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Protestantism Under Luther: Authority, Chaos, and the Cost of "Bible Alone" (Gregg Quiggle) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to Thanking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: and I'm glad you're here. In this special series, we're
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: stepping back into one of the most pivotal times in
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Christian history, the German Reformation. This was a time when
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the Gospel was being rediscovered, the Church was being challenged,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and the course of Western civilization was being reshaped with
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: ripples that still reach into our lives today. And to
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: guide us through this journey, I'm joined by a true expert,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: someone who doesn't just know the Reformation from books, but
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: from the cobblestone streets and cathedral halls where it actually happened,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Doctor Greg Quiggle. Greg is a Reformation historian and the
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: owner and operator of Kotelis Travel, a company that runs
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: what they call tours for ten, intimate travel experiences designed
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: for people who want something deeper than a typical tour.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: They offer a three to one guest to guide ratio,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: and these trips give you consistent access to guides who've
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: been on location multiple times, who know not only the history,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: but also where to find the best able strudal and
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: other German delicacies along the way. You can learn more
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: about Greg and Kotellus at kotellistravelservice dot com. And if
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: this series piques your interest, Greg actually has a German
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Reformation trip coming up this May, and last I heard,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: there are still a few seats available. In this series,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Greg is going to help us explore the people, places,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: and theological stakes of the Reformation as well as helping
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: us understand why it still matters for Christians today. So
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: let's get started. Hey, everybody, welcome back to this episode
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: of Thinking Christian on Doctor James Spencer and I'm joined
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: by doctor Greg Quiggle. We're continuing our discussion about the Reformation,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the German Reformation specifically, and today what we're going to
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: talk through, or begin talking through, is what does it
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: look like for Protestantism under Luther. So the Reformation, the
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: attempt to reform the Catholic Church has largely failed. There's
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: going to now be a division between Luther's camp, let's
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: call it just for the moment, and the Catholic side.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: And so that has implications for what Protestantism is actually
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: going to look like. And now we enter this phase
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of negotiating what stays, what goes, what Protestantism really needs
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to look like and how that's going to function. So
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: those are those are some of the complexities that we're
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  Speaker 1: going to dive into today. So Greg, welcome back to
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the program. Always great to have you here.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Great to be here, James.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: So let's just jump in. I mean, I think maybe
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: the first thing that I was a little confused about
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: on the last trip, and I think I got clarified
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: was the relationship between church and state that we talked
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: about in previous episodes. That is providing some stability and
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: some support for Catholic churches, monasteries, those kind of things.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: How does that change when Luther is sort of cracked
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: off from the Catholic Church, but it's still living in Wittenberg,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: has the same house where he stayed, you know, like
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of things stay the same for Luther, but
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: there had to be some economic and political changes, right, Yes, yes.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: And no, Okay, most crowds and are still going to
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: work in the context of what we generally call Christendom,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: and that is this notion that church and state are distinct,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: but they're not separate. So the easiest way that I
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: know to illustrate this is to read the Old Testament. Okay,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: what do you have How are the children of Israel led?
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: The nation of Israel has a king and it.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Has a high priest.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: They have distinct functions, but they're functioning under a single
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: religious system, same God. They have distinct roles, but they
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: are certainly complementary. They're working together. So that model is
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: pulled across. So you know, the old model was the
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: pope and the emperor. Yeah, okay, so now now it's
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: kind of okay. There is there is no pope. How
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: is that going to work? And we don't have a
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: singular emperor. So really the relationship is what's the relationship
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: between in the case of Luther, the prince, the local
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: prince elector, or the emperor in the case of somebody
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  Speaker 2: like Calvin, the city council, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: And one of the fundamental differences is going to be
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: that for Protestants, the central document is going to be
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: the Bible alone. So the Bible is going to be
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: the defining document. And so, you know, it's not in Germany,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: but this kind of makes it work. In Zurich, in Switzerland,
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  Speaker 2: there's a statue of a guy named Zwingley who's a
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: contemporary of Martin Luther says, giant statue right on the river,
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  Speaker 2: you know, bing bing bing here it is has a
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: sword in one hand and a Bible in the other.
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  Speaker 2: And so the Bible grounds civil authority. So this is
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  Speaker 2: that Protestant notion of the Bible alone. The Bible is
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  Speaker 2: the grounds. Both the church and the state derive their
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  Speaker 2: authority from the text alone, and they function within the
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: categories that the text mandates. Now, how that's going to
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: work out? Who is responsible for what? So, for example,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: in Luther's sort of framework, the state functions with a
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: higher degree of autonomy slash authority than in Calvin's Geneva
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: and in Zwingley's contexts the state has more authority over
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: the church than it does in Luther's. So, for example,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: when there's a debate about what kind of form of
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: baptism they're going to use in Zurich, the city council
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  Speaker 2: decides that, well that Luther, you know, that's none No,
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  Speaker 2: I don't think so.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So, but you still have the basic model here. And
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  Speaker 2: the basic model is one people, one religion, two authorities,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: a religious authority and a political civic authority. They are
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  Speaker 2: functioning in a synthesis under the authority of the Scripture,
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  Speaker 2: and they are forming the Kingdom of Christ on earth
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: in that sense.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, that's helpful. I mean it's sort of what it
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: makes me think of is federalism in our context, right,
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  Speaker 1: Like we have you have a different states that have
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: relative autonomy, but then you also have the federal government
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: who makes broader rules, and the negotiation of those two
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: relationships are often difficult. So it's not exactly religion and state,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: but it's two entities attempting to collaborate and coordinate to
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: get something done within a bigger body.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I guess that's what my head kind of goes to.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Yes. So the thing where this gets crazy for the
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: modern reader is the persecution, in fact, the execution of heretics.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So, and this is you know, why is the church
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  Speaker 2: putting a heretic to death? The church is not putting
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: the heretic to death, the state is.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, the church is proclaiming them a heretic.
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  Speaker 2: And then the state is putting them to death as
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  Speaker 2: an act of self defense.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Would have been similar to what we would have seen
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  Speaker 1: with Martin Luther had he not gotten safe passage to
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the diet of arms and been sort of shuttled a
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: way to Vordburg. You have somebody official proceeding over that diet,
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  Speaker 1: a representative from the pope, who decides not to debate Luther,
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  Speaker 1: and then this forced requirement to recant. Those are basically
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: ultimatums recant or die correct.
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  Speaker 2: So the idea here is who bears the sword. The
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: state bears the sword. So it is the obligation of
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  Speaker 2: the state to support the church. So in order to
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: defend and support the Church, it is the state's obligation
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  Speaker 2: to put to death a heretic.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that sort of concretizes the relationship. I think, yes,
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  Speaker 1: It's got to get really hairy though, when we move
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: into Protestantism and we basically have competing conceptions of what
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: it means to be Protestant, or competing practices within Protestantism,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: competing beliefs within Protestantism, because you've largely lost this broad
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: traditional heritage that comes through the Catholic Church, and unlike
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: us today, and you can tell me if I'm wrong
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  Speaker 1: about this, you know, we have a sense I think,
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  Speaker 1: you know, even casual Christians would have a sense of
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  Speaker 1: faith alone Bible alone, you know, the different Reformation souls,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: which we'll address in a later episode. But we have
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  Speaker 1: the benefit of a tradition that stems at least from
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: the different confessions of the Protestant era. Correct at that
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  Speaker 1: point with Luther, there is no such bo. What has
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  Speaker 1: to happen is all this has to be teased out
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  Speaker 1: from the Catholic tradition, and so it becomes an exercise
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  Speaker 1: in what do we keep what do we get rid of?
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  Speaker 2: Exactly? And yes, so this is why you get For example,
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  Speaker 2: Protestants are actually putting to death other Protestants, which sounds
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  Speaker 2: utterly bizarre, but this is exactly what is going to
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: happen in Zurich, where the forerunners of people we know
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: as Amish and Ana Baptists are actually being put to
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  Speaker 2: death by another Protestant, Zwingli, and the city council because
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: of their view of Baptism.
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  Speaker 1: But yes, so and so, just to Clarifyzwingley's got the
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  Speaker 1: council's ear, or the council is on Zwingley's side there
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  Speaker 1: understanding Zwingley to be the quote established Protestant.
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  Speaker 2: Swingley goes to the city council and argues for a
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  Speaker 2: particular understanding of baptism. So to the Ana Baptists, the
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  Speaker 2: city council decides Zwingley is right there after the law,
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  Speaker 2: and so they violate the law. And though so against
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  Speaker 2: the waters of baptisms, you have sinned, So by the
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: waters of baptism you shall be condemned. And they drowned them.
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  Speaker 2: So so you know, and and this is so you
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: can see, and it's going to get money. So this
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  Speaker 2: is you know, what are we? Who? Who are we?
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  Speaker 2: What do we take?
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  Speaker 1: Yep?
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  Speaker 2: That's the question you're asking. And what you've got going here,
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: and this is precisely why you don't have a single Protestantism.
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  Speaker 2: You're going to get fundamentally different conceptions of what do
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: we do with fifteen hundred years of Christian practice?
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  Speaker 1: Right?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so you know we've been doing this for fifteen
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  Speaker 2: hundred years. Uh oh, now what And you're going to
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  Speaker 2: get varieties of how much of this do we keep?
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  Speaker 2: How much of this do we jettison? What do we
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  Speaker 2: put in its place? And so you're going to get
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  Speaker 2: everything from Luther, who is going to say keep as
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  Speaker 2: much as you can yep, to Anabaptist i e. Mennonite,
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  Speaker 2: Amish types who are going to say, get rid of
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  Speaker 2: all of it. So do you do a reform And
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: by reform Luther means you go through and you remove
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: the things that are clearly in violation of scripture, but
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: you keep everything else, or do you do what the
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Anabaptists say, And their argument is this whole thing went
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  Speaker 2: off the rails with Constantine in three thirteen when church
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  Speaker 2: and state got mixed. The entire enterprise is bad. To
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: quote the late great Michael Jackson, bad bad, bad, really bad.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: You know, it's bad bad, woo oooh bad. He want
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: to Grammy for that. The lyrical genius there is stunning,
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: just absolutely stunning. And therefore we have to go back
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: before three thirteen find anything that's pure. So we're gonna
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: just throw it all out, open up our New Testament,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: and only do what it says so you can see.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: And the simple question that I used to tell students
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: that moody is if you've ever been to a Lutheran
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: church and a Mennonite church, which one.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Looks more Catholic.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's not a hard question. Really why Because
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Luther says you only change what you have to, and
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: the Anabaptists say, get rid of it all and then
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: open your New Testament and only put in what it
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: says to and so very different approaches were.
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  Speaker 1: How prominent was this within Germany? Greg So, I understand
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the distinctions in Switzerland oddly better than I understand the
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: distinctions in Germany. Like Zwingli and the Anabaptists are sort
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: of you know, theological legend right, like the what happened
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: there is kind of crazy, this this schism over Baptism.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know as much about the tensions within Germany
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: because Luther would have been such a almost like pillar
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: of the reformation within Germany. Melankin follows. You know, you've
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: got a fairly strong tradition within that, those German reformers
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: who are probably going to stick relatively close to Luther.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: So were there still factions of any significance within Germany?
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, there were. These people were called the fanatics.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: And what.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Complicates this is within this kind of Anabaptist movement you
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: have a spectrum. So you have everything from people that
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: we would recognize as sort of reasonable people who are
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: trying to follow the Bible, to people that are apocalyptic
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: lunatics who are trying to say the Bible is no
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: longer relevant. We live in the age of the Spirit.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: God is revealing himself to me directly. And so, for example,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: in the German city of Munster, you have a group
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: of these Antabaptists who go in there and they take
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the town over and they set up. You know, Jesus
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: is returning. Immediately, they begin to practice polygamy. The guide's
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: calling himself an Old Testament prophet. God is revealing all
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: this stuff to him, and you know it's adult baptism,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: and on and on and on. And what happens is
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: a combined army of Catholics and Protestants go in there
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: slaughter everybody, and in fact they take the leaders of
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: this thing. They put their bodies in cages and hang
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: them from the cathedral. The cages are still there, James,
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: if you you look it up online Google Google, you
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: know Munster Cathedral, the cages. Now there's nothing in there anymore,
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: but the cages are still hanging there. Anybody who tries
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: this kind of nuttiness, we want you to know, this
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: is what we're gonna do with you. You have another guy
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: who's ironically his name is Thomas Muntzer. Again, this is
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: in Germany, the Battle of Frankenhaus, and he tells peasants
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: that this is the end of the world, the age
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: of the Spirit. God is coming back soon, and that
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: he is the Lord is returning, and that they should
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: take over the you know that God is going to
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: help them defeat the evil powers of church and state.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: And so all these peasants rise up and form an
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: army and it's the one of the biggest slaughters in
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: the history of the world. There's something like ten thousand
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: and peasants killed in like a dozen of because Munster
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: is telling them things like you're gonna catch their cannon
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: balls in your sleeves and all this because God's told
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: them all this stuff. This is part of the reason James,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: that Luther comes out of hiding hiding at the Vartberg
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: and he begins to hear that these radical voices are
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: increasingly taking over in Wittenberg and they're tearing down crucifixes
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: and all this other kind of radical stuff. And Luther
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: is saying, no, no, no, you've heard about the peasant wars.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: A lot of that stuff is this apocalyptic kind of
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: and and in fairness, people like Mennonites and Amish et cetera.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Want to distance themselves from this kind of nuttiness. The
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: problem is they're all they're all claiming to be adult baptism,
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: only they're all claiming that everything went off the rails
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: with Constantine. It's the same sort of radicalism. We must
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: radically break from the past. This is the age of
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: the spirit. God is doing something new. This is exactly
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: what Luther did not want to happen. This is exactly
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: what the Catholic Church said was going to happen. This
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: is what happens when you turn this loose and give
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: it to the common folks. They go nutty. And so
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: he has to try to domesticate this thing. He has
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: to come out and try to, you know, stop this
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: sort of craziness that that is going way beyond anything
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: he had in vision. But once the ball starts rolling,
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: it's hard to stop this thing.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: It's kind of crazy how right Plato was about this,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: wasn't it. I Mean, like, you know, you move from
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of the centralized, wise ruler authoritarian model
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: over to the democratized the people are in charge sort
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: of model, and all you end up doing is swinging
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: between the two pendulums. Because both sides. It's crazy. There's
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: so much opportunity for it to devolve into something that
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: just doesn't work that it's like you're in constant historical
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: correction all the time. It feels like just an amazing
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: observation he made.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Well, that is that is theoretically the genius of the
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: American system. Because people walk around talking about the United
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: States being a democracy, it's not. No, it's a democratic republic.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Republic.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's committed to keeping us from becoming mob rule.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: That's what the Electoral College is about. Yeah, it's to
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: keep it from being mob ruled, to protect the rights
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: of the minority, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: we don't want to do that. No.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: No, It's really interesting though, And I think as we
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: look at this, you know, sort of sort of movement,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: a couple of things come to mind. I mean, number one,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: the number one is just lamentable that the Catholic Church
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: didn't see that what they were doing were taking advantage
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: of these people in the selling of indulgences and all
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: of that weird stuff that was going on. It's just
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: unfortunate that they didn't recognize, Hey, this isn't appropriate. These
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: building projects in Rome are not worth people's souls, Like
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: we really can't bind and loose people out of purgatory.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think a lot of what Luther addresses
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: in the ninety five theses we know him for that
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: sort of justification by faith alone, which is really crucial
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: and important. But I think that his ninety five theses,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: what he's trying to get at it is, Look, you're
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: claiming an authority that you don't actually have, and you
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: need to pull it back in. And that's really through
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: those ninety five thess. That's all I hear him saying
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: over and over and over and over. How we're going
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: to simplify those ninety five thess. That's sort of what
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: I would say. You've overreached your authority and you need
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: to bring it back in governed by the scriptures. Maybe
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: that's his full message, not just the ninety five theeces.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: But I think that's fair. The problem is how do
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: you do that right?
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: And especially since yeah, especially since the church isn't admitting
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: that they're doing something wrong, right, I mean, that's the
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: crux of it.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: And in fairness, the Roman Church did try to clean
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: their house after the fact. I mean, they did go back,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: they eliminated indulgent sellers, they addressed a lot of this corruption.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: But to at that point, you know, yeah, the train
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: was out of the station. But yeah, I mean, how
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: do you have authority without it being papal?
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: That's right, that's.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: And and there had been a movement, and the movement
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: was what was called conciliarism. We're going to put authority
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: in the councils rather than the popes, and and early
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: on people like Erasmus were hoping that's where Luther was going.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: But when Luther started banging scripture alone, that's when they
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: started going, this is going well beyond where we wanted
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: it to go. And at that point, uh and and
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: you know, Luther, just as popes and councils have airred
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: in the past.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's an interesting So when I look at
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: the Reformation and what Luther does, he makes sort of
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: a classical mistake that we see in organizations. An awful
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: lot organizations right policies, and they have these policy books
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: and they say, Okay, this is what's going to govern
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: our institution, this is what's going to govern our organization.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: But they can't actually enforce those things. This, to me
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: is what Luther does with the Catechism. If you can't
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: get people to follow the Catechism, to live within it,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: within those constraints, you really the Catechism is now a
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: passive instrument. As good as it is, it's a passive instrument.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: It almost becomes I mean, I almost hate to make
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: this parallelism, but it comes like the law. The law
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: is good because God gave it, and it expresses, you know,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: an attempt to curtail sin and the point to goodness,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: truth and beauty. Now, however we want to frame that,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: but it's weak because it can't deal with human sin.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: And I think the Catechism falls short on that round.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Whereas if you went to a different system where they're
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: a clear line of authority that can execute some things
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: you do have at least you might say a better
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: shot at it. It's still not going to be perfect,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: You're still going to deal with some things. But I
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: do think that the way Luther ended up with this
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: is problematic. It creates a lot of problems. I shouldn't
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: say it's problematic, it creates different problems that we're available
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: in the Catholic Church. And then the second thing, I
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: just want to say that I appreciate about what you explained.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Even when I've looked at the peasant revolts, I sort
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: of framed that in terms of there's one denomination going
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: against another denomination when I when you described it at
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: this time around, I'm thinking now more like David Koresh
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: and you know, really fringe crazy movements that are are
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: you know, just sort of gathering mobilizing people to do something,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: but there's no real structure or even feel logical weight
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: or reasoned biblical interpretation around these things. It's just let's
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: let's like wind people up and see what happens.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would, I would say, James, there, what you've
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: got is a spectrum on this stuff. Okay, so you
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: know some of them. What happens in the Kingdom of
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Munster is krisnipic fringe, what happens in with Thomas Munzer
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: is lunatic fringe. And then you've got some Yeah, everybody
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: believes that Jesus is coming back. Christians get nutty around
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: big round numbers. Okay, it's fifteen hundred, fifteen thirty three. Oh,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: it's been fifteen. Jesus died thirty three. Oh, you know
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Jesus is coming back. Yeah, there is so much turmoil
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: in the world. Muslims are at the gates of Vienna,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: on and on and on and on and on. This
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: has to be the end of the world. So so
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: God is going to do something radical. And so you
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: know that that's in the water. There's apocalyptic thing is
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: in the water. That's part of this. And the other
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: part of this is you've been You've had massive social
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: upheaval because of the Black Death. You know, we have
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: no idea. I was reading numbers last night. I think
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: it was somewhere between fifteen and seventy five million they estimate. Wow,
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Europeans died and the numbers are just stunning. Places like Siena.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: I believe it is a seventy percent seven zero percent.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: So the social disruption, all the structures of society that
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: provide order.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Are just estimated.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: So you've got you've got multiple layers of chaos, and
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: we know what that does in terms of charismatic leaders,
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: apocalyptic sorts of messages, on and on and on. So
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: all of this was it's an you could see it
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: coming in that sense.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really an interesting I mean I remember going
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: through Luther's house and reading that even he thought they
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: were living in the end times, you know. And so
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: you can understand why because if we just look back
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: in our recent past, we've had the COVID pandemic and
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: all that kind of good stuff. And while there wasn't
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: there may have been some religious fervor that I just
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: sort of missed, right, But you know, I didn't get
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: the sense that people really pointed to this as the
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: apocalypse or something like that necessarily, but you did get
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of charismatic leaders coming out and swaying things
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: one way or another. And in a context where there's
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: so much complexity and so much chaos that you really
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: can't identify what is true or what is not because
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: the information is constantly swinging out to you, you know,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: sort of moment by moment. The people who are going
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: to take advantage of that and and be surer than
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: they ought to be sure in a moment. And so
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: it's just an interesting way to frame I think, and
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: try to look back and go, this is the turmoil
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: that these Germans were experiencing, that sort of societal discomfort,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: complete instability, and now they're also trying to navigate their
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: religious convictions alongside that. And I think it's even crazier
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: that most of these people probably again, correct me if
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong, but Luther's just translated the Bible into English.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: It's not like these folks were you know, steeped in
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: into German. I'm sorry, yeah, just really into German. But
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: it's not like these folks were steeped in scripture and
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: they were were illiterate, right, So, I mean it's one
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: thing for for the Luther to say, you know, my
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: conscious self captive by the Word of God. It's another
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: thing for just you know, Joe Jerman on the street
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: to say it, because he probably he hasn't read it,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: and if he has, he's just started.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're if you're looking at a population where
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: eighty percent of the mirror are illiterate, you know that
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: that's the problem. We like to say things like the
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Roman Catholics kept the Bible from the people, Well, you
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: don't have to keep it from him if they can't read, right,
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that that's completely untrue, but I'm saying, yeah.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: It's a factor we have to take into account exactly exactly. Yeah, yeah,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can distribute it all you want, but
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: if it can't be read and understood. You know who
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: is a Philip right in the Ethiopian yep, right, how
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: well I know what it says. If no, there's no
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: one here to teach me kind of thing, and he
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: can read it, and he can read it. Yeah, he
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: was literate and he's still needed to teach her. So
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: I think this helps with the dynamics of what happens
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: post Reformation, and we'll we'll kind of leave it there
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: and we'll transition in and then next episode talking a
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: little bit about the we could call it the tradition
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: that emerges from Protestantism, the souls, and how these ultimately
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: sort of start to frame the trajectory of the Protestant
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Church or the Protestant churches, however we want to phrase that,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: But that becomes the core really of our tradition. So
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: that's we'll address the next time. So again, Greg, thanks
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: for being here, and everybody else we'll catch on the
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: next episode of Thinking Christian. Take care. I just want
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: to take a second to thank the team at Life
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast.
• 31:35
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• 31:37
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• 31:40
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