sacraments, the
three fold orders of ministry of Deacons priests and Bishops, and we hold to
the Holy Eucharist as our primary act of corporate worship. Today’s Anglican
Church then is not an either/or, but a both/and. We are distinctly reformed, we
are distinctly catholic, we are…distinctly Anglican. –Fr. Rob Longbottom+
Research for these articles came from The Story of Christianity, by Justo Gonzales and the Living
Church Magazine Article by Rev. Tony Clavier, protestant or Catholic, http://livingchurch.org/covenant/2017/10/27/protestant-or-catholic/
