Pope Francis embraces the Rev. Martin Junge, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, during a prayer service at the Lutheran cathedral in Lund, Sweden, Oct. 31, 2016. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
VIEW FROM THE PEW
An event that ignited earthshaking change still felt 500 years later will be marked next month in Hawaii as it is in most of the Christian world.
For the Lutheran Church folks who plan the 3 p.m. Oct. 14 interfaith service, it’s an anniversary they celebrate every year marking the beginning of Protestant Christianity.
It all started on Oct. 31, 1517, when German Catholic monk Martin Luther nailed a list of 95 questions challenging Catholic teaching to a church door in Wittenberg.
People of many other Protestant denominations are invited to the event at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, center of the Episcopal Church in Hawaii.
Catholics are invited, too. And that very idea sent a Catholic writer spinning off on many theoretical introductions to this column. Such as: “Popes from down through the ages would be spinning in their graves …”
“The soaring music of famous classical composers will be a counterpoint to memories of millions killed in centuries of wars between Christians …”
“We used to holler heretic but now we’ll sing hallelujah together at the Hukilau Reformation Service …”
Or, an anecdote about the Irish priest in my midwestern hometown who sent gossips into a tizzy because he and the Lutheran pastor enjoyed a cup of coffee together decades ago in less ecumenical times.
Or, my personal favorite, a recent round of hilarity in the family when our cousin threatened to “sell indulgences” at a wake in response to an officious Lutheran mortuary administrator who balked at donations to a Catholic charity in lieu of flowers.
Oh well, I guess you had to be there.
I was even tempted to use the words “epic” or “iconic” which are so overused in media and marketing these days that I’ve vowed not to use them.
Father Jack Ryan, pastor of the Newman Center, talked me down from the wow perspective. As the diocesan ecumenical/interfaith minister, of course he’s going to the Protestant Reformation celebration; in fact he provided the master list of who’s who in the many varieties of Christians here. Those folks gather together every January to mark the international Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. They traditionally took turns as hosts but participants were so moved by the Taize ecumenical service at the Newman Center that they’ve chosen to return for the past three years.
Father Ryan pointed out that the Catholic Church has been “having dialogues for years” with international Lutheran church leaders trying to talk out some of the 95 points that Luther wanted debated 500 years ago. The Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity reached an agreement in 1999 to iron out one major wrinkle. Both agreed that “by grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.”
“Millions were killed for something that’s not an issue anymore,” said Father Ryan. “They thought we believed we had to earn salvation. We believe salvation is a free gift from God.”
It’s a ponderous document, the Joint Declaration of Justification, and available at the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops website and other Catholic online locations. The World Methodist Council adopted it in 2006 and earlier this year, so did the World Communion of Reformed Churches representing 80 million people in Congregational, Presbyterian, United Church and other mainline Protestant denominations.
Just thinking about how much time and talk that took, how many fine distinctions parsed by theologians, how points of pride and protection of power were undertones; it makes your brain spin. And of course, humans being what we are, many are the naysayers, Protestant and Catholic, avid in their affirmation of differences. Many are the divisions in each denomination and that is why you won’t find all island Lutheran churches at the interfaith event. More conservative congregations, splintered by not just points of belief but also social issues such as ordaining women and welcoming gays, will hold separate Reformation services.
Pope went to Sweden
If Catholics hesitate to step through the ecumenical door next month, know that Pope Francis beat you to it. You can find online photos of the pope embracing the Rev. Martin Junge, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation last October. The pope went to Sweden to kick off the year-long celebration of the Protestant Reformation. He and Lutheran leaders agreed that the next difference to tackle is shared Communion. Unlike most Protestant denominations which consider a communion service as a memorial of the Last Supper, Lutherans, like Catholics, believe in the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ … although that’s not their word.
“Lutherans and Catholics have wounded the visible unity of the church,” they said in a joint statement. “Theological differences were accompanied by prejudice and conflicts, and religion was instrumentalized for political ends.”
Whew, talk about an understatement. Historians may love the details but I know I have hordes of company in being overwhelmed by the stories of who fought whom, whose country was shrunk, swollen or wiped out, what kings fell, all because of the schism in Christianity. A different form of religious strife makes headlines today but it was just a few years ago that the Catholics and Protestants took turns at being terrorists, in Ireland for instance.
The press and the protester
Fred Benco, who identifies himself as “a lifelong Lutheran,” recalls his grandfather’s story from his European homeland. “He said Hungarian Catholics would invade Czechoslovakia and destroy the homes of Protestants. That’s why he told me I was not to date Catholic girls. It was the only time I lied to my grandfather.”
“Nowadays, people don’t even know the differences,” said the Honolulu attorney, a member of the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, which was founded in 1900 by German immigrants. In his own family, one sister married a Presbyterian, another married a Jewish man and the third married a Catholic.
Benco is behind a series of small advertisements outlining the history of Martin Luther and the Reformation that are appearing weekly in the Honolulu Star Advertiser and Midweek through October. “I decided it’s a good time for me to help people to consider religion. I’m doing it for education, and if even 100 people get something from it … it is a joy to be working for it.”
Benco gets a special pleasure out of using the print media, rather than an electronic outlet, since the printing press, invented in 1440, was the vehicle that spread Luther’s popular challenge to the authority of the Catholic Church quickly throughout Europe and to the rest of the world. The press and the protestor were counted as two of the greatest forces during the last millennium, he said.
Luther was described in terms of “social media savvy,” “first best-selling author” and “Europe’s first celebrity” in a two-hour PBS special that aired Sept. 10. The show combined costumed reenactments from his life and highlights of his beliefs and their impact from a wide array of theologians and authors.
His challenges to the Catholic Church “were the strike of a match that set off a bonfire, the flames of which are still burning,” said Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York. “He was an articulate and masterful writer and speaker. It was a time when the 51 percent of Europe was owned by the Catholic Church. Luther awoke dormant perceptions that the pope wanted far too much money,” said Cardinal Dolan on the PBS program. “He thought the 95 theses would help the church.”
Luther became disenchanted at the political machinations of Pope Leo X, a member of the powerful de Medici family of Florence, who was involved in non-religious matters between various countries, typical of the popes of medieval times. The pope was determined to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and the fundraising was what set Luther off. Luther was outraged when a traveling friar was selling indulgences to finance the construction, in effect putting salvation for sale.
Indulgences no longer for sale
In Catholic-speak, an indulgence is a pass to avoid some of the punishment or time in Purgatory linked to your sins. We earn the pass by recitation of prayers, such as the rosary, or pilgrimages to churches, and other spiritual practices and good works.
Indulgences are no longer for sale, according to the catechism. However, I confess that it bothers me that it is still approved practice for parishes to collect a fee for prayer intentions voiced at Mass or printed in the bulletin. But that’s another column.
But that was a minor matter compared to Luther’s challenge to the authority of the Catholic Church. His assertion that it is the Bible alone that holds the authority of God, not the organization and its chosen leader, was embraced by his followers and is a basic tenet of the many branches and variations of Protestantism that have arisen ever since.
Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther in 1521. The church called the Council of Trent in 1562 to address reforms in its teachings and actions. But nothing quenched the fire Luther set. His was not a wholly uplifting legacy as scholars point out. Luther’s antisemitic writings in later life were embraced by dark forces ever since.
Much more will be said on the subject next month. The keynote speaker at the Oct. 14 service will be the Rev. David Lose, author of many books, articles and teaching and preaching guides used by ministers of several denominations. The pastor of Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, he was former president of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Lose will also give a free public lecture on the impacts of Luther at 2 p.m. Oct. 15 at Tenney Theatre at St. Andrew’s Cathedral.
The Gospel reading for the Sept. 10 liturgy resonated as my mind percolated the subject of a single monk whose angst and audacity changed Christianity.
The passage from St. Matthew shows Jesus telling the apostles “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” That’s part of the scriptural basis for our belief in the authority of the church organization and leader.
It goes on with these words: “If two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”
Those words, it seems to me, are grounds for us to get together, Catholic and Protestant. As often as we can, as long as it takes, to get in synch with each other and with God.
