CHURCH: History and Today Mar. 3

Intro

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about how the Reformers and Anabaptists ‘broke’ off from the Catholic Church. Now it’s time to take a break from the timeline of the Reformation and do a direct compare/contrast of the major church movements during this time. While we know that they disagreed with each other, we may not understand what exactly they disagreed about or how important the topics were that they couldn’t see eye to eye on. It may look like the Catholic Church had it all wrong, but remember that most - if not all - of the Reformers started within the Catholic system and simply wanted to bring needed change within the church. And while there were major issues that the Reformers pointed out within Catholic theology, there was also a lot that they agreed on. Today we want to take a closer look at what exactly these three groups believed and taught. Just a quick note: While there were some differences between Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, they were close enough to each other in what they taught and thought that for this class we will group them together as the Magisterial Reformers.

There is something else I should mention. While we won’t be able to cover this very much in class, it is easy to think of the Catholic Church as the bad guys. While they got a lot of things wrong over time, we can’t leave it there. In response to the Reformation, the Catholic Church called a council, the Council of Trent in 1545. Here many Catholic leaders met together to clarify what exactly was taught and what wasn’t taught by the Catholic Church, to correct those things they had done and taught incorrectly, to correct abuses within the Church and try to bring people back to the Catholic fold. The Council of Trent also showed that the Catholic Church was aware of the mistakes they had made in the past instead of ignoring them, and that they wanted to correct those mistakes. Some of the Catholic doctrines we’ll be looking at are the ones that were set down at the Council of Trent, meaning that some of the issues that the reformers had with the Catholic Church won’t come out as clearly here.

Disagreements

So what did all three groups

What did the different groups disagree on?

We have brought up several of these disagreements in previous classes already. Before we begin, I will add once again that this is just a very brief overview of each of these traditions, and I won’t be able to give any one of them the attention they deserve. Also, I am no expert on any of these topics, so it is quite possible that someone has a question that I will not be able to answer to their satisfaction! I will do my best and here goes!

Salvation

Catholic Teaching: The Catholic Church taught that Salvation was a process that took one’s whole life. Here I have a diagram that gives us an idea of what the Medieval Catholic view of Salvation was. To start, we are born in sin, separated from God. At baptism (8 days after birth) God brings you into a state of Grace before Him. So now we are in a state of grace. Now in this stated of grace, we are responsible “to cooperate with grace throughout one’s life through good works.” (Ryan Reeves). In this state of grace we still sin, so we must confess to a priest and do penance (something assigned by the priest, including prayers, Mass, pilgrimages, and so on). After we die, we go to purgatory. Now purgatory is not hell, it is the final stage of penance which we go through after we die. Once we have gone through our final penance in purgatory, we can then go to heaven. If we wonder where God’s grace is in this whole process, it is EVERYWHERE. The entire process begins with God’s grace and floats in God’s grace, since without God’s grace any confession or act of penance means nothing.

This is the official doctrine of salvation. However, as we mentioned in our first few classes, things change. In reality, it had become something very different. The emphasis became less on salvation as a process and more on doing the things that seem good so that we will spend less time in purgatory and so that God will love us. Add to that the idea of indulgences, a “pay-to-be-saved” mentality, and you see where the problem lies.

Reformers’ Teaching: The Reformers were all incredibly strong on the point of Salvation by Grace alone through Faith alone. To them, the Catholic system didn’t go far enough in its definition of sin. For the reformers, sin was a total, massive, all corrupting inability to do right, rather than just little lapses and rituals to correct those lapses, which is how they viewed the Catholic system. Man is totally depraved and inadequate, mankind had lost their free will, and any attempt to do anything good apart from faith is totally meaningless. As a result, it is up to God to save us, because we are completely unable to do anything for ourselves. This is where faith comes in. Faith is not something we give, it is something we receive. Faith is God’s gift to us given by His grace. Once we are saved, we do good works, but they are because we have been changed in Christ, they do not gain anything for us.

Anabaptist Teaching: Anabaptists agreed with the Magisterial Reformers that salvation is by grace through faith and not through any merit of their own, but it looked a little bit different. To them, “man was not saved in spite of himself. God has graciously provided a way of salvation, but in order to benefit from it man must freely choose it for himself.” (Klaassen, 41) God’s grace has freed our will so that we can choose to do the God that God desires. “Anabaptists simply refused to accept Luther’s separation of works from faith, or action from confession. Works, they argued, were a part of faith, and without them faith was not faith… Works were the outward expression of faith and not simply the fruit of faith as Luther said.” (Klaassen, 42)

What do you make of these different views of salvation? Open for discussion

The Church

Catholic Teaching: The Catholic teaching is that the Catholic church is the true church of Christ. “One, holy, catholic, apostolic church.” The theology of the church offered reassurance to believers who might doubt that the church they saw was the ‘true’ one. The true church is not necessarily the people in it, but rather the institution of it. This is tied to the idea of church tradition. The Catholic church traces its origins back to the first 12 disciples, it is the very institution that started with Christ and His disciples. To come before God, we must go through a priest, since the church is God’s representation on earth.

Reformed Teaching: To the reformers, the true church, at its core, was the sum of all Christians who truly believe. The true church is not simply a visible organization with a fallible human being at its head. All of us are priests and have direct communion with God, but there is also a communion with God that only happens in the reality of the church. In the church we are all priests to each other, and all of us are priests to the world. And while we don’t need priests to come to God, we still need each other. God knows who is truly saved, and not everyone in a physical congregation is necessarily one of the saved. There are always believers, unbelievers, and Pharisees in the church. The Word and the Sacraments (baptism and communion are the marks of the true church. The Church is made up of sinners and saints whose holiness is revealed in heaven.

Anabaptist Teaching: Anabaptist taught that the church was the gathered congregation of believers who had voluntarily entered it by baptism upon confession of faith, and love is the most important mark of the church. To them, you could not be part of a church by being born into it (infant baptism). Also, they did not believe that we couldn’t know who was part of the church. It will be obvious in a person’s life if they are saved or not. And that is why their doctrine of the church as the baptised population was so important. It signified who was part of the church and who was not, as it showed clearly that they were following Christ.

Any thoughts or questions? Open to discussion

Scripture and Tradition

Catholic Teaching: The Catholic Church taught that the Church had birthed Scripture. It was the church who had met together who decided what books were part of the Bible and which ones were not. While the Bible was sufficient in issues of faith and practice, the truths of the Bible acquired their authority as interpreted in the continuing life of the church. So basically, the church knows what the Bible is saying and how it should be interpreted. Also, there is a second source of authoritative truth based on the unwritten knowledge and practice of the church through the ages. So there is both a written (traditional commentaries and writings) tradition and an unwritten tradition, and both of these are equally authoritative. And ultimately, the voice of the Holy Spirit guiding the church makes both the Scriptures and the Church valid in their authority. While in theory Scripture and tradition were equal in authority, over time the traditional way of viewing Scripture was the ONLY way of viewing it, thus tradition trumps Scripture.

Why do you think the Catholic church had this view of Scripture and tradition?

Reformed Teaching: The Reformers taught something quite different. Just as they were strong on the idea of salvation by grace alone through faith alone, so they also held fast to the idea of Scripture alone. Scripture was ALWAYS the final authority no matter what. They criticized the Catholic church for flipping the authority from the Word of God to the tradition of the church. Everything should always be based against what the Bible says. It is only through the Holy Spirit that proper interpretation of the Bible is found, and because of all the errors found in the Latin Bible over the last few centuries compared to the original texts, they would say that tradition was in error too, even though the Catholic church claimed to be led by the Spirit in this too.

Anabaptist Teaching: The Anabaptists also taught that the Bible was authoritative over anything and anyone else (thinking about the Pope and the tradition of the Catholic church in particular). However, there were some differences. Yes the Bible is the sole authority, but we can live without the physical Bible. There were those Anabaptists who taught that the physical Bible cannot “be a bearer of spiritual life,” because it is physical and not spiritual. Here I’ll read an excerpt from Klaassen’s book.

So while the Bible is important, it is the Spirit of God revealing to us the inner Word of God that brings us spiritual understanding.

One final note, the Anabaptists seemed to follow the Catholic view of the Apocrypha as Scripture, since they often quoted from it without differentiating it from the Bible. The Apocrypha is a group of books that some believers include in the Bible. These books were written and compiled mostly between the date of the last book of the Old Testament and the earliest date of the first New Testament book. They are never included in the Hebrew Bible, but many Christians thought they were valuable reads. They were included by the Catholic church and rejected by many of the reformers, although some reformers would include them as a separate section after the New Testament. They would say that while they are not equal to Scripture, they are still useful and good to read.

Any questions or comments? Open for discussion

The Church and the State

The Church and the State

Catholic Teaching: The Catholic Church taught that God was ultimate authority. Where it gets tricky is how God’s authority is mediated into the world. The Pope, as Peter’s direct spiritual successor and the one who thus holds the keys to heaven and hell, is God’s representative on earth. As a result, the Pope has ultimate authority on earth, over both the church and the state. The Pope then gives some of this authority to the different clerics and to the governments, thus all are given their authority by God through the Pope, but the spiritual is more important than the physical, so the church was given priority. Sometimes the church and the state would disagree on something, when this happened, the church would get its way. In the Medieval Ages, the Church enjoyed massive power, not only in spiritual but also political power. Kings and princes would submit to the authority of the church.

In the Medieval Ages, the Church enjoyed massive power, not only in spiritual but also political power.

Reformed Teaching: Luther taught that the church and the state are the right and left hands of God living in necessary tension. The state provides order by restricting evildoers and promoting peace. The “state church” is where the pastor urges the church to obey God and the state, and the state is urged to protect the church. We can be part of the church and the state, and have a duty to serve the state in defense of our neighbor, because protecting our neighbor from the enemy is how we show them love. The Magisterial Reformers enjoyed support and protection from princes who agreed with them, and some political leaders also enjoyed immense power within the church, even though officially reformed leaders taught that the political leaders are under the authority of the church.

Here I’ll just give a brief overview of Papal and Catholic authority and political power in the Medieval world.

Anabaptist Teaching: Anabaptists saw this union as a betrayal of primitive Christianity (as seen in Schleitheim Confession) and sought to break completely from the state. To them it seemed obvious that in the government was completely opposed to the early church, which is why there was so much persecution of Christians in the Roman world. As a result, when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman world a few hundred years later, this was a betrayal to Christianity.

authority over kings and princes at many times. Magisterial Reformers enjoyed support and protection from princes who agreed with them, and some political leaders also enjoyed immense power within the church, even though officially reformed leaders taught that the political leaders are under the authority of the church. Anabaptists saw this union as a betrayal of primitive Christianity (as seen in Schleitheim Confession) and sought to break completely from the state.

The Anabaptists believed that the government was sanctioned by God, it says so in the Bible. They held to a view similar to the Reformers concerning the “two kingdoms.” ”Government was given because of man’s sin; it belonged to law, while the church, which was given out of sheer grace, belonged to the Gospel.” (Klassen, 244) That being said, the church was considered the kingdom of Christ, while the government belonged. To the kingdom of the world, or the kingdom of Satan. Regardless of this, they taught that the government should be obeyed, since it was instituted by God. However, God’s authority was greater than the government’s. If there was a conflict between the two, God should be obeyed without question. What this means for the Anabaptist is that Christians should not participate in government. “Luther grgued. That a Christian must participate in government out of love for the neighbor. He must be prepared to coerce and kill to save the neighbor, and he could do it with a good conscience because he was carrying out a divine mandate. The Anabbaptists, on the other hand, said taht a Christian may not participate in government out of love for the neighbor. A servant of Christ had no liberty to use coercion and vengeance or to kill becuase it was contrary to the commandments of Christ. Most Anabaptists therefor rejected all participation in government for the Christian…also becuase any Anabaptist in government in sixteenth-century Europe would soon find himself prosecuting the. Members of his own church.”

Disagreements Conclusion

This has given us a bit of an overview of some of the differences that came up as a result of the Reformation. Please remember that all of these topics are much larger than the few paragraphs each of them have here. Whole books have been written about just one of these topics from just one church tradition! We also haven’t covered all the different topics that they disagreed on. Here are just some of the big ones to give us an idea of how these groups viewed Christianity and what it means to think and act like a Christian.

While I lumped all the Magisterial reformers together for this comparison, I should add that overall, the Anabaptists agreed more with John Calvin than they did with Martin Luther. While some of this may be because of similar theology, it could also be because of persecution. Luther and Zwingli both persecuted Anabaptists severely; many were killed by these reformers. Calvin took a different approach. He sat down with them and talked with them. He was in contact with many Anabaptists and was much more loving towards them than others. I don’t know about you, but I would much rather sit with someone who wants to convert me than sit with someone who wants to kill me!

One more interesting note is that there are some strong similarities between Anabaptist views and Catholic views.

What are some of these similarities?

One of the biggest ones is the emphasis on living out your faith. Catholic teaching said that we must do acts of penance, Anabaptists taught that we must by holy and obey Christ. This is a huge similarity compared to the reformers, who were much more focused on the justification by faith.

More agreement between Calvin and Anabaptists than Luther and Anabaptists, also quite a few similarities between Catholic doctrine and Anabaptist doctrine.

Agreements

What did these different groups agree on?

While there seem to be many differences, there are also many similarities. Catholics, Reformed Christians, and Anabaptists all claimed to be followers of Christ, even though they held to some very different views.

What is required to be considered a Christian?

Here are two early Christian creeds that the Catholic church, the Reformers, and the Anabaptists all held to.

The Apostle’s Creed is an early compilation of core Christian beliefs.

Apostle’s Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty,       creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,       who was conceived by the Holy Spirit       and born of the virgin Mary.       He suffered under Pontius Pilate,       was crucified, died, and was buried;       he descended to hell.       The third day he rose again from the dead.       He ascended to heaven       and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.       From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,       the holy catholic* church,       the communion of saints,       the forgiveness of sins,       the resurrection of the body,       and the life everlasting. Amen.

*that is, the true Christian church of all times and all places

The Nicene Creed is another early Christian statement of faith, believed to have first been compiled at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. It mentions some things that are not covered in the Apostle’s Creed in response to some heresies that had sprung up over the centuries.

Nicene Creed

The Nicene Creed is another early Christian statement of faith, believed to have first been compiled at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. It mentions some things that are not covered in the Apostle’s Creed in response to some heresies that had sprung up over the centuries.

We believe in one God,       the Father almighty,       maker of heaven and earth,       of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ,       the only Son of God,       begotten from the Father before all ages,            God from God,            Light from Light,            true God from true God,       begotten, not made;       of the same essence as the Father.       Through him all things were made.       For us and for our salvation            he came down from heaven;            he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary,            and was made human.            He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate;            he suffered and was buried.            The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures.            He ascended to heaven            and is seated at the right hand of the Father.            He will come again with glory            to judge the living and the dead.            His kingdom will never end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit,       the Lord, the giver of life.       He proceeds from the Father and the Son,       and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.       He spoke through the prophets.       We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.       We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.       We look forward to the resurrection of the dead,       and to life in the world to come. Amen.

What do you make of these creeds? Open to discussion

Conclusion

To close, I want to just read one verse out of Romans.

Romans 10:9–10 ESV

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

Romans 10:9 ESV

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 10:9 NIV

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.