Past thoughts on Reformation Day

What follows was a Facebook post I intended to make a Blog post. Somehow time got away from me and now, almost 9 months later, it seems anachronistic, but I wanted to put it here anyway.  In the interval, I have since been received into the Holy Orthodox Church, and there is a draft post that will be ready for prime-time some day in which I will talk about that a little more.

For now, here is some of the catalyst for my move:


I have for several years now had mixed feelings and a slight melancholy and unease with regard to this day (Reformation day, October 31).

On the one hand, Martin Luther had the courage and awareness to begin a discussion about abuses he saw in the Roman Catholic church. This is a great thing. The rediscovery that God is Love in the late middle ages is earth shaking in the West. Many of the reforms as they began to add up as time passed were truly good and necessary changes. Had Rome been willing to talk, had there not been several others riding on Luther's coattails, distracting with their own errors in the opposite direction, had there been, as Luther intended, a peaceful reform of the Roman Catholic church, things would have been vastly different than they turned out.

Which brings us to the other hand. On that other hand, Luther unintentionally opened a cut that would never be closed and its flow never stanched. "Sola Scriptura" failed at Marburg, where Zwingli and Luther could not agree on a rather simple seeming passage of Scripture. A mere 12 years had passed since the 95 Theses were posted and the whole thing began.

So Luther was excommunicated, Zwingli and Calvin had their own ideas, furthering the fracture, and on down to today when it is alleged that there are over 25,000 denominations that claim Reformation heritage or can at least attribute their existence to the new power to form a "church" at will, even if you disagree with the reformers.

To overcome the ecclesiology that had stood for more than a millennium, that the Church of Christ was locatable on earth and would never perish, somewhere along the way, the idea of the "invisible church" had to be constructed so as not to place everyone who thought he was correct outside the bounds of said Church. But how can this be true? Jesus said, "I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." It is also recorded in Scripture that the Church of Christ is the pillar and foundation of Truth. These don't sound like things that would be invisible, especially in the first 400 years where there was no Bible. If the Church would have been invisible at any time in its history, would it not have been during the intense persecution at the hands of the Empire?

In their disputes with the Romanists, the Lutherans often quoted Orthodox church fathers in support of their positions. It is attributed to Luther to have said at Leipzig "The truth lies with the Greeks" (ie, the Orthodox). Not long after Luther's death, the Lutheran theologians at Tubingen reached out to the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople in hopes of unification with them. Unfortunately, those communications broke down after a few volleys of correspondence.

The Reformation has, sadly, resulted in a terrible fracturing of Christianity. What was intended to be a correction of a few abuses has resulted in a stripping of much of what was understood without question as the practice and doctrine of the Church. The liturgy, the artwork, the imminence, the sacramentality, the great cloud of witnesses, the communion with those who went before, the virtues, the struggle, the fact that we are to live our whole life in Christ. These are gone or greatly reduced from descendants of the Reformation, some to a greater or lesser degree.

What gave the Lutherans and others the authority to say "Sola Scriptura?"
What gave them the authority to declare their interpretation of scripture as the right one?
Why can I trust the compilers of the Scriptures on their compilation, but not on their praxis?
Do the Scriptures themselves suggest an unwritten, yet equally authoritative Tradition?

I understand that the context was complex. I understand that I just don't understand.

But in my searching, I have been drawn to the Orthodox Church, which has preserved, compiled, and handed down the Scriptures; which has anathematized heretics; which has formulated the Creed which I confess; which constructed the liturgy I have sung even as a Lutheran; which has withstood assaults from Empire, Turk, and Crusader; which has never had a purgatory or an indulgence; which always knew God as Love, as the Father of the prodigal; which always had Christ as Head, and never a man; which always prayed and worshipped in the people's language; which has always believed that Salvation is a free gift of God which no one could earn or merit.

So on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, I recognize that it had to happen, and if not Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, et al, then someone else would have come along. I'm thankful to God that the Gospel was recovered in the West. I don't lay blame on Luther for the massive splintering that has occurred. Mankind, being what we are, and the conditions being right for it, it was bound to happen.

I have my questions. And so, like Luther and the early Lutherans, I have begun my own discussion for the love of the Truth, and I look to the Greeks for vindication and possible union. After visiting several Orthodox parishes in the area, this past Sunday I spoke to a priest at one of them about taking their inquirer's class, through which I hope at the very least to be more informed and more connected to the "one holy catholic and apostolic Church."