10/31/65

Scripture: Read Galatians 2: 16-21; John 8: 31-36. (New English Bible).

It was 550 years ago this past summer. The year was 1415, Anno Domini. The date was July 6th. An old man kindled a basket of faggots and placed the burning mass at the feet of a younger fellow tied to a stake for execution. “That you may depart to hell the sooner, I bring you this bundle, archheretic!” exclaimed the old fellow. The young man smiled at such innocence and continued his own prayers, as the flames in the firewood rose to engulf him.

So died John Huss, the Bohemian (now Czechoslovakian) martyr of five and one-half centuries ago. By that time, he had lived for nearly 45 years. He was born about 1370 of peasant parents who were poor, honest and worthy. They had wanted to help him enter the University of Prague. But they could offer nothing but a cake and a live goose to induce the university’s rector to admit John. The goose flew away, and John was left with only the cake to offer. But he was accepted, anyway. The young scholar did not question the teachings of the church in his young life. He was a conscientious fellow in acceptance of the usual doctrines, and in the performance of his duty. He advanced steadily in the responsibility which devolved on him as a cleric. By the time he was 32, he was preaching in a great chapel and serving as rector of the university.

But he lived in a time of great trouble for the church. There had been great argument over who was the rightful pope. Christianity had been a mockery and a scandal in the papal court. One of the popes urged a great purge of all heresies, and had the books of John Wyclif publicly burned. Huss protested the rashness of this act. Books were costly, and he did not think that proper examination of Wyclif’s positions had been made.

Another successor to the papal throne was finally declared antipope and was discounted from all papal chronology. He had been driven out of Naples by one of the kings, and he had retaliated by declaring a crusade against the king, raising the money for the campaign by selling indulgences in cathedrals and churches. When, in 1412, the traffic in indulgences was set up in Prague, John Huss denounced it. He posted theses on the church doors in Prague, and thundered in the chapel against papal injustices. The hierarchy grew stronger. And as it grew, Huss discovered that a terrible separation between priests and laymen had come into being. Faith had deteriorated into mere creed. Love for Christ had been replaced by loyalty to the church.

Huss called for reform. He wanted a church “without spot or wrinkle” in matters of rightness. He turned repeatedly to the Bible as the sole foundation of the Christian faith. He challenged the authority and some of the interpretations of the pope. He permitted some things that were not clearly forbidden in the Scriptures. He tolerated doctrines that are wholly unacceptable to our present-day Protestant way of thinking. But he was sure that the doctrine of papal infallibility was wrong; and said so!

He was not rebelling against papal authority. He was only trying, earnestly and vigorously, to persuade the church to reform and correct itself. For his efforts, he was accused of heresy. Not all of the bishops who tried him wished to put him to death. But those who did wish him dead prevailed. He was placed on a high stool, surrounded by the council fathers. One by one, the priestly vestments which he wore were taken from him. The empty chalice which he held in his hands was taken. They said that he had desecrated the cup by serving Eucharistic wine to laymen! They placed a paper cap on his head, ornamented it with 3 devils which were pictured plucking at a soul. Inscribed on the paper cap was the word for “archheretic.” The prisoner was led out toward the stake. The procession stopped only long enough to see some of his writings burned. Then it moved on until the prisoner was placed on top the firewood and secured to the stake.

This, in brief, is the life and death of one who could be called the first of the reformers. In fact, one of our Protestant sister-denominations, the Moravian church, likes to trace its spiritual ancestry to John Huss.

Now and then, it is a good idea to take a careful look back to see where we have been. Reformation Sunday is as good a time as any to look back at some of the Reformers to see where we, in their spirit, have been in order to asses better where we are. It was a Cambridge don who remarked: “When we don’t know where we are, it is sometimes a good idea to take a backward look and discover where we once were. I sometimes have the feeling,” he went on to say, “that in Cambridge we haven’t known where we are for the last 200 years.”

Well, we cannot understand 20th century Protestantism simply by reference to the 20th century, says Robert McAfee Brown. There are many misunderstandings of Protestantism that spring from misunderstandings of the Protestant Reformation. So it is well that we look back to see where we came from, and why. And when we have done this, we can look intelligently at our 20th century Protestantism.

It was in the century after John Huss that the Reformation movements really burst into bloom all over the human wilderness. The sixteenth century movements are not easy to assess, for they have been subject to many interpretations.

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1) Some historians have asserted that the whole period was dominated by nationalistic and economic concerns. They have pointed out that the German princes did not want to pay for the support and program of an Italian Pope. So they backed Luther in order to free the German church from Italian domination.

2) Others have speculated that the people in northern Europe simply wanted a less expensive religion; they were willing to trade an expensive church for a comparatively inexpensive Bible.

3) Voltaire disposed of the English Reformation by saying that “England separated from the pope because King Henry fell in love.” Guizot described the Reformation “as a great effort to emancipate the human reason.” Heine commented that when Luther deposed the Pope, Robespierre decapitated the king and Immanuel Kant disposed of God and it was all one insurrection of mankind against the same tyrant under different names.

4) And the interpretation of the Reformation which is given by most Roman Catholic, Anglo-Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churchmen is that the Reformation was a “revolt” -- a revolt against the church. If this is somewhat closer to the Protestant interpretation, it is only in the sense that it assesses the Reformation as a religious movement, rather than as a nationalistic, economic or cultural movement.

But it is altogether inadequate to suppose that Protestant churches came into being only as a revolt. The Roman Catholic philosopher, Jaques Maritain, has referred to what he calls “that immense disaster for humanity, the Protestant Reformation.” What leads any man to that conclusion? It would seem to be the pre-supposition that Jesus Christ willed that there should be one church and that it should have one head; that he himself is the one head; that he made provision for Peter to be his vicar on earth; and for subsequent vicars to be appointed after Peter in unbroken succession. In this view, to give allegiance to the vicar of Christ (now called the Pope) means to give allegiance to Christ himself and to assure that the church will remain undivided. Those who refuse allegiance to the Pope are disloyal sons, in revolt against Christ and his church, splitting it into factions and creating new groups that falsely claim the name of the “church.”

When abuses creep into the church the thing to do is to work for their correction within the church. Rather than “revolt” as the Reformers are seen to have done, the true Christian will reform and purify the church within its structure. In this way, abuses will be cleared up without scandal and division. One Roman Catholic historian has remarked that “Luther was not a good listener” -- meaning, probably, that Luther asserted his own will instead of “listening” to the voice of the church. Because of the Protestant “revolt”, therefore, we have a multitude of competing sects, no single one of which (in this Roman Catholic view) can trace its lineage back to Jesus and his appointed successors in the church. These divisions in Christendom have been responsible for the disruption of western civilization, and thus the Reformation is indeed “an immense disaster for humanity.”

So much for the view that the Reformation was a “revolt” against the church. The view is wholly consistent if the initial premise is conceded that the Pope is, indeed, the vicar of Christ. If to repudiate the authority of the Pope is to refuse the authority of Christ, then Reformers, and all Protestants (and indeed all non-Roman Catholics) are “revolters” of the most grievous sort.

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Of course the thoughtful Protestant does not accept the Roman Catholic premise that the Pope is the vicar of Christ. The Protestant does not find that his Reformation ancestors in the spirit were just “revolters.” In many cases they tried to purify the church from within, like John Huss, who never left it, but was deprived of his orders and was condemned to death and was martyred within the church framework.

The Protestant feels that the very word, “Protestant” is not only “protest” in the sense of “dissent.” It is more fairly understood to be a positive declaration, a “witness for the truth.” The word comes from the Latin, pro-testare, to be a witness. The Protestant agrees with Philip Schoff that the Reformation was a “deeper plunge into the meaning of the gospel.” He feels that ultimate loyalty must be given to that gospel, the subject and object of which is Jesus Christ. The Protestant feels that he belongs to the church of Jesus Christ, which is the fellowship of those who give allegiance to him. The Protestant believes that his fidelity to the church must be measured by the degree of the church’s fidelity to the gospel. If the church departs from that gospel, then it is an unfaithful witness, and must be called to account in the name of the faith it has forsaken.

The church is always in danger of becoming unfaithful. It has never been immune to temptation. For example, there was a strong undertow throughout the middle ages in which man after man, group after group, rose up to declare that the church was betraying the gospel and must be purified and re-formed. In almost every case, these witnesses were repudiated, defamed, excommunicated, even killed by the church they loved and were trying to serve. By the 16th century in time, things had come to such a pitch that the church could no longer stifle the voices crying for reform and renewal.

And what were the voices saying? Those who are familiar with the Bible will wonder why all the shouting was necessary. For the Reformers were not preaching some “new” gospel, created by them; but rather the “old” gospel -- or “the” gospel which they had rediscovered in the Old and New Testaments. Their central concern was the truth. Far from “revolting” against the church, they were trying to re-form it; to recall it to the faith that had brought it into being many centuries before. The message of the Reformers described their concern in three ways:

1) Their message stressed continuity with the past --- not, of course, with everything in the past, but with those elements of the past that brought the church into being and gave expression to the gospel. They believed that the church was on a most unpromising detour from which it might never return to the main road. Thus, to be loyal to the church meant to call a halt; to ask God to restore the church to what it had been and ought to be, rather than to tolerate what it had become. In the minds of the Reformers, there was not the thought of repudiating the church. There was only the purpose to be faithful to it by calling it back to the gospel it was created to proclaim. The Reformers had a fundamental concern to maintain continuity with all that had been creative in the church’s witness, repudiating only what had become a false witness.

2) But continuity with the past is not enough. The Reformers had to decide which elements of the past gave expression to the gospel that had brought the church into being. In this matter they had a clear criterion: faithfulness to the gospel found in Scripture. When they had to determine which beliefs and practices were essential to the true proclamation of the gospel, and which were only man-made inventions, they searched, and took seriously, the Bible itself. And they concentrated on certain early church fathers like Augustine, because Augustine had concentrated on the Bible.

Calvin made it his rule that nothing should be allowed in the church that did not have Scriptural warrant. Luther’s understanding of the church was revolutionized by his direct exposure to Scripture. It was as he studied Psalms, Galatians, and especially Romans that he came to see that God as revealed in the Bible was not to be understood as the Medieval Church had understood Him. Luther was faced with a hard choice. Either the medieval church was right, or the Bible was right, but not both. Luther took his stand on the conviction that Scripture was right and that the medieval church was wrong. Which meant that he had to express his dissatisfaction with the church, and call upon it to re-form. He was, in this sense, an excellent listener, for he listened to the teaching of Scripture, and therein heard the gospel.

Of course, adopting the Bible criterion raised some problems, too. It still does raise problems for Protestants. Some problems are as grievous for us today as the problems of the 16th century. But the problems can be held in abeyance long enough to repeat the assertion that the faith of the Reformers was not “new,” but “old” in the enduring sense.

3) All this means that the concern of the Reformers was for a true Catholicity -- that is, for universal truth. We Protestants often shy away from the very word “catholic,” for we frequently think of it in terms of abuse or misuse. Philip Schoff wrote, over a century ago: “The Reformation is the greatest act of the Catholic Church itself, the full, ripe fruit of all its better tendencies.” Notice, he did not say “Roman Catholic,” but simply “Catholic.” To say, “I am a man of catholic tastes” is to describe an open, cosmopolitan temperament. But this is a rather sophisticated and not-too-significant meaning for our present purposes. It is more to our point to observe that the word “catholic” means “universal;” it connotes “wholeness.” True Catholic faith is faith in its wholeness or totality. And the “holy catholic church,” as referred to in the creeds repeated in many churches, is the church that proclaims the “whole faith.”

It is no part of the Protestant Reformation to be anti-Catholic in this universal sense. The true Protestant may consider himself a member of the Catholic Church of Jesus Christ. Some years ago, I heard a leading minister in the Congregational Churches make this assertion: “I am a Congregational Catholic Christian.” We of this present church may rightfully assert that we are Congregational United Church of Christ Catholic Christians --- as it is our purpose so to be --- members of the Church of Jesus Christ, re-formed. Protestant Christians endeavor to be a part of the Universal Church of Christ; reconstituted to be faithful to its Lord, rescued from corruption by the renewing power of the Holy Spirit; the church that must continue to be rescued in every day and age from the temptations and corruptions that threaten it; the church that looks to the future, sure of one thing -- that it must continue to be faithful to Jesus Christ. When anything stands in the way of such faithfulness --- whether it be medieval indulgences, or Renaissance Popes, or Protestant pride, or mistreated Scripture, it must be judged and purged by the spirit of truth.

We must pray to be saved from idolatry of the past, or worship of present greatness. Not everything the Reformers did or said was right. Not everything about the church of the present is holy --- indeed much of it is sick and in desperate need of cure. But the holy catholic faith is recoverable. And we are in an honorable line when we join the apostles of Jesus, St. Francis, Peter Waldo, John Wycliff, John Huss, William Thydale, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, the Pilgrims and the Puritans, and a host of others who have helped to reform the church.

The present-day church needs re-form and recovery. We are full of questions about it. The necessary re-forming can be done, indeed must be done, in the light of the Scriptural truth. It can be summed up in two simple words that are packed full of tremendous meaning: “Justice” and “Love.” From the Old Testament we get the guidance: “What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly (“teachably”) with thy God.” [Micah 6: 8]. From the New Testament comes our Lord’s summation: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength --- and thy neighbor as thyself.” [Mark 12: 30-31].

The big task of the church in our day is probably not condemnation, but understanding and conciliation. The difficulty of our times calls for a Reforming Church in all of its branches, proclaiming, and practicing justice and understanding, compassionate love.

Let us be at it!

Amen.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, October 31, 1965.