So today is not just Halloween, which for Catholics is the eve of All Saints’ Day, but for Protestants, it's Reformation Day. This means that my Facebook timeline is filled with my former colleagues telling each other, "Happy Reformation Day!"
I used to feel that way. I was proud of our Protestant heritage, to stand up for scripture alone! I was proud to stand for conscience based on scripture alone!
There’s a famous quote by Martin Luther when he was on trial for heresy and schism before Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor: “Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason (I do not accept the authority of popes and councils because they have contradicted each other), my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against my conscience is neither right nor safe. So help me God. Amen.” In the Protestant imagination, it’s this magnificent vision of standing alone with his Bible against corrupt, effeminate Catholic bishops and cardinals and popes down in Italy, living in palaces decorated with frescoes of naked people and scenes from Roman mythology, drinking wine, counting their money, dressed in lace and dallying with their concubines or buggering altar boys. It’s this inspirational image of manly virtue, the heroic Germanic warrior with a Bible instead of a battle axe against those lying perverts in their Italian palaces who had corrupted the true faith.
I had a friend, a pastor/Christian author who liked to do this thing where he held his leather study bible in his hand and said, “This is my bible, it is my only sure guide, my sword of truth, my defense and my comfort. With it I will stand, with it I can face everything, nothing can turn me aside as long as I have it for all the days of my life.” He’d say that to an audience and everyone would swoon, because it called to mind the Old Testament prophets, armed only with the Word of God, calling out the corrupt kings of Israel. And a glorious new world was born, one in which every English plowboy could read God’s Word for himself and not need some sleazy Italian or Spanish priest to manipulate him.
All of this is the imagery and propaganda that the Reformers used to denigrate and defame the Catholic Church and position themselves as heroes of the faith.
But as I considered Catholicism and then converted and came into the Church, I realized how wrong I had been. Three quick thoughts:
1) The Reformers weren’t Reformers, they were schismatics who sought to shatter the Body of Christ. Were there abuses to be called out? For sure. In fact, it was a troubled chapter in the life of the Church and it badly needed reform. But did Luther and Calvin seek to reform the Church, like earlier saints such as Catherine of Siena or Francis of Assisi had done? No, they weren’t like Old Testament prophets armed with God’s Word calling out the king of Israel, because the prophets never sought to overturn Israel and set up a new Kingdom on their own authority, which is what Luther and Calvin did. They didn’t heal the Church, they set up their own churches, thousands of them, each subject to their own abuses and corruptions.
2) Their premise to found a new Church based only on each person’s private interpretation of Scripture, divorced from apostolic tradition, brought the chaos of Protestantism, which has played out over the last 500 years. The priesthood of all believers, one of their most precious concepts, has meant endless division in which none of them can agree on anything. And it’s brought us to the chaos in Christianity today, with tens of thousands of denominations and independent churches that can agree on anything, even the most fundamental doctrinal, sacramental, biblical, or moral issues. Protestantism is built on sand, because its foundational principles, the Five Solas, are biblically, theologically, and logically unstable. Go back and listen to Episode #67: “Cracking the Protestant Worldview.”
3) Jesus said a tree is known by its fruits, so look what it has wrought. The Reformation destroyed Christendom. It has brought endless division and moral chaos, it opened the door for the modern shedding of the Christian mind and worldview. And against the 21st-century forces of nihilism and moral anarchy, it offers no unified or compelling answer except individual conscience based on private interpretation of scripture. Which is no answer at all.
So, no. I don’t celebrate Happy Reformation Day anymore. In keeping with today being All Hallow’s Eve, Halloween, the vigil of All Saints Day, I prefer to celebrate all the saints down the ages who lived and died in the faith of the Holy Mother Church, and who intercede for us before the beatific vision of the Holy Trinity.
Instead, Let me say, "Happy All Saints Day!"
-- Greg
