Why We Are Still Protestant

This year marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s nailing of the 95 theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany.  This act in itself was relatively conventional: he was essentially initiating a debate about the use and abuse of indulgences in the Roman Catholic Church.  But the pastoral concerns of this small-town professor set ablaze Europe with the flames of Reformation.

Within a short time it was clear that Luther’s concerns had implications far beyond indulgences and relics; they went to the heart of the medieval Roman church.  In the years immediately following the publication of his famous theses, Luther had occasion to engage in other highly significant debates on some of these implications.  It was in Heidelberg in 1518 that Luther made it clear that humility was the key to salvation and theology.  In Leipzig, about a year later, Luther declared that the decrees of the pope and of the church deserved close scrutiny; some were indefensible.  

In 1520, Luther wrote treatises challenging the church’s view on the sacraments, on justification and good works, and on the relationship between the civil authorities and the authority of the church.  During the next year, Luther was summoned to appear before the Imperial Diet of Worms in a last-ditch attempt to get him to recant.  He did not.

In further years Luther would turn his attention to the translation of the Bible into German, to the thorny problem of how a congregation freed from the grip of Rome should worship and operate, and to the perennial questions related to Christian work and the Christian family.  

These kinds of questions and many more had to be addressed by Luther and the other early Reformers.  This should remind us that the reform set in motion 500 years ago this October has a number of far reaching implications.  While individual Christians might boil down the core of Protestantism to one or two major points, the reality was and is far more complex.  

Over the next few weeks, across all of the websites of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, we’ll be surveying many aspects of the Protestant cause.  Some of the articles will be historical in nature, giving further detail about the specific figures, events, and debates that shaped the early years after the break from Rome.  Some will be theological, bringing clarity to the animating ideas that drove Luther and so many others to pursue the truth of the gospel at great personal cost to themselves.  Some will be polemical, making the case explicitly that what was true then is true today.    

Our hope is that this series will renew your interest in the Reformation and its implications.  But more than renewing interest, we pray that the posts will awaken in you a greater conviction of the importance of this great work of God in the history of the church.  

Sometimes the nature of Reformed theology has been summarized by the so-called five solas of the Reformation.  These five Latin slogans could be translated as: the Bible alone; grace alone; faith alone; in Christ alone; to the glory of God alone.  Ultimately this series of articles, and every article we publish, has one final end in mind: that God would be glorified.  As we look back to God’s great and gracious work 500 years ago, may God be pleased to use this series to bring about a Reformed awaking in today’s church.