Reformation Day 2008

The more studying I'm doing in church history, the more and more appreciation I have for the history of the church. The church fathers were only men, like me, who did amazing things for their God, my God. The strength of the church, the boldness of the men and the clarity of their view of theology and doctrine are filling a hole in my life right now. Today is another evidence.

Growing up, I knew very little of Martin Luther. Going to a Christian school, I might have been taught something about him, but it wasn't a big deal and wasn't treated as a big deal. He was just a dude.

I get into Christian college and some of his history came up. More of this was taught to me at Lancaster Bible College (probably due to the number of reformed prof's I had). I began to hear of this radical who stood up to the church and it's corruption. I did some reading and caught the old movie (from the 50's) on Luther. Then the new version came out...wow. The more I understood what he was saying and the more I understood the danger of the thing he was doing, the more I liked him. The more I see his attitude and the almost holy arrogance that he showed became an inspiration to me.

Today, we aren't dealing with the church selling indulgences to build a great cathedral. Today, the church is faced with a comfortable gospel, a lack of church discipline, a fear of losing numbers due to teaching doctrine, a broadening of the narrow way, a product driven church, pastors who are more interested in reading business books than their Bibles, and churches full of spiritual infants.
This reformation day, I find myself looking more and more for the next Martin Luther who will come in and shake up the American church. I am really scared with the climate in our country and our day and age as to where our church is going. If the church were reduced to small home churches, I think a lot of Christians would fall away because they probably weren't Christians. I think we have turned sermons into self-help and therapy sessions, Jesus is a loving caring nice dad who isn't judgmental, and the Bible is a reference tool to back up what we're teaching rather than the Bible being central. Martin Luther would have a hay-day in our modern church.

Wake us up Lord. The 95 Theses of Martin Luther