Reformation Figures: Martin Luther
Martin Luther had a role to play in the reformation as a seed planter. Luther wouldn’t live to see many of the fruits of discussions he had helped begin. He wasn’t a “finisher” in the reformation, he was a starter. He was used tremendously by God to restore and reform the church. Luther’s importance can be still felt today by anyone who participates in a community of Christian faith that seeks to rely on God’s Word rather than anything else as the highest authority in the church.
It’s October! Which means it’s the season of cider, pumpkin spice, and the glorious changing of forest colors. It is also the month when the European Reformation began.
There were many people, men, and women, that God used to shape the Reformation era in European history. During this time an entire continent experienced a tremendous struggle and opportunity to seek the Lord through his Word.
One of the most recognized people of the reformation era is Martin Luther. Luther, more than any other individual is recognized as the catalyzing force which launched the reformation. When marking the period of the Reformation, October 31 is remembered as the day the Reformation began. On that day in 1517, Luther nailed a document containing 95 statements of question and critique of the Roman church.
Protestantism is a direct result of this movement that began in 1517. Whether you are Congregational, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, Pentecostal, Episcopalian, Lutheran, or non-denominational, your historic roots have been influenced and shaped by the Reformation. Even if you are a part of the Roman church if you have ever read or heard anything from the Bible in your own native language that is only a reality because of the Reformation.
While only the most bookish of Christians will know any of the particulars of Luther’s 95 theses, it was the actions Luther (and other reformers) took that formed the memorable and ongoing legacy of the Reformation. More important than any of his individual 95 points, was the collective work and effort to point the church back to the scriptures.
While doctrinal distinctions abound among protestants, these smaller internal distinguishing points are only present because of a much larger action.
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Don’t Follow Your Heart
Written by A. Craig Troxel |
Sunday, April 2, 2023
Following our heart may mean that we hear the voice that steers us toward the easier path and not the ethical high road. It is true that the Spirit of God and the grace of God are at work in us “to will and to work” for our salvation (Phil. 2:13). But it is also true that we are prone to cave when we need more resolve and we tend to be bull-headed when we ought to be broken-hearted. If we merely “follow our heart” we may easily slide into the path of least resistance and refuse to take up the cross and follow Christ.Man’s. . . wants are to be trusted. . . even when their gratification seems furthest off, the uneasiness they occasion is still the best guide of his life.—William James, “The Will to Believe”[1]
Listen to Your Heart
Whenever we are deliberating over a decision, it is not uncommon to hear a friend say, “You should listen to your heart.” Such a sentiment is not only common, but it has also been exalted to a sacrosanct place of moral authority in our culture. It is as if doing anything else would be a denial of your very self. And how could anyone do that? After all, a person must be true to who they are. Anything less would be inauthentic.
So what should we make of this?
What is the Heart?
It may be worth asking what we are listening to if we’re listening to our heart. According to the Bible, the word heart is one among several terms (like soul, spirit, and conscience) that refers to our inner life. But the word heart goes beyond these others. It is used with more frequency and it is used with more subtlety.
On the one hand, the heart communicates the unity of everything we are within. All of our thoughts, plans, wants, feelings, and decisions are generated from this one point, which functions as the governing center of our inner life. On the other hand, the heart comprehends a trinity of the heart’s spiritual functions: the mind (what we know), the desires (what we love) and the will (what we choose). Thus, the word heart in Scripture uniquely captures both the unity and the complexity of our inward life. So “following your heart” is listening, as it were, to your thoughts, longings, and choices. You may say, “So what could be so bad with that?”
Why Not Listen to the Heart?
The problem is one that runs in the family. Actually it arises from the very beginning of the human family. Adam’s and Eve’s sin in the garden of Eden did not begin with the first bite. It began with the first errant thought. Their conclusion that what God said was bad to eat was instead good to eat was a serious sin. It was also delusional, rebellious, twisted, and ruinous for them and for all of their children. Ever since then the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve have suffered in their heart’s mind from evil thoughts (Gen. 6:5). Because of sin, our foolish hearts struggle with proud and selfish ideas. Even Christians, who are delivered from sin’s condemning power and reigning power, still struggle against residual sin. Self-indulgence and self-importance continue to dog every Christian so that we are often unclear about the true motives that lie under our thoughts. Jeremiah spoke of this, when he wrote:
The heart is deceitful above all things,and desperately sick;who can understand it? (Jer. 17:9)
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The Parts We Leave Out
God is sovereign over every square inch of his creation, and so he is equally sovereign over square inch of our lives. Our building, our dreaming, our working, our sleeping, it all fertile ground for growing in faith and giving glory to God. We just have to learn to see it.
Unless the Lord builds a house,
its builders labor over it in vain;
unless the Lord watches over a city,
the watchman stays alert in vain.
In vain you get up early and stay up late,
working hard to have enough food
PSALM 127
You moved across the country to start a new job. A dear friend has wronged you. Your husband has cancer. Your child is rushed to the hospital.
In the scary and difficult situations of life we know we must look to God for help. God is big and sovereign and exactly what we need to face the daunting challenges and bitter disappointments of life. And when God pulls us through and gets us safely to the other side we are more than ready to give him the praise he deserves.
But what about the ordinary, everyday grind of life. Do we reach out for God’s help as we groggily wake up from a fitful night of sleep? Do we think God is particularly concerned about our response when things don’t go as planned on the construction site? Does the fact that we can fill the grocery buggy fill us with thanksgiving?
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Is It Anti-woman to Be Anti-abortion?
The distinctive contribution of ‘Pity For Evil’, however, is that feminism need not be understood as synonymous with pro-abortion politics. A more historically rooted feminism grounds the value and dignity of women in their capacity for virtue and care, not in their ability to mimic male sexual appetites. In spite of the lip service paid to diversity, the progressive left has become intolerant of self-described feminists who oppose unrestricted access to abortion. Were Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, or Ida B. Wells alive today, they would politely be asked to refrain from joining the Women’s March, if for no other reason than their stance on abortion.
The organizers of the “Women’s March” made headlines in 2017 when they removed pro-life feminists as sponsors, prompting more than one observer to note with irony that if Susan B. Anthony were living today, she would politely be asked to step aside and let the “real feminists” have their day. As thousands gather again to march in January to purportedly “secure abortion access and counter far-right extremism,” the question that must be asked is this: Is it anti-woman to be anti-abortion?
This question of the relationship between women’s rights and abortion permeates Monica Klem and Madeleine McDowell’s timely book, Pity For Evil: Abortion, and Women’s Empowerment in Reconstruction America. In it the authors thoroughly and definitively debunk the myth that feminism is historically synonymous with pro-abortion politics. The reality, they argue, is precisely the opposite.
In today’s inhospitable political climate for transgressing woke orthodoxy, Klem and McDowell recall an era when women’s rights and anti-abortion politics went hand in hand.
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