10/29/50

Scripture: Ephesians 6: 10-20

Text: Galatians 5: 13; “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty.”

October 31st is popularly known as “Hallowe’en”. Probably every youngster in our land knows that. And every youngster’s parents know it, too! It is largely a secular affair in American practice, though on some ecclesiastical calendars it is marked as “Hallow e’en” or “holy evening” -- that is the night before “All Saints’ Day” November 1st. “All Saints’ Day” is a churchly attempt to take over an old druidic festival and put Christian content into it by making it a remembrance of all the souls who have departed mortality into eternal life. The attempt, we may remark, is only partially successful, though there may be some who will concede it religious significance by at least attending services of their churches on Hallowe’en and on All Saints’ Day.

There is a deeper historical significance for Christians -- especially for all of us who are of Protestant Christian persuasion -- in the fact that October 31st is also marked on many of our calendars as “Reformation Day” -- and the Sunday preceding it as “Reformation Sunday.” For it was just 433 years ago on October 31st, 1517, that the German monk, Martin Luther, nailed his ever memorable ninety-five Theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, which served as the university bulletin board. Luther doubtless had no idea that they would provoke such a revolutionary storm. His theses were intended for academic debate. They got the debate all right! But the debate developed into a movement well beyond the merely academic.

Luther’s theses attacked some abuses in the granting of papal indulgences. Interestingly enough, to us in this century, they did not deny the right of the Pope to grant indulgences. They rather objected to the extension of indulgences to purgatory, and called attention to some abuses which Luther assumed the pope would correct when informed. Luther had no quarrel with the papacy. But he was in disagreement with the practices and theories of some who extended the sale of indulgences too far. Luther was opposed by an eloquent Dominican monk named Johann Tetzel who was intent on as large a profit from indulgences as possible for the building of St. Peter’s church in Rome.

To Luther, the crass painting of the benefits of indulgences was destructive of real religion. For Luther was convinced that only a right personal relationship with God would bring salvation. From this conviction, Luther developed, tenaciously, his doctrine of justification by faith rather than dependence on acts of conformity with the ecclesiastical law or clerical decree.

Luther’s position could have cost him his life, because in the heat of the arguments over his theses, his opponents succeeded in having him branded a heretic. But a combination of political alignment and general religious sincerity among many, protected him. And his rebellion from clerical domination continued -- not just as an opposition to his church, but primarily as a testimony to his own Christian faith. That is essentially what Protestant Christianity is -- a testimony; a witnessing to one’s faith. This witness, based on thoughtful, studious search of the scriptures, and acknowledging only the authority of God as revealed in Christ, consistently and repeatedly, finds itself in opposition to the position that final authority rests with the hierarchy of the church. The true Christian is not out to escape discipline, but is rather a volunteer to accept discipline - the discipline of self, imposed on the believer only by the righteousness of God through enlightened conscience.

The Reformation was a movement by no means confined to Luther and his debatable theses. It was a spiritual seething that had been going on for a long time within the church. And in candor it must be said that there was considerable reformation accomplished within the church of Rome after the separation of the church and the Protestant movement began.

More than a century before Luther, John Wyclif, in England, was expounding his belief that the Bible, not the papacy nor the hierarchy, is the law of God. And in 1382 he translated the Scriptures into English so that the people of his country could the more readily read them. He was violently opposed for his translation, and for his position that the church is not centered in the pope and cardinals, but in the whole company of the elect. Christ is the only certain head of the church since the pope may not be one of the elect. Greater than the influence he had in his own country was the influence which spread from Wyclif’s beliefs to Bohemia. The Bohemian theologian, John Huss, was a spiritual disciple of Wyclif, though more conservative. But both held that Christ, not the pope, is the true head of the church. Neither had any intention of breaking away from the church. Both were persecuted. Huss was finally condemned and burned as a heretic in 1415, and Wyclif’s dead body was exhumed and burned. They are often called the forerunners of the Reformation. Thus the Reformation was fermenting within the established church for well over a century before the so-called Protestant reformation.

Furthermore, Luther was not the only forebear of Protestantism. There was John Calvin in Geneva, writing his famous “Institutes” in 1536. And Huldreich Zwingli in German-speaking Switzerland about 1525. But Martin Luther’s ninety-five theses seem a good historical point at which to pin the beginning of the Protestant, testifying, witnessing kind of Christianity which could not be contained in an intolerant and often erring church.

Now all of this is not just dry history of 4, 5, or 6 centuries gone by. It is a spiritual movement which, begun that long ago in continuation of the spirit of the early church of Christ, continues to this day. We would like to be able to say that all important differences have long since been resolved in common accord or that all such differences are tolerated in mutual trust. Such has never been the case. There is today just as much need for the Protestant witness as ever, and Protestant Christians must be about it!

Protestants have been known in history to be intolerant. Quite a bit could be said about that by the historian. But Protestantism has now pretty well grown up to the stature of a liberty-loving witness. Protestants believe in religious liberty. They are determined to maintain and extend such freedom and to continue the effort toward the goal in which every man, woman, and child lives in a community where religious liberty is a fact.

Religious liberty is to be interpreted as including freedom to worship according to conscience, to bring up children in the faith of their parents; freedom of the individual to change his religious affiliation; freedom to preach, to educate, to publish, and to carry on missionary activities; freedom to organize with others, and to acquire and hold such property as is necessary for this purpose.

Back in August of 1948, the First Assembly of the World Council of Churches, held in Amsterdam, adopted a Resolution on Religious Liberty. That Council is made of responsible representation of 151 religious denominations, Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox and Old Catholic. The representatives present at the time of the adoption of the resolution were from 44 nations. The preamble of that resolution states: “An essential element in good international order is freedom of religion. This is an implication of the Christian faith and of the world-wide nature of Christianity. Christians, therefore, .... are concerned that religious freedom be everywhere secured.” The resolution goes on the point out that, in pleading for freedom, they do not ask for any privilege to be granted to Christians that is denied to others.

A corollary of that position would be the insistence that no one branch of Christianity, calling itself “the true church,” or otherwise, has any right to privileges not equally granted to others who just as sincerely believe themselves to be Christian. Four propositions are developed in the resolution of the World Council Assembly:

“1) Every person has the right to determine his own faith and creed .....”

2) Every person has the right to express his religious beliefs in worship, teaching and practice; and to proclaim the implications of his beliefs ....”

3) Every person has the right to associate with others and to organize with them for religious purposes ....”

4) Every religious organization, formed or maintained by action in accordance with the rights of individual persons, has the right to determine its policies and practices for the accomplishment of its chosen purposes.”

Later in 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 18 reads:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others, and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

Several years of painstaking research, negotiations and brotherly insistence went into that declaration which is a contribution of the Federal and World Councils of Churches to the Declaration on Human Rights. Protestantism holds that the state does not confer civil rights. It merely confirms them, for they belong to a person inherently and inalienably. To the degree that this concept of civil rights and civil liberty prevails in our own nation, it is preeminently a Protestant insistence that confirms it.

We do not wish religious divisions in this country. Protestants wish the same religious liberty for Roman Catholics that we expect for ourselves. And we are determined that clericalism of any church shall not take root in this country. By clericalism we mean, in the words of Dr. John A. Mackay, president of Princeton Theological Seminary, “the pursuit of power, especially political power, by a religious hierarchy, carried on by secular methods, and for purposes of social discrimination.”

There are points of acute difference between the Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic church to this day. The Roman Catholic church acknowledges the Pope of Rome as its head and officially takes the position that the whole of valid Christendom owes the same allegiance. The Protestant churches, Orthodox, Anglican and Old Catholic churches will not own any such allegiance, and the Protestants generally still regard Christ as the sole head of the church.

It is expected that tomorrow the Pope will declare the doctrine of the assumption of the Virgin Mary to be an official dogma of the church. This doctrine grew out of tradition in the church; there is no Biblical warrant for it whatever; it has been debated among Catholics for a long time and is still not believed by many. But the Pope, invoking for the first time the doctrine of papal infallibility, now settles the matter as one not open to debate from Roman Catholics. English and French church spokesmen have already declared that this dogma makes the breach between Protestant and Roman Catholic belief wider than ever.

The pretensions of the hierarchy for the Roman Catholic church are entirely unacceptable to a Protestant [Read Oxnam, p. 8]. [Not all Roman Catholic laymen agree, but the hierarchy does not deny Mr. Connell’s statement.]

Now if Protestants own no allegiance to the pope and repudiate an authoritarian hierarchy, they must be good Protestants about it! [see p. 9]. [cf. re. Church attendance].

In our houses of worship, we repeatedly enter the presence of the God whose spirit still rules over His church. The reformers saw that God, in Christ, had made no irrevocable bargain with Peter, but that He remains Lord of all history, and of the church as well. God is not bound by our creeds, our dogmas, our ecclesiastical systems. God is free. Man’s freedom lies in his responsible acceptance of God’s free will.

The Protestant Reformation is the reaffirmation and witness to the sovereign God who everlastingly puts His weight of justice and love against the half-truths by which we are weaned away from Him.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, October 29, 1950.