Martin Luther King on ‘Selling Indulgences’
In 1517, Marin Luther King published a document attacking the corrupt practices by the Catholic Church of selling ‘indulgences’ for absolving sin. Luther’s “95 Thesis” document propounded two primary perceptions; that the Bible is the core religious authority and that people may get their salvation only through their faiths and not through their actions. This document was meant to trigger Protestant Reformation.
Over time, Luther became agitated by the papal and the clergymen selling indulgences, promising remission for the people from punishment for their sins, for both the living and the dead who were believed that move to purgatory. In his belief, he had the understanding that the Christians are saved out of their faith and not their effort. His difference in opinion turned him against the Catholic Church teachings. To develop his idea, he wrote several pamphlets to develop and sell his ideas including 'On the Freedom of a Christian Man', 'On Christian Liberty', and 'On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church' amongst others.
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Key Teachings of Martin Luther Theology
Martin Luther was fully committed to the school of thought that salvation could be achieved through an individual’s faith and by divine grace alone. Luther, however, refuted the corrupt Catholic leadership that promoted selling indulgences. Based on the belief in faith doctrine, Martin Luther wrote “ Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences, ” popularly known as “ The 95 Theses .” The document contained a list of propositions and questions for debate. To ensure his ideas reached the Catholic, he once nailed a copy of the document at the doors of Wittenberg Castle church.
The main theme of the document was nonetheless provocative. The first two of the theme in the 95 Theses primary ideas were that God intended that the believers seek for repentance and that faith alone was enough for the Christians to receive salvation from God. Other theses in the document are critiquing the indulgences by the Catholic leaders. Besides the idea of faith and criticism of indulgences, Luther also talked a lot about the “St. Peters scandal.” He questions why the pope does not use his own wealth to build the basilica of St. Peters instead of using the poor people. Therefore, in summary, the key teachings of Martin Luther King were to sensitize the people to rebel to corrupt catholic practices, pretending to make people convert to Christianism to be saved by God. Yet, they swindled the poor of their hard-earned money, by forcing them to tithe more instead of making them believe in faith alone.
America and Christianity
The colonization of North America is an example of one of the world event that has brought a significant impact on missionary work today (Kidd, 2008). The explorers did a tremendous job, and without them, Christianity would not have spread to broader coverage and so fast as it did. The explorers discovered new lands, with new people. Additionally, due to the openness, expansion and acceptance that was experienced in North America, most of the religious leaders were in a position to initiate their own institutes of higher learning. They were in a position to spread education based on Christianity foundation. As we read from the books during the week, Carey William began the trend, and Many missionaries in the remainder of the 19thCentury followed his example of founding a university to promote general knowledge and truth” (Winter and Hawthorne, 2009, p. 264). Without the attempt and effort to establish these first higher learning institutions that are Christian based, then schools like Liberty University would not be in existence today.
How American Experience Influenced Christianity
Historically, America has been predominately a Christian country. It must be noted that America was not exclusively a Christina nation. Having grown predominantly in a Christianity productive environment, American traditions, cultures, leadership and experiences have definitely influenced Christianity, just like Christianity has influenced the American nation.
The very first immigrants in America to the British colonies were the dissenting members of the Christian sects who were interested in starting their own communities to live as a community based on their religious lines. The historical groups like the Pilgrims were running away from persecution even though they were also very theocratic. From the very beginning, the tensions existing between the Christian sects that had broken down Europe to small pieces in the 16 th Century ad the early 17 th C re-emerged on the American shores. However, over the long-term, these tensions always pushed the new colonists not towards religious wars but towards the idea of accepting pluralism. During the Constitution time, several states were still religious establishments, but the new federal government was blocked, in the First Amendment, from having its own religious tests for the public officials.
The Impact of Vatican II on Christianity
Vatican II has been one of the most important religious events that happened in the 20 th Century. Vatican II started about half a century ago in St. Peter’s Basilica. In the period 1962 to 1965, about 2850 bishops and spread across more than 110 countries published 16 documents which create a sense of direction for the Roman Catholic church for the generations to follow and for the future. The Vatican II proceedings were very closely monitored in the media by people across the globe, bringing the church into hundreds of million people’s homes on a daily basis.
There has been a growing critic of Vatican II ( Bellitto, 2001) . Recently, there is a popular narrative that Vatican II Council did not succeed in putting the church’s house in order. Vatican II’s most radical internal strategy was nor to democratize the church but to reinstate an outdated approach to church governance. Under the council’s version of the collegiality teaching the papal was the final decision-maker. However, the bishops, priests and laity also had their voices in their own spaces.
The Vatican II bishops had the feeling that there was a need for tempering with over a century of centralization. However, in their euphoria, they did not succeed in sufficiently reckoning with the resistance entrenched bureaucracies, that is fear of their disorder and jealousy of their authority to change. After the council, there was a more participatory model in the church which lasted for about a decade and a half, but later on, it started to be highly restricted with time. The restriction birthed a tighter central control.
The tight and strict central control led to widespread anger and disillusionment. The parishioners and priests had the feeling that their voices were being ignored. Some critics fronts the argument that these problems could have been solved by adopting a more collegial style of governance. They also argue that consultative governance would have at least solved the sexual abuses by the clericals.
Vatican II was not just about negativity. There are other areas that it succeeded. For example, Vatican II was significant as the halting stages in governance by considering the outside world views of the church. For the very first time, the church validated religious freedom and did away with all kinds of civil discrimination based on religious grounds. This, therefore, brought an end to an era of cosy church versus state relations that started in the 4 th Century under the leadership of Emperor Constantine.
Initially, even before council for established, the Catholics were prohibited from praying with persons from other faiths and religions. They were indoctrinated into disdain and were sometimes a contempt. However, for the very first time, the Catholics were allowed to create friendly relations with Protestant Christians and Orthodox Christians. They were also allowed to form a friendship with Muslims and Jews and if possible, pray with them.
The role of women in Christianity
There is lots of evidence in the Bible, specifically the Old Testament of women taking up several roles in early Christianity (Miller, 2005). Paul, in one scripture, writes a letter greeting women and referring to them as co-workers. Paul refers to one of these women as in Greek, using a phrase that would be translated to mean “deaconess.” Paul also calls another woman an Apostle in his letter. In the beginning, when Christianity was in its infant stages, there were no church houses, and the Christian communities met in houses. In the Book of Acts, Paul letters reveal that these houses belonged to the women, and they welcomed the Christians to their homes. The women must have got some powers in the church by giving Christians their homes as places of meetings.
While women were part of the church and Christianity, initially they were pushed down. Women activities were limited in the church by the fact that only men were allowed to be clergymen and bishops. Documents and evidence show that women are not allowed, even today to be priests or bishops in the Catholic Church. This system of hierarchy in the church led to the exclusion of women roles in the early church. The women functions in the early church were therefore reduced to being worshippers, they were primarily allowed to join the groups' named deaconess or widows, and this was in the fourth century. Deaconesses were women roles, they were never married, and they were to remain pure for the rest of their lives. It was a sacrifice women made to serve the church. However, the women deaconess was excluded from the priesthood.
“ The shift toward gender equality in modern western societies poses a serious threat to traditional Christian imagery, teaching, and organization”. Do you feel this is true, and if so, is this a positive or negative shift?
This statement is not true. The modern western society brought a total change to the way in which a woman is perceived. The western norms elevate a woman, and therefore it threatened the status quo. The traditional Christian teachings prohibited a woman from taking leadership roles in the church, but the new western traditions now make a woman equal to a man. Today, in modern society, a woman can become a priest or a bishop, unlike the early Christianity where a woman was reduced to being just a worshiper, deaconess or to serve the men in lower-ranking roles.
References
Bellitto, C. M. (2001). Renewing Christianity: a history of church reform from Day one to Vatican II . Paulist Press.
Kidd, T. S. (2008). The Great Awakening: the roots of evangelical Christianity in colonial America . Yale University Press.
Miller, P. C. (Ed.). (2005). Women in Early Christianity: Translations from Greek Texts . CUA Press.
