Not by Idols

Reformations: Churches in the 16C Essay 2019

The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century moulded modern Europe. It shattered the Western Christendom in two, then three, then into countless denominations of Christianity. By upsetting the status quo, the Reformation challenged people’s perception of themselves and the world, eventually forcing governments to grant new religious freedoms. Two prominent figures included the well-known Martin Luther, credited with being the father of the Reformation, and his colleague-turned-rival, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt. The Reformation was the realisation of great opposition against Roman Catholic corruption that had only become more apparent and problematic over time. Several attempts has been made to reform the Church, however none had successfully challenged Church practice until Luther’s 95 Theses sparked a vast movement leading to schism. Luther argued that reliance upon works for salvation, or anything aside from faith, was a shortcoming of the Catholic Church that led believers astray. He also questioned Church Tradition and held that scripture alone should be the basis for all Church doctrine. Inspiring a radical iconoclasm, Karlstadt put great emphasis upon the dangers and seriousness of idolatry within the Church. Much of the Reformation, as evident via Luther and Karlstadt’s positions, was encouraged and united by a rejection of the papacy as having spiritual authority over believers.

The Church taught that doing good works would help one gain entrance into heaven. Martin Luther was very devout and often suffered from spiritual crisis and a sense of unworthiness, confessing endlessly. He feared that no matter how “good” he tried to be, he would still have sinful thoughts and never merit the salvation necessary for heaven. Whilst in Wittenberg, Germany, Luther found liberation in Romans 1:17, where Paul wrote, “The righteous shall live by faith.” In other words, salvation comes through faith, as we can never be good enough to merit our own salvation. Luther’s interpretation of faith alone conflicted with the Church when a monk named Johann Tetzel came to Wittenberg selling indulgences. An indulgence was a Papal certificate that reduced due punishment in Purgatory in exchange for a good work or money for a good cause. Luther saw this as a dismissal of true repentance and faith, and in 1517, he nailed his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of Castle Church. The document, in which he writes, “It is vain to trust in salvation by indulgence letters,” contained an outline of the concept of faith alone and a criticism of the selling of indulgences. Luther would also deny that the sacraments were a means of attaining grace or salvation. Such a claim was slanderous in the eyes of the Church, which put great emphasis upon the importance of the seven sacraments – particularly the Eucharist, which had a large role in the Catholic mass. This doctrine of “faith alone” would fuel the concept of a priesthood of all believers – that those who have faith have direct access to God’s grace. This promotion, of the redundancy of human mediators, undermined the purpose and authority of the Pope and hierarchical church. The Ninety-Five Theses sparked a controversy and Pope Leo X would send Johanne Eck, a skilled Catholic theologian, to contest Luther and portray him as a heretic. Peter Marshall comments that Luther eventually came to the conclusion that, “if the Church and pope could or would not reform an evident abuse like indulgences, then something must be wrong with the entire structure of authority and theology.” Debate would further radicalise Luther, and he would later write, in The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, more aggressively against indulgences, sacraments and the papacy – particularly in relation to salvation. Still faithful to Church Tradition to some extent, Luther originally had no intention of causing a schism and had hoped that the Church would reform. He believed that there was only one way of interpreting scripture, and that once the Church had seen the truth, they would reform. However, his attempt to correct church doctrine was rejected repeatedly, and only led to increased tension and divide. Luther was called to recant, but he refused, and, even during his most radical, he continued to pray that the Church would improve. Luther’s belief in faith alone became his most central doctrine and fuelled his rejection of any other human person, practice or paper that claimed to have saving power. Luther has been attributed with saying that justification by faith alone is “the article with and by which the church stands,” and in Commentary on Galatians, he elaborates that, “once we lose our belief in justification, all true Christian doctrine is lost.” Luther rejected five of the seven Catholic sacraments, the necessity of a human mediator (ie the priesthood), and the spiritual power of the Church. It was when Luther emphasised and applied faith alone that he began to identify inadequacies within the Church. His attempts to correct these issues were met with hostile opposition, and so he started a movement in favour of his doctrine.

The Catholic Church put a great emphasis upon Sacred Tradition that, as Martin Luther might argue, was appraised at the expense of true scriptural interpretation. Contrary to popular belief, the medieval Church was strongly biblical and scripture was looked to as a kind of encyclopedia. However, simple laypeople were often discouraged from reading the Bible for themselves, as the Church desired that there would be no inaccurate or opposing interpretations. This discouragement would prove rather effective, as the printing press was yet to be invented and medieval literacy was relatively low – not many, outside of the clergy, could read Latin (the language of the Vulgate, used by the Church). This belief that there was only one true way to interpret scripture accompanied Luther’s desire to translate the Bible into the vernacular. He hoped that, having read scripture for themselves, the laypeople would agree with Luther and encourage the Church to reform. However, this only led to a vast array of interpretation, doctrinal debate and schism. Luther argued, in his Ninety-Five Theses, that “the true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel.” This implied an opposition to the equal authority of Church Tradition. Marshall writes that, “Catholics appealed to the authority of the Church; Protestants to that of the bible.” The Reformation brought scripture into the private home, and the sermon was the focal point of the Protestant church service. The Church believed that Catholic Tradition was the work of the Holy Spirit. The Decree concerning the Canonical Scriptures, a product of the Council of Trent, stated that “truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions.” During the medieval era, the line between human tradition and Sacred Tradition was blurred, and as such, Protestants denied the validity of all traditions. Tradition was believed to be demonstrated in the Church’s teaching authority, who were endowed with Jesus’ and the apostles’ oral teachings, accompanied by the authority to correctly interpret scripture. Luther argued that the Bible was understandable on its own, without Tradition. In The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Luther wrote that whatever is not scriptural “may be held as opinion, but need not be believed.” This conclusion fostered a rejection of transubstantiation, five of the seven sacraments, the celibacy of clergy, and the temporal power of the Pope. The corruption of the Church was well known, and the Pope would often abuse both his spiritual and temporal powers. To question Church doctrine was discouraged, however Luther strongly believed that the laypeople deserved to have their questions answered, as they were often quite reasonable. To avoid these questions and silence the curiosity of people was, as Luther would write in his Ninety-Five Theses, “to expose the church and the pope to the ridicule of their enemies and to make Christians unhappy.” Luther’s case for scripture alone would fuel his belief in a “priesthood of believers,” and as such, the rejection of an interpreter or mediator between Christians and God (ie God’s Word), such as clergy and the Church’s teaching authority in Tradition. His belief that humanity was inherently evil and unworthy/unable to save themselves from damnation may have promoted an element of distrust toward human teaching and oral preservation, contributing to Luther’s rejection of Church Tradition in favour of the authority of God’s written Word alone. There was merit in his distrust, given the medieval corruption. Luther, however, still maintained certain Tradition-derived practices, and one might believe that he should have gone further.

The medieval Church placed the veneration of relics at the centre of devotion. A relic was, and is, the physical remains of a saint (or holy person) along with other objects which have been “sanctified” due to having touched the body. Catholics believed that to “venerate” (Latin origin, venerat, “adored, revered”) and to “worship” (English definition, “show reverence and adoration”) were actions distinguishable from each other, despite being synonymous terms, and as such, it wasn’t regarded as idolatry. Protestants did not share this view, arguing that “veneration” still credits reverence to something besides God, and is therefore idolatry. Images, in the form of statues and paintings, were said to be for the benefit of the illiterate – they could learn Biblical stories visually. It was also believed that relics had the power to reduce a person’s time in Purgatory. Because the Church summarised the first of the Ten Commandments in the form of, “I am the Lord your God. You shall not have other gods beside me,” it was easy to forget or dismiss the following, “You shall not make any graven images… you shall not bow yourself down to them.” Protestants believed that this omission was far too convenient/suspicious in the light of the Church’s heavy emphasis on relics. The separation of this command into two separate commandments became yet another discerning trait of the Protestants. Andreas von Karlstadt was a professor of the University of Wittenberg and helped Luther reform theological studies. He was a major supporter of Luther before gradually becoming more radical and calling for quicker and more thorough reform – particularly in regard to the disposal of idols. In Whether One Should Proceed Slowly, Karlstadt writes that, “where we find images, we should remove them.” He states that, “idols are more dangerous to the Christendom than whorehouses,” and as such, “blessed is he who tears away from his brother what causes his ruination.” Karlstadt inspired a radical iconoclasm whilst Luther was being hiding at Wartburg Castle from 1521 to 1522. He encouraged the destruction of every kind of image and many churches were demolished. He would later leave Wittenberg and do the same thing in Orlamünde. Karlstadt was a classic case of identifying the problem and producing an insufficient solution. Sergiusz Michalski writes that “Karlstadt unquestionably had the least tactical sense.” His intention to remove relics, in which existed as a temptation for idolatry, was good – as this was perceivably a genuine issue of the time. However, Karlstadt totally neglected any kind of good that came out of images – such as acting as a reminder, and acting as the book of the illiterate. The activity of creating art could even be considered a form of worshipping and giving glory to God. Karlstadt, as a Spiritualist, held that external images could obscure and distort the true image of God, thereby endangering the soul. He feared that faith, and therefore justification, would secure itself to outer images instead of the inner image of God, which is the image of Christ. During the Council of Trent, the Council, for the most part, simply reaffirmed its doctrine. However, they indicated that church officials had to be careful in promoting the correct use of images to avoid idolatry. It was a small alteration, but an alteration nonetheless. Karlstadt’s attempt to address the perceived inadequacy of a condoned idolatry within the Church was controversial and straightforward at best. The Protestant concern was valid, and many other reformers (eg Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin) also took action, though Karlstadt’s particular method of addressing the issue was, fair to say, tactless, though to many, necessary.

The medieval Catholic Church was in desperate need of reform. Since the Reformation, the Church has acknowledged the value of certain Protestant ideas and has adapted them into their doctrine. Luther’s “faith alone” has been wholly adopted, made official by the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1999. The Church has become more careful regarding issues of idolatry, however is still far from resembling the majority of Protestant convictions about images. The concept of Sacred Tradition remains strong, in the Church, as being of equal authority to God’s written Word – thus the concept of “scripture alone” persists as an exclusively Protestant doctrine, within Christianity. Both Martin Luther and Andreas von Karlstadt perceived flaws in the medieval Church and sought to correct them – through either doctrinal debate or rapid action. Whether their efforts contributed to the changes seen today is uncertain, though likely. Some tension still exists between the denominations that reformed and the denominations that did not, however there is a much greater level of acceptance and tolerance than that of the medieval era. Justifiably, it is every Christian’s hope that there will eventually be a united Christendom under the truth of Jesus Christ.

Catholic Answers. 2019. “Scripture and Tradition.” Catholic Answers. https://www.catholic.com/tract/scripture-and-tradition.

“Concerning the Canonical Scriptures.” The Council of Trent. http://www.thecounciloftrent.com/ch4.htm.

Karlstadt, Andreas. 2014. “Whether One Should Proceed Slowly.” In The Reformation to the Modern Church, edited by Keith D Stanglin. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Luther, Martin. 1998. “Commentary on the Epistle to The Galatians.” Translated by Theodore Graebner. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1549/1549-h/1549-h.htm.

Luther, Martin. 2014. “Ninety-Five Theses.” In The Reformation to the Modern Church, edited by Keith D Stanglin. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Luther, Martin. 2014. “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church.” In The Reformation to the Modern Church, edited by Keith D Stanglin. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Marshall, Peter. 2009. The Reformation: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Marley, Gearoid S. “The Veneration of Relics.” Banner of Truth UK. https://banneroftruth.org/uk/resources/articles/2015/the-veneration-of-relics/.

Michalski, Sergiusz. 1993. Reformation and the Visual Arts: The Protestant Image Question in Western and Eastern Europe. London: Routledge. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Roth, John D, and Stayer, James, eds. 2006. A Companion to Anabaptism and Spiritualism, 1521-1700. Boston: BRILL. ProQuest Ebook Central.