Melville Cooke MARTIN LUTHER, the Augustinian monk, is all set to go. The 34-year-old Professor of Biblical Studies at the new University of Wittenberg had carefully prepared his 95 theses. Tomorrow will be All Souls Day 1517 a holy day holiday, and the town's cathedral will be full of worshippers. They will read, but mostly hear read by the literate, his points of disputation with the Church which he plans to nail to the cathedral of Wittenberg in the place for public notices.
How are men saved? What is the source of authority in the Church? Luther had read with great joy and enlightenment the Bible in Latin. On pain of death, the laity was not to have access to the Scriptures in a vulgar (common) tongue. Luther discovered from the Scriptures that "the just shall live by his faith" and that men in the priesthood of believers can come boldly and directly to the throne of grace. These theological things and the corrupt practices of the Church he wanted to publicly discuss for reformation.
Luther is forever a consummate media and marketing man. Locked away in Prince Frederick's Wartburg Castle for his protection after his excommunication and death sentence, he wrote prolifically, in simple, powerful German, and translated the Bible into the vernacular language for access by all the people. Luther capitalised on the relatively new printing press to the max to get his ideas out, marketing the Reformation with culturally appropriate, dramatic language and new technology. The final pamphlet of his prodigious output of some 400 pieces of work was titled, "Against the Roman Papacy, Instituted by the Devil".
Approaching the 486th anniversary of Luther's first media act, in an unusual collaboration, The Gleaner, through its Mind & Spirit feature desk, and Grace Missionary Church hosted a public forum, 'Horizons of the Reformation: The Church in the 16th and 21st centuries.' The question was raised "What lessons can the contemporary Church learn from the 16th century Refor-mation?" Billy Hall's review of the Forum for Mind & Spirit does not help an absentee much in determining the adequacy with which this vitally important question was answered or the issue dodged.
Blood, lots of it, flowed from the Reformation as men sought to advance their own religious position and to constrain that of their opponents by brute force. There is every indication that this base human instinct is very much alive and well in the 21st century.
SALVATION BENEFITS
But other things flowed from the Reformation. The modern world, in many of its finest dimensions, has been strongly shaped by the Reformation which brought far more than salvation benefits in its flow. Luther's freeing of the Bible from both Latin and the lectern where it was chained gave an enormous boon to literacy. Up until well into the 20th century when state-sponsored public education became the universally accepted way to go, there were marked differences in literacy levels between Reformation and non-Reformation countries, the higher levels being found in the Reformation states.
Max Weber's famous study of the Protestant work ethic and the rise of capitalism is widely known. The change of attitude to the material world of God's creation, to work, and to the human agent, springing from a change of theology, created a base for a change in the means of production. Now capitalism, is clearly not an unmixed blessing, especially when cut loose from its religious moorings, but it has generated unprecedented levels of material benefits for even the poorest where it has taken hold.
RIGHTS
Democracy, not without its weaknesses, flowed out of the Reformation which emphasised the rights of the individual and restraints upon central authority based on the doctrine of the equal priesthood of believers. The French prelate who warned his non-Reformation sovereign that "a change of religion must necessarily mean a change of government" was most astute. And the religious wars which ensued from the Reformation were largely due to the combination of Church and State as a single power to enforce religious edicts. Re-instate that combination and the wars will follow as religious and political struggles in a bloody mix.
As late as 1854, the supreme head of the non-Reformation church was publicly fulminating by encyclical letter that "the absurd and erroneous doctrines or ravings in defense of liberty of conscience are a most pestilential error a pest, of all others, most to be dreaded in a state."
The young American state had quickly amended its Constitution to declare that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press " The clash of positions is all too evident. It would do The Gleaner and all media well to protect this package of freedom as one from encroachments from anywhere at any time while supporting freedom of speech through the publication and broadcasting of divergent views such as those at the Reformation Forum last Wednesday.
Stephen F. Mason, in his classic, 'A History of the Sciences', shows, with fascinating data, how the Protestant Reformation under-pinned the Scientific Revolution. The scientists were by and large practising Christians. Isaac Newton was a substantial theologian who, in addition to the great Principia of Physics, wrote an exegesis on Daniel.
Mason concluded that, "Apart from the absence of an Inquisition in Protestant lands, the predominance of Protestants among the great scientists of modern Europe may be ascribed to three main factors: firstly to a congruence between the early Protestant ethos and the scientific attitude; secondly, to the use of science for the attainment of religious ends; and, thirdly, to an agreement between the cosmic values of Protestant theology and those of the theories of early modern science."
Luther's academic act 486 years ago, tomorrow, has been used as the defining moment of the Reformation which involved many men in many countries. The mighty streams of the Reformation flow on, never free of the contaminating debris of human history in a world of sin. Long live the Reformation!
Martin Henry is a
communication specialist.
