Myths of The Protestant Reformation

it's wonderful to be with you again I'm delighted for those who may not know October 31st of 2017 just about seven months ago it marked the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation and made big news back then maybe not the Catholic circles but it was big event around the world it was that reason I thought I'd focused the myths about the Catholic Church old and new on many of the myths had surrounded people like Martin Luther John Calvin and the Protestant Reformation according to the popular story 500 years ago on October 31st 1517 and the Augustinian monk named Martin Luther nailed to the church door of the Wittenberg Castle Church 95 theses and for that moment on this fairly obscure university professor was known only to his family as friends to his fellow monks and to his academic colleagues he now became one of the most famous people in history one biographer of Martin Luther boasted in most big libraries books by and about Martin Luther occupy occupy more space on the shelves and those concerned with any other human being except Jesus Christ despite the tremendous amount of scholarship they dedicated to Martin Luther a false narrative perpetuated first by the post-reformation propaganda it really obscures the real man I was telling a couple down here earlier that you know when it comes to look at anybody history like ourselves you're gonna see good and bad it's almost like an Olympic scoring and diving you throw out the high mark and the low mark and he gets kind of the the right mark there's a proper way to look at somebody but there's a lot of false narratives about this man that he was just valiant monk fighting against the powerful papacy papist papacy excuse me in order to reformed the corrupt Church of the 16th century he was attacked by the Catholic Church for his heroic defense of the average Catholic desiring to bring purity back to the faith and ultimately he was forced into this decision to cause the Pradas of reformation and the revolution that followed and many other myths have kind of come from that narrative perhaps the one that illustrates the false image of this heroic monks standing alone against the powerful Catholic Church is his supposed that famous quote at the diet of worms in 1521 when the Defiant marks a Luther told the Catholic Roman Emperor Charles 1/5 after refusing to recant his heretical teachings here I stand I can do no other the only problem is he didn't say those words those were words that were put into his mouth by biographers many decades later so through the centuries it's it's kind of been difficult to discern fact from fiction in the case of Martin Luther again much the narrative about marklars and he was a bold reformer but the real story is that he was a bright complex troubled man whose rejection of papal Authority among other heretical positions quickly assured in a revolution and not a Reformation which ended up literally dividing Christendom and many ways in a sad way has shaped Western civilization down to the modern day so as the religious and even the secular media recalled the event just seven months ago this 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation well many of the myths about Martin Luther and the Reformation came back up to the surface and that's why I wanted to address some some of those myths are that the Protestant Reformation was necessary and inevitable because the Catholic Church had become so corrupted literally corrupted to its core by immorality and false doctrines the Catholic Church sold indulgences and ecclesiastical offices and these abuses led to the Protestant Reformation Martin Luther and other reformers were the first to translate Scripture into the vernacular languages which the church had previously forbidden another myth the Reformers were holy men who struggled heroic Lee to free the true Christian faith from the superstitions of Rome after freeing the Europe from the clutches of the Catholic Church the Protestant Reformation inaugurated a era of great peace and prosperity modernity and all its blessings are a direct result of the Protestant Reformation for the Reformation gave birth to a unique work ethic that spawned capitalism thus uttering many blessings in the modern world well tonight we're gonna cover the first four of those myths and then next week we're gonna touch on the last two but before begin I believe it would be really helpful if we would review briefly the life of Martin Luther and the world in which he lived Martin Luther was born to Hannes and margarita Luther on November 10th 1480 he was the firstborn son he was baptized the very next day which we know in your liturgical calendar is the feast of Saint Martin of Tours and hence he was baptized given the name of that great 4th century soldier Roman soldier turned Christian now according to Rowland Bay Times biography here I stand Martin Luther was a self-absorbed complex and very troubled individual who would have been a troubled spirit even in a tranquil time and the 16th century certainly wasn't that Martin Luther had a deep conversions experience in the year 1505 what caused that he was almost struck by a lightning bolt almost died as a result of it and that's so shook him that he decided to enter the Augustinian monastery Eartha instead of going into the law school that his father wanted him to do also Martin Luther if you know his history was a very scrupulous man he went to confession frequently in the monastery he struggle with many many spiritual issues but especially he struggled the issue of the knowledge of salvation in spite of it and in spite of his incredible monastic life with all the penances in prayer Luther doubted whether or not he was really justified in the eyes of God whether he'd ever be saved why was this well because he had a very negative view of God for Luther God was this very strict and wrathful judge who desired to punish sinners just looking for you to mess up so he could send you to hell you know dr. Ken Hensley gave a marvelous presentation earlier in the university series on the true story of Martin Luther if he didn't make that talk I suggest you purchase his series from the lighthouse productions it's a brilliant series but dr. Hensley states that Martin Luther had a terrible relationship with his parents most especially his father who was very very abusive to him he could never please his father and dr. Hensley proposes that and believes that Martin Luther what he did was project this abusive experience of his own earthly father upon that of his Heavenly Father he really believed there was nothing he could do to please God and hence Martin Luther led to dread fear of losing salvation and that fear would literally color most of his life and a lot of his teachings the fact was that Martin Luther was a very bright man he eventually was sent to the University of Wittenberg to teach and from his research on the letters of st. Paul what happened is he slowly he began to develop what became the bedrock of Protestant theological doctrine Sola fidei which means inferior latin faith alone a belief that faith in law apart from any work justifies a sinner then later he adopted another of the bedrock pillars of theology of Protestantism Sola scriptura the only assorted authoritative source of God's divine revelation in Scripture by the way that was a heretic EnOcean that was developed by the proto Protestants John Wycliffe and Eon who's now what was the environment which he was born what was going on in the sixteenth century well in the sixteenth century the church was in great need of reform many abuses had crept in its life Buse is like simony which means the buying and the selling of ecclesial offices nepotism the practice with oh those people in the power and authority in the church would favor relatives or friends by giving them certain offices or benefice absenteeism the bishop that was supposed to be Bishop of this diocese never showed up in that diocese a pluralism were one bishop but one man is given several diocese and what does that mean you they would get all the monetary benefit from that well many people at church were striving and calling for reform and to desired and end to these perpetual practices long with the abuse of celibacy well Courtney the property the story Martin Luther finally got fed up and he finally nailed his 95 theses to Wittenberg Casa door that was an October 31st 1517 and he did it to protest these abuses this document railed against those abuses and others such as the granting of an indulgence for the giving of alms it was that was a spiritual practice in the sixteenth century and it was dying to a spiritually assist the faithful in pain that for their not paying for their sins and making up for the temporal effects of sin they could do it by certainly alms giving and it particularly arms giving in financing the rebuilding of the st. Peter's Basilica in Rome now that's what the the popular terror says he did this out of that the fact that matters it didn't happen professor Andrew pedigree an expert of the Reformation from the University of st. Andrews Scotland says this the drama of Martin Luther walking through Wittenberg with his hammer and nails is a very very unlikely to have happened the castle church door was a normal bulletin board of the University this was not an act of defiance on Luther's part it was simply what you did to make a formal publication it would have probably been pasted to the door rather than nailed up much like you know the advertisement for the university outside the church door was the place right next to the university where that was done Peter Marshall historian of the Reformation at Warwick University in England even goes further he said these theses were not posted at all but rather that story was invented much later for the political needs of the people in the Reformation and Peter Marshall makes that claim because he said the incident was first recorded nearly thirty years later Luther himself never mentioned it there was very little discussion in the nailing of the thesis before the first Reformation anniversary of sixteen seventeen again like a lot of things in life we can make someone bigger than life by adding things to him now according to popular myth it says that Luther was condemned by the church for his attack on the selling of the indulgences again that's not the truth the real issue centered on this Martin Luther's heretical claim that the Pope did not have the authority to grant an indulgence I'm going to get into that a little later on tonight we'll examine it a little later well after the 95 theses were posted they were examined by papal theologians and Luther was ordered to travel to Rome to explain and then necessary we can't his medical positions while Luther never went sold the Pope at that time Leo the tenth he sent Cardinal Tomas Nabil we know him by the name Kattan he sent him to saxony to speak to martin luther and martin luther was a pretty cantankerous fellow he refused to recant he obfuscated he was intransigent and it really bothered cotton so he went back and reported this so that in the year 1521 Pope Leland the tenth he would condemn 41 of the 95 theses in a papal bull called exergy Domini that was published and excuse me July at 1520 what did Martin Luther do he responded to that papal bull by publishing a work entitled against the exper gabble bull of Antichrist not too nice they called the Pope that huh and India he said that the purpose of the papal bull was to compel men to deny God and to worship the devil and then later that year Martin Luther would publish his three famous treatises which formed the foundations of his teaching so Lafitte a sort of super Turner Sola gratia and also in these theses Martin Luther called for the German nobility to rise up against the church and separates herself from Rome and the Holy Roman Emperor by creating an independent National Church he went on to argue that the sacramental system the church was designed by the Pope and the clergy to literally enslaved the Christian people moreover he went on to say that the man did not have a free will he was not endowed with a free will but rather could only choose evil due to the effects of original sin which according to Martin Luther totally corrupted human nature to the point of depravity see this is kind of a rejection of his own interior struggle that's how he came up with his theory of justification by faith were saved by faith alone and his teaching about justification is different than the Catholic Church Catholic Church says we were born in a state of original sin the penalty of original sin the lack of God for natural Grace's washed away in by the waters of Baptist but we Street ange certain residual weaknesses due to original sin like the darken to the intellect the weakness of our will the confusion of our motions and those are the things that make us liable to fall back into sin by the way that's why our Lord Jesus gave us the sacrament confession to be healed of those sins after baptism but Martin Luther said that there was impossible for men to do anything that grace didn't literally enter our souls and transfigure us from the inside out for him grace literally only covered our sinfulness and he often said we were like a snow covered dunghill God the father's looks at the merits that Jesus won the activist salvation those merits from the cross are like snow that covers us inside were still perpetually corrupt but God only looks at the snow covering the purity of his son's action it's different than what we believe we believe that by quadri the grace we can be transfigured and we have the testament of that in our in our in our Great Sandy Saints the communion saints Martin Luther also viewed the church as the of Babylon and the Pope as the Antichrist you see a lot of this language by the way in some of these many anti-catholic publications Jack Chick was famous for these but there was others you could to find a book called Roman Catholicism by Lorraine Buettner and he he just regurgitates a lot of what Martin Luther did some of 500 years before a year later in 1521 Martin Luther wrote another work called on monastic vows and this ultimately led many many monks and nuns to lead the seven of the monasteries of the confidence and Luther himself personally helped twelve nuns escape from their convent eventually he married one of them catherine von burrow and he married her and he by and rejected his priestly celibacy - he said despite the pope and also to please his father again that symbiotic relationship between his father and god the father keeps playing out through his life Luthor's writings did something it tapped into the German nobilities resentment of the church and the Holy Roman Empire and the meddling in their affairs and Luther's writings it fueled their desire to wrest from the church whatever temporal power and temporal wealth that they could ultimately if you study history his writings produced great violence in Germany the peasants rebelled in the year 1525 urged by the nobles who protected Martin Luther Martin Luther wrote a pamphlet against the murderous thieving hordes of peasants and in that document he exhorted the nobility to kill the rebels they had divine authority to kill the Delta to kill the peasants and they did over 130,000 were murdered toward the end of his life Martin Luther also wrote a treatise entitled on the Jews and their lives which he advocated an eight-point plan to get rid of all the Jews in Germany his last work against the pontificate at Rome founded by the devil it contained his ultimate deep belief in the evil of the papacy and the need of its complete eradication in January of 1546 Martin Luther contracted an illness that he blamed on the fact that he passed through a town of Jews and the next month he suffered a stroke and he died at the age of 66 that's a brief history of Martin Luther's life let's cover the floor miss that arisen around Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation and the first one is this the Catholic Church especially the papacy was so corrupt and it straight so far from the beliefs and practice of the early church that it had to be entirely replaced and Martin Luther led the charge against this corrupt Church and restored authentic Christian faith now the fact is brothers sisters you wouldn't read history it's certainly true that the Church of Luther's time was in need of form as it is to some degree in every generation one of the great lines that goes with the church's sin pair rafer Maundy so the two latin phrases always in need of reform are always reforming and we know that that's where we go through penitential seasons like Advent and Lent for what reason we know that all of us need to reform if we're not moving forward we're coming backwards sliding backwards that's why we had these continual seasons to remind us we must be moving forward actively or we're sliding backwards well the church is only a bigger part of you and me huh so the question is whether his weather was a church so corrupt as Martin Luther held that it was beyond reformed from within gotta understand this you have to go back a little bit in time the two centuries immediately preceding the sixteenth century the century of the Reformation they were punctuated with all kinds of disasters both in and outside the church disasters that sowed the remote seeds of the Reformation for example the hundred year war that ran from 1337 to 1453 it actually lasted 116 years I don't know why they call it a hundred year war but anyway it was between the two great powers England and France and it literally sapped all kinds of economic energy cultural energy from those two countries especially France which formerly me had been the center of European thought and culture then early in the 14th century there was a climate change that brought debilitating famines to the continent of Europe then those famines were followed by the greatest pandemic known to humanity at that time and that was the bubonic plague or the Black Death literally wiped out 1/3 to half the population of Europe and it brought that death black death brought social discord and to decline in morals why was that because in other words our loss of quality of priests and religious but also quality of those people who took care of them the common person educated them the good holy monks and priests stayed with the people cared for the sickness they contracted the disease and they died the unfaithful ones took to the hills played it safe and when the play get left they came back and they began to serve the people but not only they were underserved by their lack of zeal and the lack of education so it was a great loss because of that the proximate seeds of the 16th century Reformation were sown in the 14th century when the church was divided by two great significant events number one who was the Avignon papacy that went from 1309 1378 ii was what we call the Great Western sysm that went from thirteen seventy eight to fourteen seventeen the papacy and hence the church went through crisis after crisis during this dark period how'd the crisis start well it started with a bitter quarrel between Pope benefits the Boniface viii who wasn't one of the shining examples of the papacy and the French crown over what issue the taxation of the clergy well this confrontation led to a meeting which turned out to be a confrontation between the Pope a French delegation and the Pope's Italian political enemies well in that encounter the Pope was physically roughed up pretty badly and it really shook him and he took off and went back to Rome and he died shortly after that incident well the next pope who was elected was clement v he was a Frenchman so what did he do he decided to stay in France in Avignon which is kind of in south eastern France he established a papal court there under the pressure of Philip the fourth who was called filth and fair now you can debate that was a move there you could make some sense about why it happened but the fact was there's no getting over the fact that the successor of Peter had left Rome and Chrysostom literally scandalized for nearly 70 years seven successive Pope's rebuy resided in Avignon France and this absence from Rome is sometimes referred as the Babylonian captivity of the papacy well as long as the Pope's were living in Avignon and not in their diocese namely their home dice in Rome well what would the Pope's guilty of the the abuse of absenteeism when the Pope or the bishop is not present to his own diocese well in 1377 chris has done rejoiced because why to the urging the prayers especially as st. Catherine of Siena Pope Gregory the ninth returned the papacy to Rome but the rejoice it was only short-lived because that very end of that year Pope Gregory the ninth would die then his successor was elected it was urban the six the problem was this the Cardinals who had elected urban the fifth six later came out said they were compelled by the Roman mobs to do that they were frightened for the lives so that that election was not valid so in turn those Cardinals went to another place and they elected a new Pope Clement the seventh and what did Clements the seventh do and he merely raised an army it went attacked urban in Rome then Clement seven what'd he do he returned to Avignon it set up his headquarters there this became the beginning of what we call the Great Western sysm and although the church throughout history suffered has suffered from anti-popes people claiming to be poked and learnt this situation was much different I'll tell you why because of various Christian Catholic leaders they aligned themselves with whatever claim it would serve their political interests best and in the end result you ended up with three people claiming to be the Pope now we know only one that was valid elected to be poped but this was a great crisis the Great Western system was resolved at the Council of Constance which ended the year 418 the kind of thing okay mean you take a breath as a church aha right on the heels of the Great Western system came another crisis called the heresy of consider ISM which stated that the supreme authority of the church resided with only an ecumenical council apart from or even against papal Authority why was that well because it was a council that resolved the Great Western sysm huh the Council of Council it took another council called the Council of Basel to resolve that crisis but the fact is the Great Western system in the end the heresy of consider ISM it only furthered diminished their respect for the papacy that office that Jesus established to be this very symbol and the if you want to see the catalyst for unity in the church now there were other factors going on at the same time in this century and they included these things the rise of nationalism she what's happy now into out europe is different people different groups of people are assuming power there's less and less control by the Holy Roman Emperor they want to separate create their own fiefdom so temporal rulers wanted to cert more independence from the church after the Holy Roman Emperor wealthy families and rulers were frustrated with the Church's teachings on such things as usury charging interest on loans and oftentimes excessive interest and the prohibition of Sunday labor and secular rulers they resented the heavy burden of taxes levied on them by the church and their domains in order to spend support the papacy the papal court the roman curia and then as mentioned before he keep having these classical abuses such as nepotism simony absenteeism pluralism they keep resurfacing and finally also the fact that many priests and monks were abusing their vow of chastity so the seeds for the 16th century Reformation they were sown in the crisis of the previous two centuries but the Protestant Reformation succeeded because of four major factors number one I mentioned it or just a few moments earlier the growing nationalism particularly of Germany in its constitution you gotta remember that Germany denied exist as a unified country in the sixteenth century that only happened in the late nineteenth century in the 16th century what was Germany was just a collection of several hundred independent territorials nominally it nominally led by the Emperor the Holy Roman Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire that time is Charles the fifth there was a deep resentment of papal Authority and outside influence that was rampant and growing in these territories the number two factor was this remember on the other side of the world what's happening the Ottoman Turks have risen in power big time they've taken over the whole Mediterranean they're charging up through the Balkan countries they're moving up in fact they get all the way to the doors of Vienna there was a second time they did that they did it before and their Suleiman now they come back near 1529 fortunately they were able to drive them back but what happened was because of the threat of the Ottoman Turks who by the way Martin Luther encouraged what did it do it deflected a Charles ofit's attention and all his energy from this problem of the Protestant Reformation going over here to fight the Turks he gave them a lot more time and leeway than for the Protestant leaders leaders to do their their work number three the nobility ensured the success of the revolution because of their greed for church property it outweighed their desire for church reform you know there's an old line you see a lot of times of politics today follow the money always just follow the money I always tell people I don't care what side you are follow the money well that's true here see one result was that in every nation that turned Protestant the first act aid of these reformers is was they confiscated the properties in the wealth of the church you get remembered the monasteries in these times were huge enterprises many of the great cities of Europe grew out of the monastic life and what they provided they were recipients of many many bequeath by people dying and leaving there that's how they got so powerful and so powerfully rich so we're gonna talk about next week literally the monasteries were the original bankers that financed so much of the progress in Europe before there was a Protestant work ethic there was a Catholic worth taxing and capitalism didn't begun after the Protestant Reformation began way back in the monastic monasteries we'll see that next week but the fact that matters they were incredibly wealthy first thing they did was confiscate all that for their advantage and they made sure that there wasn't going to be any healing of the of Christendom because it would mean they'd had to give it all back and the fourth factor was this the pre-reformation heresies that had added confusion to the understanding and knowledge of our faith in a few previous myths I talked about some of those heresies like the Cathars the patter eens and other groups well they were from the Middle Ages but they didn't completely die out you know they were maybe they weren't the Cathars who thought you achieve perfection by literally starving yourself to death because that's what they believed well they didn't have that kind of thing but a lot of their ID is hung around among the people for example the Waldensians who are they where they were a 12th century group of Poorman in the area of France around Lyon that followed a guy named Peter Waldo his action he was Valdez now this had a great conversion and what he did he gave up all his wealth and he started to live a life of absolute poverty the accordance of the teaching of the gospel kind of like what Martin I mean st. to have Francis of Assisi did well it wasn't long before he's joined by other seekers who were seeking perfection through this dedication of evangelical poverty of the gospel problem is they went off the rails due to their general lack of education and the often misunderstood certain scriptural passages and they ended up denying Catholic doctrines such as the existence of purgatory or praying for the dead and other things and then they tried to justify their existence by claiming some legitimacy of an ancient connection to the original Church which they didn't have they were bad for example also the taking of us and that kind of hearkened back to what the Cathars did they were so purified so separated from the material world you don't have any allegiance to anybody now even though the group was excommunicated their existence continued and their ideas went with them and it got infiltrated into the common people were picked up by people for example the idea is a radical poverty vernacular translations of the Bible lay preaching they hung around and they were picked up by another guy named john wycliffe wycliffe was a teacher at Oxford University and Wycliffe from his reading the scriptures and is even his translation of the scriptures he began to preach a heresy denying transubstantiation well that part that heresy would be carried introduce enough by a marriage the bohemian life of King Richard the second Queen Anne which she died her servants went back to Bohemia they historians think they took some of these theories of Wyclif with them and influenced a guy named Leon who's yan use was a priest of the Czech area he was deigned in 1400 at the age of 31 and he was really zealous for church reform now he must have known you they'd been educated that many of Wycliffe theories and propositions had been condemned by the church but what he did is he translated many of these into his native language his Czech language and he propagated them I was confronted and he submitted to the authority of the church in the beginning the problem is remember this is the same time of the Great Western system so a lot of attention was directed elsewhere and conditions in Bohemia were both politically religiously complex nationalism starting to set in and whose was very popular his own countrymen because he was supporting patriotism supporting national independence so as often happens religion and politics started to get wedded there whose eventually was confronted and he refused to recant some of his teachings so he was ultimately even though he's under the protection of Roman Emperor he was arrested and he was tried and he was literally executed he was burned at the stake now people debate back and forth and I think there's good points in each side that it was an unjust trial and unjust Attica execution but the end result was this yon who's became a national hero for Bohemia and again the issue of religion being used by politics and vice-versa it led to more and more of this division now during these difficult times of the 14th and 15th centuries the church did make difference attempts at reform we have wonderful Saints like Ridgid of Sweden she lived from 1303 to 1373 st. Catherine of Siena she was responsible to getting the pope back to rome st. Vincent Ferrer very famous for trying to reform the church they were constantly trying to honor and to support the papacy and to try to get the church to move back to Reformation also great spiritual masters like Thomas a Kempis who wrote the beautiful little small book he could still read as a spiritual classic the imitation of Christ calling people but particularly clergy back to holy life so with a different attempts but they didn't take would get much traffic until the Year 1512 Pope Julius a second finally convened the fifth Lateran council and it was called specifically to address the abuses within the church so it was a great start but unfortunately what happened pope julius died soon after the council began successor Leo the tenth well he was more interested in ruling like a secular prince than implementing the council's reform decrees oh he continued the council did a few things but what could have been a great spearhead for a conversion or reform of the church kind of started petering out now it's eerily coincidental that these sessions of the fifth Lateran council wound up in what 1517 just a few months before what Martin Luther would break onto the scene certainly there is these abuses but here's a church trying to reform itself trying to push forward this reform but it's reached kind of some-some roadblocks so the end result was that the concealer reforms were just too little too late and Martin Luther began his revolution seven months later right after the council did ended so the fact was there was a great general sense in the church before the Protestant Reformation as there have been many times before in the history of the church that some things needed to be fixed they were out of kilter but the fact of matter there was no trace of a broad consensus among all the pre-reformation cat for a dismantling of the Catholic Church and a creation of a whole new institution sadly it would take the Reformation and then the consequent Council of Trent the famous council to take up the Protestant challenge to do exactly that to start this reform so the real story is this there's no doubt that the church was in need of reform in many areas in its life in the 16th century but the notion that it was so thoroughly corrupt and only a complete revolution could fix it well that's a Protestant myth aimed at justifying the Reformers cleaving of Christendom the church tried to reform itself long before Lutheran Calvin but poor leadership from the papacy because a lot of it were just more sector they were spiritual more secular princes and they were shepherds of souls they prevented that reform from taking root see true reform always comes within and it seeks to do what it seeks to preserve what is right good excellent and true revolution is an external action that aims at destroying an institution and they created something wholly new well the leaders of the Protestant Reformation were revolutionaries who sought the complete destruction of the church but they failed and you know why because the Lord has promised us that not even the gates of Hell will prevail against it and I tell people that's why I know the church is absolutely divine because the things we've been through it should have destroyed any human institution but it survived and not only survived it's thrived the second kind of myth that I want to talk about is this the Catholic Church sold indulgences in ecclesiastical offices and these abuses led to the Protestant Reformation now that's the standard narrative that you'll hear about the Protestant Reformation the church was so corrupt conduct to its souls that is so emblematic that it sold indulgences literally said you could buy your way out of purgatory or hell and they practice simony the buying and the selling of the keys the Africa offices and according to the popular story this is what inspired Martin Luther to nailed those 95 theses on the church door of the Wittenberg Castle the whole point was that he was rejecting what the evil of the Catholic Church now as a general principle it's best review historical events to the eyes of the people who lived them and read their writings rather than backward to the prism of our present-day perspective and even our prejudices first we need to distinguish between official Catholic teachings and how those teachings can be Mia miss applied by church sinful members redeemed ultimately but sinful people who can misinterpret misinterpret the teachings see abuses of Catholic teachings don't invalidate the truth of those teachings now by the 11th century it was widely acknowledged at the church as I mentioned before was an errant need of serious reform the papacy had suffered great interference from secular rulers which a time resulted in as I said less than ideal candidates sitting on the chair of Peter other abuses particularly like the discipline of celibacy was floated and it was very lot of sin going on cemani was going on well what was the church do it was just City there no there was many attempts at reform there was a series for example of 11 century series of 11 century poles holding monks who really initiated great reform including Pope st. Leo the ninth Pope st. Gregory the 7th Pope blessed urban the second these men set out to free the church from the interference of secular rulers and to correct all the abuses cemani and to enforce clerical celibacy but there was another was also happy to hear and that was the issue of papal finances see papal finances were highly unstable because the bulk of revenue to the Pope and to support a lot of the activities of the church came from the papal estates you remember if you know your history Pepin gave the donation of some of the large areas of Italy was controlled there were papal States literally like almost I would say almost a third of Italy belonged to the church Garibaldi when they brought it freedom to Italy took those away from the church but before they belong to the church with the promise Rome was always being or Italy is always being invaded by all kinds of sect to the rulers and they would take them over and take all the resources so the dependency on finances were very very sketchy up and down so to provide a dependable revenue stream the reforming popes instituted fees for people honors and privileges and exemptions monasteries and churches under papal protection they paid where they called was a census tax papal feasts pay taxes well unfortunately these fees and taxes would eventually lead to abuse that they were meant to prevent now as mentioned before the 14th and 15th century difficult times the papacy was in the hands of the so-called Renaissance popes who viewed themselves more as secular princes rather than shepherds of souls and again there was no question that church need to reform itself in the abuse of cemani nepotism absenteeism pluralism violations of celibacy and many attempts were made to root out these vices starting with the 5th Lateran Council that julius ii called however the centuries of heavy panco taxes and fees had taken their toll especially upon the German territories where what's happening the rise of nationalism animosity toward Rome and a decentralized political structure that created conditions for the cleaving of Chris sedate Christianity by the Protestant Reformation the doctrine of indulgences was the flash point for the eruption of Martin Luther onto the political scene you know we hear the word indulgence there's no word that stirs up more misconceptions than perhaps any other teaching in Catholic theology those who attacked the church for its use to indulges rely upon and take advantage of ignorance of both Catholics and non-catholics now dispel those myths you got to know two things first you got to know what an indulgence is and second what an adulteress is not first what is an indulgence here's what the church says an adult is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sin whose guilt has already been forgiven in the sacrament of confession which the faithful Christians duly despoil disposed gains under certain defined conditions to the church's help when as a ministry Dempsey dispenses and applies with authority the Treasury of the satisfaction one by Christ and all the saints that's from the liturgy the doctor dogma of the indulgences what is it adult should not we just give you quickly seven common myths myth number one a person can buy his way out of hell with indulgences but sisters that charges without foundation since indulgence is remit what only only the temporal effects of sin only the temporal penalties of sin it can't eliminate eternal eternity one way or the other once a person as hell is in hell he's there the only way to avoid hell is to repent here in this world so after death one's eternal fate is set as Hebrew 9:27 tells us myth number two a person can buy indulgences for sins not yet committed the church has always taught that indulgences do not apply to sins not yet committed to go to refer to the Catholic Encyclopedia and indulgences is not a permission to commit sin nor pardon a future sin neither could it be granted by any power the three a person can buy forgiveness with indulgences memory now the definition of indulgence presupposes what that forgiveness has already taken place an indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sin whose guilt has already been forgiven so indulge us is it in no way forgive sins it only deals with the temporal effects or penalties due to sin myth for the dole gist server invented as a mean for the church to raise money not so indulgences I'm going to explain just a few moments developed from a reflection on the sacrament of reconciliation they are a way of shortening the penance of that sacrament and when you sent resent you before any money related problems ever appeared in Rome with five an adulteress will shorten your time in purgatory by a fixed number of days remember that you do this no Vania how many days you're not often right what is that referring to it's a really referring to time off you know good for good behavior you get time off in their present sentence no the number of days which were attached to an indulgence was a reference to the period a penance one might undergo during life on this earth the amount of time it would literally take you to do penance I'll explain there just a few moments see the Catholic Church doesn't pretend how long need to be in purgatory much less in you know how many days you get it it's referring to what would take you to pay off what would be for example you go to confession you're given a pen at Frank the pen is supposed to fit the sin well in the early church you're gonna hear in a few moments you had given really severe penances and you didn't get forgiveness until you did the penance and the Pens may go on for years and years and years and so what did that force people do they wouldn't go to confession for a long time they wait til the last moment of their death and that was the that was these struggled the church had so that's why I began to look at things it's sort of loud for a substitutionary act to be done so if you paid 10 years or 15 years of water and bread and water sitting in front of the church in sackcloth and ashes you could have it substituted by going on a pilgrimage to a certain shrine to ask for forgiveness that's what the indulgence was based on myth number six a person can buy indulgences the council of trent instituted very severe reforms and the practice of giving indulgences and why well because of prior abuses it says this well pius v canceled all grants of indulges of all they any fees or other financial transaction this act proved that the church was very serious about removing any abusive connected to money connected to the indulgences myth seven a person used to be able to buy indulgences you can never buy indulgences the financial scandal surrounding into office the scandal that gave Martin Luther an excuse for moving into heterodoxy what it involved and involved alms indulgences and were connected to giving of alms some charities on poor person as a way of a substitutionary act for the original penance you received in the sacrament of confession there is no outright selling of indulgences the Catholic Encyclopedia says it it's easy to see how abuse has crept in among the good works which might be encouraged by being made the condition of an indulgence almsgiving would naturally hold a conspicuous place it is well to observe that in these purpose there's nothing essentially evil to give money to God or to the poor as a praise where the act when it's done for the right motives it will surely not go unrewarded so in summary notices are often misleading described as granting to faithful Catholics the remission of sin not soul indulgences are their mission before God of the temporal effects of sin or the temporal punishment due to sin whose guilt has already been forgiven in the sacrament Bishop Sheen used to describe it this way if you nail o if you nail a nail into the wall that's sin you pull the nail out that's forgiveness what remains the hole God gives us the privilege to repair the damage of my sin back it up now repaint it that's what temporal effects of sin and paying for it is about as making up the damage no Catholics can receive an adult chance if they're duly disposed under certain prescribed conditions that the church lays out the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 14 71 states the church is able to grant indulgences because why she's the minister redemption and with the authority given by a cry by Christ it dispensed and applies the Treasury the Saint satisfaction satisfactions of Christ and the Saints to the faithful who seek repentance so sin is a freely chosen offense a freely will defensing of God and it's Commandments and against God and has made our neighbor God forgives the guilt of sin to the Sacrament of Penance but justice the divine justice demands reparation that is the reparation of the temporal punishment of sin the harm caused by sin by the virtue of authority that Christ has given the church the church may assign penitential acts that will lessen in Latin it would be indulge or completely raise the temporal punishment of sin as we get the word indulgences so the granting of indulgences was not new to the sixteenth century it can be traced literally back to the early days of the church remember I told you just a few moments ago at the time of you going to the Sacrament of Penance which authors made in public you could fetch your sins in public you would not be able to get forgiveness of sin until you fulfilled the penance and the penance could be very very severe they could be long and they could be difficult so penances began to ask Christians whose were in prison for their faith to offer up their sufferings and even their death for the reparation of their own sins and eventually the church recognized the validity of these vicarious acts in granting absolution to the penitence on whose behalf the sacrifice of being made so during the 8th to the 10th century bishops allowed penances assigned in the sacrament confession which were often is severe to be substituted other penitential works as I mentioned going on a pilgrimage to a certain Church or certain shrine which would be accounted as substitution for the days of penance the days you get off the purgatory experience in the 11th century Pope C actually granted indulgence for fighting in the defense of this of the faith the Crusades were literally that people would take up the cross they would wear the cross the Crusaders and they would go for what reason didn't go to get fame and wealth we learned if you read the real history of Crusades and I gave that talk and that meant most of the families were very wealthy royal families and they lost everything litter their lives to go to defend the faith but they did it because being a ruler being a knight was a cruel and bloody business and they had chalked up a lot of penitential time but by the granting of an adult gence going and even dying on a crusade they could pay for the temporal effects of their sins Pope Leo the 9th gave indulgences to German warriors fighting the papal army against the Normans pope alexander ii granted indulges to warriors who fought against the muslims in the Reconquista spain but it was pope gregory the seventh who developed literally the theological basis for the granting of indulgences to warriors he said there's two two purpose of fighting wars one is revenge and acquisition of territory and wealth the second is penitential defending territory restoration of property and protection of the weak and the faith and it was there that Pope Gregory the 7th said that one I can indulgence be granted for the penitential penitential spirit of a warrior blessed ii who called the first crusade in 1095 he solidified that theological basis and he wrote whoever for devotion alone not to gain honor money goes to Jerusalem to liberate the Church of God can substitute this journey for all penance and later Pope honor than this the 8th me confirm this now although the church teaching indulgence was theologically well founded and well justified it didn't prevent the abuses of the practice we know that because the 747 the Council of Clavell in England found it necessary to condemn the practice of what mercenaries performing someone else's penance for a fee you know so you'd be a substitute it's like you get someone to go stand in line at Disneyland free you know you come on in likewise Pope benefit Boniface the ninth and Cardinal Nicholas of kusa the apostolic delegate in Germany condemned preachers who claimed that they had the authority to forgive sins for money now another Prudential potential abuse for the granting indulgences was this the contributing to the cost of a building either public utility like a bridge and a church although this practice predated the sixteenth century it was the rebuilding of st. Peter's Basilica under Pope Leo the tenth that raised Martin Luther's iers you see there was a potential as a big potential for abuse because whenever money was raised under the correct form of adulteresses that you give this money as a substitutionary act for the penance that was given for your sacrament of confession from forgiveness of sins now I'm paying the pendants by giving this money this donation that's potentially good but the fact that matters the bishops could take a certain percentage of that donation you know that goes huh and that's what happened the situation gave rise to a tenor in indulgent preachers many of whom were Dominicans would go into a diocese they preached sermons on various topics then exhort the faithful to go to confession and requests and indulgences for the giving of alms now some of these preachers we know across the line and they preyed on the ignorance of the faithful or to get more money and one famous one was a dominican named Johann Tetzel he was the preacher who by the way was preaching and where Martin Luther's home diocese and Tetzel gave the impression is preaching that adult is for almsgiving could literally free a soul from purgatory which was not the Church's teaching he abused it and although he never uttered the words of a ditty that was attributed to him which was as the coin in the coffer rings the soul out of purgatory Springs but the fact that matter is they actively conveyed the general theme of this teaching that was abusive but the point is this Martin Luther was not condemned for questioning the granting of indulgences for contributing to the rebuilding of st. Peter's Cathedral which could be legit he was condemned for what he was condemned for questioning whether the Pope had authority not denying that the Pope didn't have authority to grant that indulgences which is heresy and that's what condemned ours triggered the severe condemnation so the real story behind me the indulgence is this the church always in need of reform throughout its history there have been abuses of one kind or another such as cemani or the use of clerical celibacy or or nepotism and whatnot also the west's of abuse when it came to the granting of indulgences now there's nothing wrong in the principle with granny indulgences for the giving of alms even though some less scrupulous or saintly preachers abused that but normally through was not condemned for criticizing those abusive preachers he was condemned because he said the Pope could not give that new thing and the Pope but the authority Christ has the authority to do that let's take a break stand up he can go to the restroom or whatnot and then we'll come quickly to the last two of these myths the last 15 minutes we'll cover a third one and I'll pass on the fourth myth till next week so we'll get to it the third myth that arises from Martin Luther and the Reformation is this that Martin Luther and the Reformers were the first to translate scripture into vernacular languages which a church had previous forbidden allowing then the common person to read the scriptures that's one of the main tenets of the false narrative about the real origins of Protestantism is that the church prevented people from reading the Bible you know you'll you'll see times in some of these tracts that I've read and very anti-catholic literature's that the church prevented people Matt do you know that they had the Bible chained up in the church why did they chain it up well when we didn't member who before we had these modern phones remember we had phone booths and phone books and the phone book was attached to a chain and the reason was it not because you didn't want you to use it they just didn't want you to take it away for yourself well the Bible's remember there were before the printing press they were all done by hand they were Illustrated they were they were absolutely priceless so they were chained in the church to keep people from walking away with it but people could come up and read those those beautiful Bibles all the time but these are kind of things that come out of the Reformation that they chained the Bible up and so this is the reason they the church prevented the people reading the Bible thank God people like John Wycliffe William Tyndale Martin Luther and others who translated the scripture to vernacular language so the people could be freed from Roman tyranny and find the read finally read the Bible for themselves well that's just a myth from the very very beginning the church recognized the crucial role of the written portion of the divine revelation fulfilling its mission of evangelization remember we believed that the Holy Spirit is the revealer of all truth and that truth came down revealed to the Apostles in two for two full form huh first orally it was preached and then eventually someone was written down okay so by scripture and tradition is well the way we know under the authority of the church what the full truth of Christ is sure she was always interested in fulfilling his mission by preserving and promoting the written word of God once the church finalized the candidate of the scriptures in the fourth century she continued efforts to make that accessible to the people and the most famous translation was that done I st. Jerome in the fourth century or he translated the ancient scriptures the Old Testament in the Aramaic and Hebrew and the New Testament which was in Greek he translated into the language of the people called the vulgar the people and that translation was called the Latin Vulgate that was the most famous translation at the time of Martin Luther the church wasn't against translations in vernacular translation of the Bible it actively supported it the time that Martin Luther was living there was already 36 versions of the Bible in the vernacular German it wasn't already done the church only opposed bad that translations that could easily lead to heresy and misunderstanding and out of that because religion was so tied to the life of the people lead to literally fights Wars insurrections the church was also concerned with the private reading of the scriptures that could lead to the incorrect personal interpretation of the scriptures see way back in the 4th century the church suffered its first major crisis with the heresy of Arianism where arias and Catholic priests of Alexandria in his reading of the scriptures they very bright he had the scriptures memorized he came to the clusion Jesus Christ really wasn't God he wasn't divine and he was such a charismatic preacher he got over half the church believed in him it caused a huge crisis it took centuries to overcome and from that point on the church was constantly confronting false reading of the scriptures that's why it didn't say you couldn't read the scripture but you couldn't come up with a private interpretation that was different than the what the revealed truth of God that was contained in the Catholic Church that's how you challenged whether or not your interpretation is correct or not by the way that applies to spirituality if you have a vision from God or some revelation for God one of the things you have to do is discern is it inconsistency in conformity with what the Church teaches if it isn't you're wrong you might be mentally ill you know you just don't go on P and sometimes people think as God spoke to me I have to tell the whole world no hole that has to be tested private revelation exactly that private it's meant for you to bring you some exultation to help encourage you in your spiritual life if it's meant for the whole church the church will discern whether that's true or not well that's what the church was against not against people reading the scripture or reading it for and get for their own spiritual Richmond but it was concerned about the private interpretation of a lead to confusion misunderstanding and even heresy Jerome eater the fourth century lamented this he said builders carpenters workers and metal and wood webster's and Fuller's makers of anything cannot become an expert without a teacher physicians are trained by other physicians but the art of Scripture is only the only art which is claimed by all already he was experienced problems of people miss rating in the scripture the danger posed by bad connect to the translation and private interpretation of Scripture became very obvious in the 14th century when people like Ari mentioned John Wycliffe professor at the University of Oxford he wrote a book calling for the confiscation of all the church property denying the doctor to transubstantiation professing the belief in the heresy of docetism are sees me donut ISM and embracing the false principle a Sola scriptura that the only truth we know is what Scripture reveals well that was from his private reading of the scripture Wycliffe also translated the ball get into English but its translation was condemned not because it was a translation into the vernacular because of the very bad translation had numerous errors even the King James Version which is a beautiful version as of our 24 errors of translation from the ancient languages you know many Protestants and even many Catholics believed that Wycliffe is the first to translate the Bible into the ancient Vulgate into English was it true Thomas More he said the whole Bible long before Wyclef's day was by virtuous and learnin man translated into the english language by good and godly people with devotion soberness well and reverently read in other words there are many vernacular versions out there and good ones Martin Luther is also credited with freeing the scripture from its suppression by Rome by making it accessible to the people remember what happened posted 95 theses he's ordered to Rome he doesn't go he's condemned at least 41 of the propositions are condemned and the papal bull exerts they dominate he is called by the Emperor to the Edict worm to make an accounting himself he refuses to recant so he is regarded as a convicted heretic now remember heresy in the day was not just a religious matter religion and politics and faith and life for all wedded that's why rulers were so harsh on heretics because it ended up wiping out their country dividing it that's what happened in France or the Huguenots that's what happened in by the way it happened Muslims against the Christians and Jews and then it happened with the Christians against some of the Jews and the Muslims to the danger of keeping out false teaching because it ended up dividing the country in the war well he was condemned and what was the penalty for heresy capital punishment so what did Martin Luther do he hightailed it to Wartburg castle and while there he began his translation of the scriptures in his own version he will Uther was scornful the Volgin for instance he sneered lis dismissed st. Jerome's translation of the angel Gabriel when he greeted Mary and the Latin version was gratia plena full of grace it's what he wrote what German won't understand that have translated literally he knows that the meaning of a purse full of gold or a key keg full of beer but what does he make of a girl full of grace I would prefer to say simply Mary full of love and then later on concerning the translation of the Old Testament Luther hoped and this is words to make Moses so German that no one would suspect that he was a Jew he had a he had a great great animosity towards the Jews other areas that errors he made he was the one that created you ever heard the controversy of the Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bible Catholics added books to the Bible you ever heard that well have you haven't you ever been studying you know but that's the great thing it's not true what happened was there was two lists of Old Testament books two Canz one the more ancient one was from Alexandria and the Alexandrian Canon had 46 books in it the church when it began its evangelization starting with st. Paul took the Alexandrian Canon and it's translation out with them to evangelize why did they do that because the whole world was Hellenized because of the conquering of Alexander the Great everything became Greek and Greek language in all the major cities of the ancient world so the places where st. Paul went everybody spoke Greek so used the Greek translation to do his van ization we know that because in the most ancient texts that we have over like 300 - the quotes from the Old Testament in the New Testament come from the Septuagint or the Alexandrian Canon when Martin Luther approached his problem what a response and we go back in response the Jews when they were conquered by Rome in 70 AD they had a council called the county omnia and they at that council formed their lists of books and they had certain crichton they'd only had 39 that was called the Hebrew Canon Martin Luther when he approached it thought the Hebrew Canon was more ancient than the Alexandrian Canon and hence he dismissed the seven books that they call the Apocrypha saying the church added those didn't add it it was always there so he took in his error the list of books that had seven less he also was the one that to substantiate his soul of fidei faith alone he has substituted the word we are saved by faith alone if you looked it doesn't have the word alone he put it in these were errors that he made to support his false teaching so the church has always supported the translation of scripture into the vernacular because why it's charged by Jesus to spread the gospel throughout the world the only way people can understand it is in their own native language it only oppose the faulty been acted the translations and the consequences that come from it heretics misusing in creat heresy and that will conclude our night I'll come back to the fourth one and the fifth one to the sixth one next week are there any questions all anybody wants to ask you a question about anything so far I'm only highlighting some of the major myths there's other ones tied to it but we'd be here forever but I think these things we got to know especially don't get tricked on any of them okay yes yeah there either but mostly hidden hinged on for King Henry V eight is married to Catherine of Aragon he said it was invalid he was in love with his mistress and Belen and he was seeking an annulment the church says we don't have the power the authority of God says once married always married and because of that he broke from the church you know he had been given the award and the title defender of the faith he had written beautiful writings on the church but he broke from the church and again what was the motivation power and money he took over all the monasteries and depleted him not too long ago I read a very interesting fact that the monasteries were so unique the monastic monasteries of Benedictus that if you and the the multiviewer though abbot and the head of that monastery of their you came up with an invention by one end of one year that had gone to all the other monasteries throughout Europe and even over into England and that's how the advanced so rapidly in terms of Technology and I read recently that the monks in England had developed a smelting process because this is to purify or you have to get the fire hot enough to separate the dross from the for the metal they had figured out a way to get the heat to the oven so hot that they could purify the metal and it would advance the Industrial Revolution by two centuries but Henry the eighth wiped it out it was lost and only rediscovered after the Industrial Revolution kind of interesting but the monks were ingenious people and we advanced so much as we talked in another myth and we'll talk next week about what they did to establish modernity and capitalism and modern day banking all came out of the great monks you know and also great beer and lost liquor after this you can go take one thank you [Applause] you

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Keywords: Protestant Reformation, Catholic Church, Jesus, Bible, Bible Study, God, Love, Trinity, Faith, Hope, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Lutheran, Christian, Church History

Id: Q_J3xDXgFvk

Length: 76min 25sec (4585 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 16 2018