Looking Back at what the Reformation has Done

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Randy_Carson said:
If Luther could have foreseen clearly what has happened to western Christianity over the past 500 years, would Luther have said and done the things that history records of him?

If you had been Luther, would you have followed the same course he took?

Why or why not?
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To answer this I do not believe he would because I think he would be very disappointed in how things have turned out.
 
IgnatianPhilo said:
Perhaps Luther was so convinced in his views that nothing could stop him from separating from dividing what he thought would be necessary to divide. Luther was a passionate man and followed through with what he believed.

Doesn’t justify Luther as it were, to quote G.K. Chesterton, destroying Christianity in his enterprise.
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Good point.
 
There are those who think Peter was not so named…but to be like an inanimate object, a stone.

Christ is the cornerstone…and Peter is the living rock of authority…the apostles who witnessed our Lord…the foundation.

There is a good article out on Catholics Ecclesial Deists, August, 2009 on Called to Communion. Our faith in Jesus as True God and True Man synthesizes with the Lord’s decision to have His Church built on His apostles, not personal opinion…or text because text form is so vulnerable to wrong interpretation that takes us to another place rather than what Our Lord is calling us to.

Likewise 25 Protestant theologians, and you should give them some credit for gaining credentials with much study and prayerful reflection, affirmed the Church’s stand regarding Peter…but did not have the grace to believe Christ truly as head of His one, instituted Church.

It takes a second step to have faith, not just in Christ, but in His authority here on earth.

We have to remember Christ said He is the face of God of Whom we cannot see. And likewise the apostles and their successors and the ministers of the sacraments…have a most high calling to extend to us the face of Christ.

When they cause scandal to the faith of others, Christ said they should have a millstone tied around their neck and dropped into the deepest sea.
 
TertiumQuid said:
The thing about “A Mighty Fortress” though is that if one interprets it according to Luther’s paradigms, well, he did not hold, (cough, cough) a high view of the papacy, and I would argue the hymn, in its original social context, isn’t really an ecumenical* kumbaya*.
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We sing “A Mighty Fortress” every Reformation Sunday in my church but I had never thought about what the words of the hymn might refer, sometimes obliquely, in their original social context. For example:

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
 
What did Luther think about obeying laws in regard to civil governments? What would he think of a minister who broke an oath in a civil matter, and what would be the consequences in respect to church authority in regard to the 8th Commandment as explained in Luther’s Large Catechism?
 
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