Monday, August 04, 2014
Oh So Many
Chaplain Mike eads on book on how the Reformation is often wrongly taught. He lists some of the wasy the author discusses and I can think of so many more. There is three I want to focus on briefly:
church history
We get the Reformation wrong when we think the Reformers taught that “sola fide” means “solitary faith” — without any connection to “good works.”The idea that Catholics believe in works and Protestants believe in grace is just a little too clean. And like most things, people take it too extremes as if to discuss works in church is to be "too Catholic" and Lord knows we can't have that.
“What much of Protestantism thinks the Reformers taught about religious authority is a significant misrepresentation of what they actually taught.”Calling every pastor that has simply raised some capital and set up a church. Get a clue. This may sound ugly, but sometimes when I run into churches like that I think a) the pastor could not hack it in a system so they scooted, b)the pastor wants the money or c) the pastor is afraid of accountability. That's cynical on my part, I know, but even those that start with the best of intent seem to end up astray. Accountability matters.
We get the Reformation wrong when we do not carefully recognize the differences between the Reformers and the later Protestant scholastics who constructed theological systems to articulate the Protestant faith.I'd put that slightly differently - the Reformation was a political event, not a theological one. Churches do not get to opt out of politics.
church history
