Protestant reformers reform what?

mathinspiration said:

Did they really reform anything?

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I find the word reform in this context does not relate to legal reform or policy reform but in a sense of changing formation like in team dynamics.

Since this word would imply that the church would leave to form another church .. it was quite the failure. WAY too many denominations.

Michael Collum said:

I find the word reform in this context does not relate to legal reform or policy reform but in a sense of changing formation like in team dynamics.

Since this word would imply that the church would leave to form another church .. it was quite the failure. WAY too many denominations.

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Its more like correcting abuses or errors. There is nothing implied about a new organization being necessary in order to effect the corrections.

Albion said:

Its more like correcting abuses or errors. There is nothing implied about a new organization being necessary in order to effect the corrections.

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Ah, so there are so many errors, that we actually need this many denominations ... that's a good point.

Michael Collum said:

Ah, so there are so many errors, that we actually need this many denominations ... that's a good point.

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Did you misunderstand what I wrote, or is this just a case of wanting to reiterate something you wrote before reading my post?

Albion said:

Did you misunderstand what I wrote, or is this just a case of wanting to reiterate something you wrote before reading my post?

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I get your initial meaning, and then it gave me an inspired idea that I repeated out loud.

FireDragon76 said:

That's actually the main reason I stopped taking Orthodoxy's self-understanding seriously. Because while Byzantium and Kievan Rus were fascinating subjects to study, with awe-inspiring cultural achievements and no doubt a certain kind of glory, I wouldn't want to live there. As David Wagschall points out on his blog, Under the Sun, no decent person would wish that even on their worst enemy- and he said that as somebody that is an academic expert on Byzantine Church history.

If I want my little dose of spiritual Disneyland eye candy, I can always go to the Tiffany Glass Museum that's downtown in Winter Park and see Louis Comfort Tiffany's Eduardian-era Byzantine chapel. That little bit of romanticism is enough for me, without all the baggage.

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Sorry brother you lost me in the knowledgeable details, I thought this to be an interesting response though on a period of Church history I know so little about, namely Byzantine. I am only familiar with the small population of Christian Byzantines so far as their involvement with ancient biblical manuscripts and the tedious painstaking scribal work of the textual tradition involved with preserving manuscripts for future generations.

Albion said:

The Protestants also demanded the following reforms:

That the action--the work--of the priest at the holy table be seen and heard by the people.

That the cup/wine be administered to the laity in communion along with the bread and not just reserved for the priest.

That the laity be given a role in the liturgy.

That the liturgy, the Mass, be in a language understood by the common people.

That that laity be allowed to own and read Bibles.

That priests be required to deliver sermons.
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And every one of these reforms has since been made by the Roman Catholic Church, although of course there was no admitting that they had previously been urged upon the church by the Protestant Reformers.

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Some did, but other bits of that was not universally adopted, at least not right away. Luther actually continued to use Latin for some time, though preaching was in German. And some Lutherans initially did not distribute communion in both kinds.

A Latin mass actually would be perfectly valid as far as we are concerned. Which is one reason I took issue with some folks in my congregation objecting to a blended Spanish-English liturgy. The synod keeps asking us to try that, but it never works out. So Pr. Falcone has a separate Spanish service on Saturday.

Up until a few years ago, we actually had a service once a month in German.

Apologetic_Warrior said:

Sorry brother you lost me in the knowledgeable details, I thought this to be an interesting response though on a period of Church history I know so little about, namely Byzantine. I am only familiar with the small population of Christian Byzantines so far as their involvement with ancient biblical manuscripts and the tedious painstaking scribal work of the textual tradition involved with preserving manuscripts for future generations.

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Yes, lots of good stuff there but the idea that was the "one true church" was more than I could take seriously. That, and the Slavophile love of Russian Orthodoxy was a bit much when you see how much of it is just naked nationalism under all the spiritual gilding now days. If Orthodoxy has an original sin, it's being unable to distinguish nationalism from the Gospel. It's too often, and sadly, articulated in a way that's dripping with xenophobic contempt.

Watch Zorba the Greek some time to get a clue to this mindset. Beautiful movie, very accurate portrayal of rural Greeks and their attitudes towards non-Orthodox from that time period. They consider us the barbarians, all the while they are living in the ruins of a dead empire.

TuxAme said:

Maybe it began as a "reformation", but any claims to have kept that as its goal died when doctrine became the focus, and not abuses. "Reformation" turned into recreation, molding Christianity into whatever image one desired.

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Or whatever image the Holy Spirit desired in many case.

When doctrine became the main focus instead of just abuses is when the Holy Spirit really began His work to make known the truth of salvation by grace through a personal faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ without the false dogma of the so called Roman "Church".

TuxAme said:

Lutherans, Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists, Anglicans, Adventists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Messianics, Quakers, Mennonites, Calvinists, and all of their own splinter groups. All over indulgences?

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Hardly.

It didn't start with Martin Luther's objection to indulgences and it didn't end with it. It continues to this day here in the Christian Forums to the extent that the moderators will allow it to proceed.

Protestants are just a spin-off of Roman Catholics. There’s really not that big of a difference.

His student said:

It didn't start with Martin Luther's objection to indulgences and it didn't end with it. It continues to this day here in the Christian Forums to the extent that the moderators will allow it to proceed.

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A a successful historical phenomenon, it did.

FireDragon76 said:

A a successful historical phenomenon, it did.

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I agree.

But the reformation movement had started long before Martin Luther and it has continued long after him.

mathinspiration said:

Did they really reform anything?

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Martin Luther form his own mouth confessed that the Reformation was a failure. He said he couldn't get enough real Christians together to have a prayer meeting. The real reformers, who get none of the credit, were the Anabaptist. It was the Anabaptist who re-introduced separation of Church and state and believer's baptism. Today they are mocked because of their simple ways and peaceful lifestyle. Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin would have us all living under totalitarianism, or worse yet, a church-state alliance that executes non-conformist.

FireDragon76 said:

Some scholars now consider Pentecostalism something else altogether, since it shifts the emphasis from doctrine to praxis. Some Neo-Pentecostal groups don't even have an emphasis on doctrine at all, merely orthopraxis as they understand it.

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I certainly agree with that.

I clearly remember the event that brought this fact home to me in the late 70's when the "charismatic movement" was in full swing.

It was when a "charismatic" nun (read - tongue talking nun) was invited to speak at the church I attended and I "protested" like any good Protestant should have. I was pretty much alone in that protest.

Although I still practice tongues on a personal basis - I am very wary of the wishy washy doctrine of many Pentecostals.

SteveIndy said:

Martin Luther form his own mouth confessed that the Reformation was a failure. He said he couldn't get enough real Christians together to have a prayer meeting. The real reformers, who get none of the credit, were the Anabaptist. It was the Anabaptist who re-introduced separation of Church and state and believer's baptism

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Luther also was known to engage in hyperbole.

The Anabaptists failed to transform Europe. If the pacifism and utopian radicalism of Anabaptism had been successful, it's likely that Europe would have fallen to the Turks, and chances are you and I would be Muslims.

TuxAme said:

Lutherans, Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists, Anglicans, Adventists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Messianics, Quakers, Mennonites, Calvinists, and all of their own splinter groups. All over indulgences?

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You need to look at what really happened. The Reformers didn't do anything that hadn't been done before. Similar efforts were either suppressed or coopted.

What was different is that the politics had shifted. Governments were no longer willing to enforce conformity with the Catholic Church, or were unable to do so.

The problem is, the Church had not developed a better way to handle disagreement than suppression. And it had a concept of essential doctrine that seems to bear no relationship to Jesus' own priorities, or even Paul's. The Protestants inherited that. They had no better approach either. So once the lid came off, we didn't just have one but many groups, and they all tried to enforce conformity to their own narrow views, no matter how odd.

Are we doing any better now? I think the peak of bizarre new theology was the 19th Cent, and also the peak of interdenominational wrangling. Conservative Protestants, with some exceptions, are slowly converging on many points. Mainline Protestants are largely in agreement as well. But we still don't have a real solution.

tampasteve said:

I am not sure that anyone would seriously debate that the Reformers did, in fact, not reform the church. Their influence even spawned the counter-reformation, which was also arguably very good for the Roman Catholic Church. Many believe that some of the reformers went too far, many others argue that they did not go far enough.

But there was most certainly a Reformation of the Western Church starting around 1517. Of course there were reform efforts beforehand, but they did not gain enough traction to last past their suppression except for small pockets. There were other reform efforts that stayed within the church, but they were also for different issues and at different time periods.

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What made the reformation possible was the printing press (mid 15th century) which was basically the internet of its day, and then the subsequent printed Textus Receptus (early 16th century) that all reformers NT bible are based on, after which the reformation was enviable.

hedrick said:

You need to look at what really happened. The Reformers didn't do anything that hadn't been done before. Similar efforts were either suppressed or coopted.

What was different is that the politics had shifted. Governments were no longer willing to enforce conformity with the Catholic Church, or were unable to do so.

The problem is, the Church had not developed a better way to handle disagreement than suppression. And it had a concept of essential doctrine that seems to bear no relationship to Jesus' own priorities, or even Paul's. The Protestants inherited that. They had no better approach either. So once the lid came off, we didn't just have one but many groups, and they all tried to enforce conformity to their own narrow views, no matter how odd.

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Luther and Calvin were both relatively conservative, indeed, too conservative by today's standards, but on the other hand, Europe could have easily fallen to pieces and/or, the Papacy may well have had serious fodder to use against the Reformation, turning the monarchs of France, England, and the Holy Roman Empire against it.

Henry VIII himself persecuted Protestants, especially Lutherans, his entire life- northern Europe was not all behind the same reformation, that was not yet clear until some time later.

The example of Michael Servetus in Geneva was a good example of the limits of the new liberty that human beings experienced. Or the persecution of sacramentarians and Anabaptists in Germany. Europe was not yet ready for radical ideas, the social institutions of Europe had not matured, and nation states were still relatively weak. The Church as a powerful social force in society was still holding it all together.

Apologetic_Warrior said:

Yes they Reformed the Church. Western civilization is what it is today because of the Reformation. The early forerunners and invention of the Gutenberg's press were pivotal towards the Reformation all across Europe. To think they accomplished nothing, is to be ignorant of history and or sorely lacking appreciation for our freedoms and modern conveniences among other things.

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Our freedoms and modern conveniences are not the glorious freedom of the Children of God talked of in the Gospels. They often lead more people to slavery in sin than to salvation by grace. Just taking this opportunity to point this out.

FireDragon76 said:

That's actually the main reason I stopped taking Orthodoxy's self-understanding seriously. Because while Byzantium and Kievan Rus were fascinating subjects to study, with awe-inspiring cultural achievements and no doubt a certain kind of glory, I wouldn't want to live there. As David Wagschall points out on his blog, Under the Sun, no decent person would wish that even on their worst enemy- and he said that as somebody that is an academic expert on Byzantine Church history.

If I want my little dose of spiritual Disneyland eye candy, I can always go to the Tiffany Glass Museum that's downtown in Winter Park and see Louis Comfort Tiffany's Eduardian-era Byzantine chapel. That little bit of romanticism is enough for me, without all the baggage.

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Orthodox "self-understanding" is what occurs when the Holy Spirit imparts enough grace to an Orthodox Christian soul for them to see how they are the most woeful of sinners and utterly depending upon God for any goodness at all to dwell in them. This is "Orthodox self-understanding", and it is the gift of God to receive it.

I don't know what self-understanding it was that you stopped taking seriously, but it wasn't an Orthodox Christian one.