The Reformation

A number of things that the people at the time of the reformation were reacting against came from the early church. It takes quite a long time for bad habits to become traditions and traditions to become heresy.
We need to have a look back to the early church to understand the conditions in the church at the time of the reformation.
As we look at the period of the reformation, we are looking at the early 16th century. In the year 1517 something really quite insignificant happened.
A young monk by the name of Martin Luther got stirred about things that were happening in the neighbour district. He decided that it was time that academics get together to discuss the value of indulgences, which was really selling salvation.
He was quite fed-up with what was going on. He had already preached some sermons about this and he wasn’t the first person to do so. But he wrote out a kind of agenda. He put some statements down on paper. There were 95 of them in all. He nailed this agenda to the university notice board, which turned out to be the church door. It was a pubic notice that he had written by hand in Latin, so the common people couldn’t understand it.
Within two weeks though, it was translated into German and printed in many editions. It became a manifesto of what we then called “The Reformation”. The German people got hold of it and it became more than a manifesto for a religious reform, it was a manifesto for a social reform too. It articulated for common people what they were feeling, particularly about Roman and Papal domination.
We must ask the question about how this little insignificant act of an unknown monk in a town that was the back of beyond; change the course of (religious) history?

What were the circumstances that made it possible?

We have to go back in history to the 4th century, to 312ad to a place called Milvine Bridge. A Roman Emperor or one of a series of Roman Emperors (by this time the emperors were generals and most of them weren’t even Romans, they were Germans), they were doing battle for dominance of the Roman Empire. Constantine was facing a decisive battle against overwhelming odds. This is myth/legend/truth, we don’t really known and it is difficult to find out so many centuries later.
The night before the battle, he was praying to his deity and he says he saw in the sky a cross and heard the words, “in this sign conquer”. This is how the story goes, so the next day his soldiers go into battle each with the sign of a cross and he won this decisive battle. From that time onwards, he began to show favouritism to the church, which had just been persecuted for the last eight years. This was a horrible persecution.
He saw the church as a way of unifying the empire. From Constantine onwards it went from favouritism to making Christianity state religion.
Therefore, anyone who was within the Roman Empire became a Christian. Conquered nations then become Christian nations. What we see from the early 4th century is that people become Christian because they are part of the empire and not because they have been born again of God. So there is a watering down of the gospel.
Constantine’s successors in the main linked the church with the state. The Roman deities were or had been the objects of worship, so Christianity became the state religion. Constantine mixed everything up. So we have the sun-god and that’s were Sunday comes from.
Once we start talking about Christian nations or towns, we are moving into an unbiblical realm. You can’t have Christian nation. You can have a nation that has been greatly influenced by Christians and even where the majority of the population are Christian. There is no such thing as a Christian nation; we are one new man in Christ, made up of many nations.
The linking of church with the state watered down the Christian gospel.
When things like this are done, there is always a reaction. So you come across those who want a purer gospel, they want a biblical church. It is at this time that we meet some people called the Donatists. They were led by a man called Donata. As with every movement, this too wasn’t pure.
Whenever you study the breakaway movements or the radical movements, there are always elements that you won’t be easy with. They also get mixed up with politics. You can never say that these people were pure in doctrine because there was always a mixture. If you don’t understand this, you get a wrong idea and particularly from the early church.
So from the time of the Donatists onwards, you get this reaction. Up until the 4th century you find the Romans persecuting the church, now you have the church persecuting the church. Constantine raises an army against the Donatists and they fight. So now we have the beginning of religious wars, which goes right back to that time.
When you link the church together with the state and the church gets involved in politics as many of these leading Christians did. They occupied important positions in the state – this always leads to corruption.
As Christians get involved with politics, there is a lot of competition. Bishops vied against bishops. This corruption comes into the church and you have reactions to that.
During this time, we have the beginnings of the monastic movement. That is those wanting to get back to the more pure kind of Christianity. It started with people who wanted to separate themselves from the world. True Christianity of course is not separating yourself from the world but separating yourself for Christ to get back into the world. This was a separating from the world, less the world defiles me.
There are some weird people at this time, e.g. the “Pillar saints.” They lived on top of pillars; they thought that if they could be on the top of a pillar, they would not be contaminated by the world.
Some of the early bishops lived in caves, a bit like hermits. Others began to gather around them and out of that began what we call the monastic movement. Their motives were good. It was to take the gospel and serve poor people. They took vows, but they took them voluntary, there was no pressure put on them. But as these things developed, they developed differently than a local church.
At the end of the day, if you do not build on the right foundation, it goes wrong; it must go wrong because there will come stresses and pressures that the foundation can’t take.
So then you get the vows of poverty and chastity and the call to celibacy.
In the medieval period there are all kinds of reactions, but you haven’t got a reaction in the way that we would look at church.