The Reformation Today, and Then

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:29

And greetings welcome to the dividing line it is a Tuesday and given that I travel on Thursday to Dallas Might extend this one out to I think we can go to about about 1110 you said you had to leave after that So we'll see

00:48

It'll be it'll be a challenge one way or the other let's try to get all in But be that as it may a lot to get to today

00:57

I was trying to get stuff put together here real quick and Edddddd Try still trying to grab one thing here that I thought

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I had opened and I didn't unfortunately Try you know trying to remember what

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Kinds of Abbreviations you used many many many many many many years ago is hard to Hard to do, but I thought this would be easy to open but since I well

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I do have it on my phone I suppose if I can't find a computer I can use it on my phone Anyways, we'll try to get to that You'll see me since it's hard to hide anything when you have a camera and you're looking for something here but Delete that My files

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Modified Ascending that's close enough We'll see if that works.

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Anyway, um People in channel asking for a link to the dividing line if they would like to watch if we're still working

02:16

Right there on the website. Yes. Well Okay Just telling you what they're saying.

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If you don't want them to listen, that's okay. You know, it's alright, you know, I understand perfectly anyway a

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Couple things to get to today. I'm gonna try to tie them all together. It won't be easy to do Be well, let me go over them and you'll see what

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I mean One of the topics that we addressed on The lost dividing line, we've we've pretty much covered them gone back over them all except for one and That was an article

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That appeared on pulpit and pen Back in September now, this would be

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September 16th nail your confession to Roman Catholic door this

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Reformation season It's by the News division wink wink and Which is what pulpit and pen uses when they don't really want to tell you who actually is writing it

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But it is Pulpit and pen will like to encourage you to take part in Reformation Day celebration of the season by nailing your confession of faith to your

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Local Roman Catholic Church door. Yes, you read that, right? and It goes on to have an extensive discussion of the

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Pope as the Antichrist and Things like that and then a lengthy discussion of how

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Not to get yourself thrown in the who's cow Feel free to attack it the

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Roman Catholic Church bulletin board. It fulfills the spirit of Luther, but might not be nearly as gratifying Use a small fishing nail or attack if you choose to put on the door

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Try not to damage property by any meaningful definition of the term damage Place it near the crease the door in the grain.

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So the tiny hole will is not noticeable once removed Fourth don't do it anonymously put your name on it as Luther did

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You should provide a short note about why you were doing this. You are still protesting Be prepared to be charged with a misdemeanor for vandalism and lengthy discussion of the technical definition of vandalism and All the rest of that stuff, um, look

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Just just a couple thoughts about that I I would not recommend nailing anything to anybody's door

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Especially because that's not what Luther was doing Luther's act was not an act of protest

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Now if you happen to be a professor at a university and would like to challenge

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Roman Catholic professors to debate The nature of grace as seen in the doctrine of indulgences.

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Well Okay then the modern equivalent of that would be posting such a series of Possible debate theses on Facebook or the internet or something along those lines, but that's what

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Luther was doing He viewed himself as a faithful son of the church he did not yet view the Pope as the

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Antichrist or anything like that at that particular point in time and this was nothing more than a professor at the rather young still young and upstart

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University of Wittenberg was started in 1510 as I recall. So it's only seven years Challenging some of the big boys like the

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University of Leipzig where they eventually did have the debate To to engage in debate on this particular subject so all the

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All the stuff that you see right now, especially in October of 2017 about Luther protesting the term protestant that comes out of the second diet of spire in 1529 so you're talking 12 years.

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We got 12 years before the term Protester or Protestant will actually have its 500th anniversary and that was a technical term.

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It was a legal term at the first diet of spire in 1526 The Lutherans outnumbered the

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Roman Catholics and so they gave freedom within the Empire The diet is the Holy Roman Empire.

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It's sort of a congressional meeting. It might be a good idea to only have Congress meet every few years

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Man all of our rights would be significantly more safe as would our pocketbooks. But anyway

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In 1526 freedom was given to people in the Holy Roman Empire to allow for Reformation worship, but then in 1529 with Charles present the

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Roman Catholics were in the majority and they rescinded all of that and they reaffirmed the condemnation of Luther from the

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Diet of Worms in 1521 and So there was a clause in the legal documents of The Empire that allowed for a protest on the part of the minority

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Against the actions of the majority and so at the second diet of spire 1529 these individuals protested the political actions taken by the

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Roman Catholic majority At that particular point in time and that's what the term

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Protestant came from and it had deeply heavily Political aspect to it at that particular point in time and it's it's almost a

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Negative thing that that's the terminology that is used today Catholic and Protestant Given the origination and the background and stuff like that, but that's that's the reality that's what it's about but Luther wasn't protesting anything in the sense of He saw himself as a faithful son of the church.

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He saw indulgences as an abuse. He was not alone in this there were many people Who found the indulgence sales just as so much of what was going on the church that day to be exceptionally offensive and outside the realm of the tradition of the church and things like that and so if you do

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Want to do something for this Reformation season, may I suggest That you do something that would actually be effective

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You know as mentioned in the article, you know leave a tract on the door Well, you know you can roll one of those things up put it inside the you know

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If it's got a latch on the door or something like that, you can you can use a rubber band You can do something that's not gonna get you called by the cops for Vandalism, but may

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I suggest Making it a worthwhile track One that has some some meaning to it

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I Am concerned that a lot of what I'm seeing from my Protestant brethren at this time of year

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Especially this this year Simply repeating mantras and not recognizing that there was something called the

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Council of Trent there was something called the counter -reformation You had You know

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Rome wasn't didn't sit on its thumbs and and do nothing for the past 500 years

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So many today have little knowledge of Roman Catholic apologetics and little knowledge of the arguments that they present and so if you present a very standardized argument

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That does not take into consideration, you know Catholic answers and St.

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Joseph communication and all the rest that kind of stuff that is out there today You're not really gonna be accomplishing a whole lot in 1993 we went up to Denver, Colorado to the

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World Youth Day We handed out a track. I was gonna show you to even evidently don't have any

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But we handed out a track Called the pillar and foundation of truth, which was specifically designed

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To address The claims that were being made by Roman Catholics at that point in time

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So it it takes their claims and provided early church father citations and all sorts of things like that that you know

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Demonstrated that we too have not just been sitting around since 1517 and that there has been a growth in our understanding of what

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Roman Catholicism teaches and we're keeping up with their apologetics and and And stuff like that.

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So I'd suggest making sure it's not something like a for spiritual laws, which is not going to communicate anything In that in that context, you might want to find something a little more relevant at that point

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Speaking of which I listened to a Well, it was actually called a debate

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It was supposed to just be sort of a testimony type thing, but I found it interesting that You know years and years and years and years ago.

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I've told the story many times I The phone in my office rang and we had had to change the number just recently we had had people calling and this was this was back in the days of Cassette tape answering machines okay, so we're talking a long time ago and so we'd actually had the number changed in this the number number phone rings and I pick it up and and there's this jovial voice on the other side that says

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Hi, I'm Chris Arnson of WMCA radio And I'd like to talk to you about coming out to New York to do a debate against Jerry Matitix And it gets quiet for a second

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The first thing I said was how did you get this number? Oh Well, I think

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I think Bill Webster had given it to him if I recall correctly and So Given that Chris ended up organizing

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Ten or called the great debates that went on for a decade and other debates

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Besides that I mean my first debate with a Muslim I don't consider it my first Muslim debate as I've said many times but my first debate with a

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Muslim was organized on Long Island and the debate with Saban from the

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One that's Pentecostal Church That was that was also put together by Chris.

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So Chris put together a lot of debates on on Long Island over the years and So I You know, we arranged that that first debate and that was with Jerry Matitix So it's where we did the

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Marian dogmas. We did soul scriptura the next year then we did Paco on the papacy and You know

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Syngenis got involved and Madrid and you know pretty much everybody and So it's it's ironic you know after all of that I started going overseas in 2005 and I forget when

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I was first on the unbelievable radio broadcast with Justin Brierley but lo and behold just recently

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Chris Arnzen was on unbelievable Chris is a former

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Roman Catholic and that was sort of what had gotten all that started because he was at one of these Get -togethers were

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Catholics and Protestants talk That's an interfaith dialogue. Oh No, that's what led to all those debates and all those

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Roman Catholics getting saved. Anyway Chris went on with a

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You know The guy was an Anglican who became Roman Catholic. Sorry in England That's not that big of a of a jump.

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It really really really isn't if you're sort of a liberal Yeah, Anglican you become

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Roman Catholic. I'm sorry. That's not quite the same thing But anyway a guy named James Bogle Who's a barrister a trial attorney and Oh, I guess the cameras over here now, hi,

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I've been ignoring you all looking off in the other other direction Anyway They went on and it turned into a into a mini debate

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For you know, obviously solo scriptura and issues like that there were there were a tremendous number of Straw men thrown out by mr.

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Bogle and Justin's already said hey, you know next time you're over, you know

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We could do round two and and I'd be happy to correct all these straw men, but I'll just be perfectly honest with you

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You know just as there are Muslims at different levels of debating ability there are

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Roman Catholics at different levels of debating ability and In comparison to Peter D Williams Mr.

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Bogle was I just I would just like to think that Peter would not have made some of the really basic level misrepresentations that that James Bogle did but Who knows?

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but what I wanted to play for you is just one little section because I was I listened to it on a long ride on Saturday and I was listening this part and I was just like this continues to be said over and over again and and But it's something we need to be prepared to respond to if you're gonna engage with folks be prepared to Respond to it.

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So here's here's what he had to say. This would be a short one But but here's James Bogle and and listen to what he says at this particular this particular point if we're going to say well

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Then you the gospel arrives with Luther Throughout the history of Christianity There is a sort of remnant somewhere who believe what the

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Protestant reformers believed. Where is this remnant? Where is the evidence of it? The answer is there isn't one there is there were no people

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Perhaps you might say the the the Lollards or someone but before that time from the very beginning of Christianity There were no people believing what people like Luther and Calvin Melanchthon and the other reformers believed

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Now what was interesting was the next thing queued up on my iPod

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Was the I Got about halfway through The new book called a long before Luther Which is specifically on the early church

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Representation and witness in regards to issues regarding salvation wherein they did agree with Luther So I found that particularly interesting that that kind of statement would be would be made at that particular point in time, but what also

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Really Cut in to my thinking at that At that point was you can't possibly have ever listened to Luther or read any of Luther To come to the to the conclusion that Luther thought he was a

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Revolutionary that he was Presenting something absolutely novel that no one had ever believed before if you you know seriously take the time

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You will know that for example Melanchthon to whom Luther sort of committed a lot of At least a portion of the defense of his position on a scholarly level

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He had extremely high views of Melanchthon scholarship length of very young man 21 years old when he began teaching

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Greek at the University of Wittenberg But Melanchthon often is citing from John Chrysostom and Augustine and other people

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Like that in the early church in support of the Lutheran position and even in a later in later time in History what's called the

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Marburg Colloquy, which we'll get into at a later point in time Melanchthon and Luther are citing from patristic sources in defense of their position over against the

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Swiss reformers so even in in Inter Protestant inter reformed dialogue

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You know Calvin he had done his degree in Ancient legal literature so these people knew the the history of the church very very well and We're not sitting there going.

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Oh, we don't care what anybody before us believe. We've just come up with this on our own Their stress was upon the apostolic nature of Sola Fide or Sola Scriptura or whatever else it might be but They viewed themselves as clearing away

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Excess tradition they did not sit there and go. Oh, we've come up with something brand new They believed that there had been many before them who had in fact

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Believed in these things and so when you talk about Sola Scriptura That's why you have the the three volumes set from Bill Webster and David King.

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You've got Infallibility of the Church by Salmon. You've got Whitaker's work You have have so many of these major works that Thankfully are still available well have been put back into print really to be honest with they've been put back into print only over the past number of years, but they had fallen out of print but but Serious interactions with historical sources and things like that to to deal with the teachings the early church and and the development of or the evolution of dogma over over a period of time things like things like that, so It just it just struck struck me that mr.

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Bogle Has never done serious reading on the other side that that Pretty much all of his argumentations sounded like He was reading from Catholic answers, but not from not from both sides at the same time, which which is not unusual

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It's unusual I mean we have people are on our side that like I you know like I said before if you just repeat the old mantras

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You don't really keep up with what's going on That's going to be the result and it's it's it's a bad thing.

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So what does all that have to do with with our Where we're going today well it is the 10th of October in 2017 and There is a great deal of conversation going on right now regarding the

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Reformation and It's not from my perspective that I need to get in on that.

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I mean I spoke about it a Lot Well here in Germany standing there on the bus giving bus lectures and Speaking at incredible places.

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I mean the video won't be available for a few months, but but eventually we'll have the video up from Michael Fallon and the the team at sovereign and So you'll get to see lectures

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Recorded at the Vartberg Castle at Fritz Erba's cell in the

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South Tower at the Vartberg Castle at Worms with Josh Bice At the

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Reformation monument at Worms where I gave a small 5 -10 minute presentation

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And especially the sermon at the castle church the slush Kirka in In Wittenberg, so that stuff will be out there, so I don't feel any particular

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Compelling need to add to the stuff that's already there on that level, but What I do want to do is

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I'll be honest. I'm a little concerned about the the way in which

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The Reformation is being presented by many even even people on on the right side of things

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Sometimes present what can only be seen as a cartoonish view of the

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Reformation And we're certainly not the first generation to do it if you if you

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Spend some time in the Luther house in Wittenberg you can see how

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Even toward the end of Luther's life and certainly in the decades afterwards. There was this Hyper exaltation of Luther's bravery at Worms and and things like that and the the

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Elevation of Luther to a position that historically really

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Shouldn't necessarily be where we would go. And so, you know,

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I understand that a Comic -book style story of Luther is pretty much all most people have

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How many non Roman Catholic Individuals today how many how many quote -unquote

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Protestants today have actually read a meaningful a Meaningful biography of Luther Even Roland Baten's Here I Stand even even reading that would give you so much more of the of the historical background

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Very very few people and so as a result We are we are really left in a in a difficult situation in the sense that I think a lot of people

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If the if you embrace a a false narrative of the Reformation and then you encounter the truth about how much politics was involved and you encounter the truth of the fact that Luther had his character flaws and Zwingli had his history and his background and and Then you look at what at the fact that this was a

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Magisterial Reformation and what I mean by that is this was a Reformation of The the state church the the issue of sacralism or some people call it

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Constantinianism Where you have church and state connected to one another

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When you when you have that kind of thing a lot of people become disillusioned and I just I don't want to see that happen.

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I want to see an accurate Understanding on the part of people and you might say well, you know,

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I'm more interested in apologetic information regarding Islam or something like that okay, I Really think that there is a need

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Even if you're dealing with something which seems as separate as Islam to have a good solid historical understanding of where our own modern -day

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Denominations came from if if for no other reason than to give an explanation as to why we differ from one another but also

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Luther for example had a Quran Luther had a fascinating eschatology.

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This really freaks a lot of people out. I think there's only one kind of eschatology But Luther had a fascinating eschatology where he had a physical

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Antichrist and A spiritual Antichrist and the physical

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Antichrist were the Muslims Because Europe was at war with the with the

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Turks and They were threatening to overrun

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Vienna and and overrun of overrun

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Europe itself, so He Had the and the spiritual

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Antichrist, of course was the was the papacy Eventually, it wasn't you know You have to figure out where you are in Luther's life to figure out what he's focused upon at that particular point in time

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There's there's no question about it. Anyway, so I want to spend some time Between now and you know, we don't have to stop on October 31st.

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I'm gonna be in in Washington, I'm gonna be traveling to Washington on the 31st and you know the

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October 31st 2017 should be seen as the beginning of really more than a decade of Consideration of what happened 500 years ago

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I honestly think that there are dates more important than October 31st of 2017

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I think The Heidelberg disputation the

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Leipzig disputation diet of verms And Then Coming up in 2025 the 500th anniversary of the

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Peasants Revolt huge impact on Luther's thinking And then you you know, you've got a look at the

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Marburg holoquy The production of The Augsburg Confession and Then a few years later, you're looking at the conversion of John Calvin and we can start looking at at events in Calvin's life and and I think if I'm still around by then

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And I you know if I have a normal lifespan if I live as long as my dad has I should be

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We should have a big old celebration of the night that William Ferrell came to Calvin's Calvin's room

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Put the fear of God in him. I think that would be a be a I'm not sure how we do that celebration, but It'd be fun.

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And so all sorts of things we can be doing But it really there has to be a foundation laid and So I I would like to start by going back and and pointing out that Luther didn't just pop into existence

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There was there were There's some great movies

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When I got back to Germany, I watched the 2003 Luther movie and was shocked as a 2003

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Luther movie I thought it was a lot more recent than that, but 2003 is not that long ago, I guess but for some people it is anyway

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Real good movie up to the Vartburg Castle and then after that just goes all over the place it starts

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Squishing events together and stuff and up till then it's pretty accurate And then after that it just went went loopy but I guess that's they had to get it into a certain amount of time and that's what they had to do, but On YouTube you have

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Martin Luther Heretic The BBC's right at right an hour really really good

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Video to watch especially this time of year and So you look at those two and in both of them

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John Staupitz Luther's father confessor at at Erfurt extremely important in Directing Luther in the right direction.

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What do you do? With people like that. What do you do? I've been teaching through church history at PRBC.

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I talked about some of this on Sunday morning. What do you do? when you have

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People like Staupitz in history What do you do with people who lived before What we would call a great clarification of Biblical doctrine on certain topics

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Do you hold them the same standards we hold people to today? Is there a difference between ignorance of something and willful rejection of something?

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so many people want to Project our modern situation backwards into the distant past and force people to be judged on the basis of Things that they had never even heard of or Conclusions that were arrived that long before they were alive

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Based upon information they never had access to and So this is one of the one of the things that I really took umbrage in with Dave Hunt about was his willingness to Read the hearts and minds of men and women that lived long before he did and Dave was pretty old so but they still live long before he did and To engage in an exceptionally surface level

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Historiography and I just I Don't think we are fair and we do that We are not going to want to be judged in that way.

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And so we can't we can't do that to others so what we need to understand and sometimes people aren't willing to do this because well

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You know, I'll listen to the story of Luther that that's pretty much all I don't want to do anything more than that, you know

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Okay, maybe Calvin or something, but you know, just just give me the highlights Well, the problem is you get the highlights you never really gonna understand

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Why people did what they did and If you for example want to have any idea whatsoever about what happened with Miguel Cervantes in in Geneva You just you you you can't just jump into that and judge

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Cervantes or Calvin or the Swiss Canton's or Luther and Melanchthon who were also involved with with Well Melanchthon was not

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Luther, but the Lutheran movement You can't judge them by modern standards if you do

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You're gonna end up really not believing there was almost anybody who was a Christian before our modern day

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Which is an untenable position to take? and so What you have to do is you have to look backwards and Recognize What happened

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Prior to Luther coming on the scene to have some idea of why people believe what they believe for example

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No one at this time period even could even give

35:02

A serious thought to the idea of a free church because When you were born in such and such an area

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You're a Christian the tax rolls the state were the baptismal rolls the church and it had been that way for about a thousand years and so it all it just It always been that way.

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No one could remember a time when it was anything different and We look at the

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Thirty Years War and we look at all that this tremendous, you know, we look at Luther hiding in the

35:39

Vartburg Castle and and it says all Rome's terrible to try to kill him and use it

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And ten years later Lutheran states are imprisoning Anabaptists Why I Just can't believe that Lutherans forgot

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You know, I mean Luther is hiding from the political state and then then ten years later

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He's willing for the political state to persecute other people. How could you do that? Because he was a sacralist Because he was a sacralist and you as a non -sacralist

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Are looking back Excuse me, we're looking back and Judging him on a foundation that he didn't have and It's really easy for you to say well you should have

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But I just go would you have if everyone for a thousand years before you had believed the same thing?

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I mean, it's real easy for you to claim you would have I don't claim that for myself I don't know what I would have done, but I How far would

36:45

I have gone? Would I have had the bravery they had? I don't know but so much came before That ended up Creating the soil out of which the

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Reformation started and I've said in many of my presentations if I had been choosing

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Who to head this who to? to function as the match Or it's someone had well said that it's it's like the man climbing a

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Bell tower in the darkness and he Misses a step and he begins to fall and he reaches out for anything to to Arrest his his descent and he ends up grabbing the the rope to the bells and ends up Waking the entire the entire town

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Because the bells are ringing at at a ridiculous time in the morning Oh, that's what

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Luther was doing Luther was not trying to do anything. He he reached out

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Ended up starting something. He didn't intend to start and I Would have chosen so many different people

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Luther was not the systematizer and and certainly when you look at Luther at Marburg, you're not all that impressed and with his

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Incalcitrance and The fact that his incalcitrance was primarily motivated by politics

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So lots of things to be extremely extremely Thankful for Regarding Martin Luther and so much truth and so much gospel insight and yet other things where you sort of go

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Yeah, and I mean Obviously, I would look at someone like Wycliffe and go whoo.

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There is a scholar for you. Oh, man There's a there's a systematizer and oh

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But it wasn't time Wasn't time there were certain things that had to be in place

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For the Reformation to be the Reformation for it to be something other than merely a political movement.

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I mean When you think about it there had to eventually be a breakdown of Rome's monopoly over religion in Europe But why did it have to be a religious breakdown in other words we can be extremely thankful that The Reformation was focused upon the true gospel a biblical gospel a a strong and powerful proclamation of justification by faith and we can be thankful for that because The breakdown of the

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Roman hegemony in in in Europe Could have been very secular it could have been a a collapse of all type of spiritual faith.

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It could have been very different But for that kind of Reformation the Reformation we ended up with for that to exist certain things had to come together and Some of those things did not exist in the days of Wycliffe, for example, you had to have the printing press in over 200 years

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Martin Luther held the record for the most published works. In other words the number of copies for like 200 years

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We we have pamphlets from Martin Luther today With even our modern scholarship, we can't tell who printed them.

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We don't know where they came from That's how secret they were. That's how good at keeping a secret they were because it was illegal

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But this was how the word was spread You had to have printing and in the

40:50

West anyways printing With Gutenberg's movable type is the middle of 15th century.

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It's it's Not quite a full century It's about 80 years after Wycliffe's death

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Now Wycliffe's ideas still spread but they can only spread so far because they have to be handwritten and so his ideas spread to Bohemia and to Jan Hus and Jan Hus would have been a great person, but again

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Just too early It's too early because you had to have printing and you had to have the

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Renaissance There had to be a rise in literacy. There had to be a rise in the universities

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There had to be that great Renaissance phrase ad fontes to the sources

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Which is what drove Desiderius Erasmus to learn

41:55

Greek and To then desire to make available a

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Latin Greek diaglot called the novum instrumentum Which as you probably know he did in 1516 and It was only a matter of months after it came out before a copy found its way into the hands of the fairly new professor of theology at the

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University of Wittenberg named Martin Luther and Having the Latin and the

42:29

Greek on facing pages and being able to compare what's one with the other and and the first few

42:37

Greek dictionaries coming out and things like that Very very important didn't exist for Jan Hus didn't exist for Wycliffe and It and it had to be not just for the the leaders of the movement.

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It had to be for well when

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Luther goes to the Wartburg Castle hiding from Charles out to the Diet of Worms.

43:06

One of the things he does is he translates the Bible into German and Lutheran schools start cropping up all over the place and what is their focus but literacy reading with a focus primarily upon reading the

43:21

Bible and This didn't exist in those days in the earlier days

43:30

So you had to have the printing press Right around the same time as the invention of the printing press you have the fall of Constantinople And so you have all these scholars fleeing from the

43:40

Turks into Europe bringing their manuscripts with them, which then become important in the production of Erasmus's Greek New Testament a couple other things that had to happen one that I've mentioned

43:59

That a lot of people don't think about The Crusades had been going on for hundreds of years

44:11

They had a tremendous impact upon Europe in many ways But you combine the people that were lost in the

44:22

Crusades the the soldiers that would leave and never come back you combine that with the

44:30

Black Death 1347 to 1350 The great mortality as it was described at that time and It's rare that you get if you hear somebody say well, you know the

44:46

Reformation sort of required that plague a lot of people describe the

44:54

Reformation as a plague, but It was in the background

45:03

Because so many people died when I was in when I was in seminary The number we were given was one out of every three people

45:13

I read a couple books before going to Germany and The modern books

45:21

In some areas will be as high as 70 % So many of those would say on average to the whole population 50 % one out of every two people

45:36

Talk about thinking that the world's about to end Many people believed exactly that the world was about to end you couldn't blame them for thinking it and Some forms of plague, you know, we believe it was the bubonic plague, but there were like there was a

45:58

Lung based version of it The the regular plague would give you well, it was about There would be a very small number of people that would survive it maybe 10 to 15 percent the form where it started in your lungs

46:19

There were there was there was no recording of anyone survived it and generally From the time at first manifest until your death was about 18 hours 18 hours

46:32

That's why some people at that time actually developed the theory that you could contract it merely by looking in the eyes of an infected person

46:43

Because you know if it can kill in 18 hours, you can understand why people would come up with that idea

46:50

And by the way horrible horrible aspect of the black death at that time see

46:59

Despite Al Gore and all the radical leftist socialists of our day who are trying to convince us that your

47:06

SUV is killing the planet The temperatures in the world have changed down through the centuries and historians have known for a very very long time

47:22

That there have been these warming intervals and then cooling intervals And a warming interval is started around Beginning of the 12th century and it lasted most that century which had allowed for the utilization of land much farther north

47:41

To be put into cultivation than had been available for centuries we know this to be true for many reasons, but There are for example towns in England That are named after vineyards that you can't grow grapes in today

47:57

We know that when they were founded you could you can't anymore which means it's cooler today than it was then so much for your

48:04

SUV But that warming trend

48:13

Began to break down and a distinct cooling trend began

48:21

Had nothing to do with nuclear weapons again mankind nothing to do with any of this but started in at the beginning of the 14th century and There had been a real population increase

48:38

If you can if you can grow more food people have more babies and Do you have more people and there had been a real population increase now all of a sudden a lot of people are right on the edge and When you have populations living around the edge, these are populations that are very

48:57

Subject to plague and to disease and and things like that the theory is that the cold in the

49:08

Russian steppes drove these not rats, but The original

49:17

Carriers of the bubonic plague farther south into the trade routes and hence brought the fleas

49:25

First into Muslim areas and many people were in Muslim lands were impacted by the plague and then in late 1347 into Sicily and Then up into all of Europe and England etc, etc and People did

49:52

People did everything to try to avoid the plague They didn't understand what we understand today

50:00

Every scientific treatise that I'm familiar with whether it was written by Muslims or Christians that dealt with the plague

50:11

Included astrological information Because people on both sides of That theological divide

50:21

Recognized that there had been a rather important Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, I believe in 1345 which was supposed to portend great changes in the world and There are

50:36

I'm pretty certain. There's a papal document Pointing to that same conjunction in 1345 as having something to do with the rise of the plague in 1347

50:46

There was a lot of astrology in that in that time period but what's fascinating to me is

50:56

As far as I know The Muslims Never blamed the

51:03

Jews for the plague but the Christians did and I forget which

51:12

Swiss town it was it might have been Zurich Somewhere near a lake so it's probable might have been

51:20

Geneva. I don't know. I've forgotten I could look it up, but the story began to be circulated that the

51:29

Jews were poisoning wells and that the Poisoning of the wells where the plague came from what that was stupid because the plague was ravaging cities that were completely dependent upon rivers

51:40

That didn't even use wells, so it didn't even make any sense, but under torture Jews would confess

51:45

You know it's really easy to get people to confess to things and you're torturing them and So this one city actually took all their

51:53

Jews and put them out on a island In a building and burned it down Killed and It's it's fascinating to me sad to me that at this point in time

52:13

The Muslims didn't come up with that idea But the the Christians did quote -unquote

52:19

Christians But what does all that have to do with Reformation well simple let's let's take the the the figures

52:30

I was given of One out of every three

52:38

It was probably higher than that, but let's just take that as a low a low number What happens if one out of every three people in a society disappears well economically

52:56

The guy down at the bottom Who is just a laborer? All of a sudden his his labor is worth a whole lot more because Good luck finding somebody to work your land

53:10

You gotta have somebody do it It's all sudden he can make a whole lot more and The people can afford to do so why?

53:19

Because if one out of three people disappear all of a sudden you got all this money and it wasn't back then

53:25

It wasn't a credit economy See, you've got all this money. You got all this gold

53:30

Property and there is only two -thirds as many people to possess it now, which means pretty much everybody gets a big fat raise and So the

53:48

The plague was one of the many things that led to the rise the middle class

54:00

And broke down the feudalism of the preceding centuries which had been so destructive

54:06

You know you you had universities beginning to be founded 12th century

54:12

But to have many universities and to have enough students to actually really substantiate them you need to have a middle class and The plague was very important in producing a middle class.

54:26

Most people never think of it along those lines Also provide us with a nursery rhyme that no one will ever use again after you realize that's this is about but Um Ring around the

54:40

Rosie pocket full of posy ashes ashes we all fall down We all held hands and danced around in circles

54:54

Celebrating the black death. Yes. That's where it came from Black death, that's where that's where it was all about was

55:05

They Would they would dance around these poles they would they would carry pockets full of posy

55:12

Ashes ashes we all fall down. We all die So some some of our childhood things are extremely dark when you actually look back at what

55:24

What gave rise to them, but it was yeah. Mm -hmm.

55:29

It was pretty pretty amazing So anyway Very important in bringing these these things about and in as part of the background to the rise of the

55:47

Reformation so You have the printing press you have the Renaissance One other thing you have the rise of nationalism the rise of nationalism and Why would this it was this important well if you watch some of those films

56:09

You will see some of the crowds turning on Okay, welcome back to the dividing line we crashed for a while I'm not sure how long we will last this time

56:21

But we're just gonna go a certain amount of time and just do the best we can apologize for this We've got software issues and stuff like that and may have to go to a different software company for streaming stuff in the future

56:32

Because the one we're using isn't working for us, but I was in the midst of discussing

56:39

The Black Death and from what people are telling me in channel. I was talking a little bit about The the fact that there had been a warming period

56:51

That had resulted in a great increase in human population and that we know this had happened because they

57:00

We can find cities in in England Named after vineyards and things we know there had been vineyards there.

57:09

You can't grow grapes there it's too cold now, but at an earlier period of time when it was founded you could and So we know there was a period of time

57:21

Leading up to Around 1300 where you had warmer temperatures

57:29

Even in places in Greenland and Iceland, there were places where you could you could cultivate crops for a period of time

57:35

Which you cannot any longer today. So it was warmer back then then then that's that started changing and You went into a colder period beginning at the start of the 14th century the theory is that the natural hosts of the

57:55

The rodent type animals in the Russian steppes the natural hosts were driven by the cold down into the trade routes from China and through those fleas, this is how the

58:10

The disease vector made it into Islamic lands And then from Islamic lands into Christian lands

58:20

Starting in Sicily late 1347 and then really hitting in 1348 across all of Europe now a couple of things

58:30

Some people feel that the plague did not hit

58:35

Islamic lands as hard as they did Christian lands and The reason simple

58:42

Muslims in that time period were Had a much higher hygiene level than people in Christian Europe did

58:50

I'm using the term Christian Europe as a historian here not theologically speaking

58:58

Sadly, I mean obviously because it's called wadu. It's it's the the cleansing the ritual cleansing before the prayers

59:08

There is bathing as a part of normal Islamic hygiene

59:15

Um, did you know that for example, I think it was it was

59:20

Catherine. No, no Catherine of Siena one of the great mystic women of this time period

59:27

That one of her great claims to fame and spirituality

59:33

Was she never bathed? never and An average person would go for a year

59:42

Without changing their clothes in Europe, I Just sort of figure your olfactory nerves just burned out by the time you were three

59:53

So after that it was like yeah, whatever I makes me go but you need to remember our modern level of Hygiene and deodorant and showering

01:00:13

Real modern thing real modern thing So the Muslims had the advantage

01:00:20

Because they were cleaner just physically cleaner at that point in time, but one other negative thing

01:00:30

Is That The story began to develop in Europe that the

01:00:39

Jews were behind the plague that they were poisoning wells. Well, it was it was absurd That the the plague began in places where wells weren't in use

01:00:49

You are dependent upon rivers and things like that. So poisoning wells would be irrelevant, but under torture certain

01:00:55

Jews admitted to this and so Jews were driven out of town. They were killed one city in Switzerland Took all of their

01:01:05

Jews put them out on an island in a building and burned them So many

01:01:11

Christians blamed Jews What's interesting is the Muslims never did as far as I know I could be wrong If you want to prove me wrong prove me wrong, but as far as I know

01:01:20

At this time period the Muslims did not come up with the idea of blaming Jews For the plague

01:01:27

I can think of a lot of Muslims today that would but they didn't back then So something to keep in mind well what happens as a result of the plague, let's say

01:01:38

Let's go with the numbers. I was taught which are conservative numbers that one out of every three people disappear What is the result of that on a on a culture well

01:01:50

If you're a if you're just a manual worker working a farm working out in the fields

01:01:57

All of a sudden your labor is worth a lot more because they've got less less competition Less competition prices go up But at the same time if you have a fixed amount of stuff, this isn't a credit society as yet so if you have a fixed amount of gold and a fixed amount of land and All of a sudden one -third of everybody disappears

01:02:23

You now still have the same amount of stuff, but you only got two -thirds the number of people which means everybody gets a big raise and What the black plague actually helped to do was to give impetus to the rise of the middle class and That middle class was vitally important because universities

01:02:45

Which had been founded earlier than this To have lots of universities and have universities flourishing you got to have students and The middle class has always been you know, there's only a certain number of upper -class hooty -tooty people

01:03:01

The middle class has always been you know, where where you'd get your students. And so the black plague was very important in the

01:03:11

The rise of the conditions that allowed for the Reformation to take place and and to destroy the medieval

01:03:20

Serfdom Situation that we that we had at that at that particular point in time.

01:03:25

So You have that and then lastly you have the rise of nationalism

01:03:32

Up until this point in time you'd view yourself as a member of the Holy Roman Empire That happened to live in Germania or amongst the

01:03:42

Franks or in Italy or whatever else it might be Borders began and they remained

01:03:49

European borders have been All over the place for a long time but you started having a this is especially important in our story a identity of German German nationalism

01:04:07

French nationalism and if you watch the movies You'll see a time in both of them where Tetzel is preaching

01:04:17

Indulgences and the crowd starts going we don't want our money going. Why should we give our money to go build st.

01:04:22

Peter's Basilica? if we're gonna give German money, then let the money stay in Germany and build a basilica in Germany and Tetzel responds are

01:04:32

Peter's bones in a basilica in Germany and blah blah blah blah But You cannot really

01:04:43

Underestimate the power of the political Aspect of nationalism that helped protect

01:04:51

Luther Rome moved slowly against Luther and part of the reason was she was She would have moved much faster

01:04:59

Only a few decades earlier But the politics of the day the death of Maximilian the election of Charles all the the the power vacuum or the power politics between the

01:05:14

Pope and France and and and all that kind of stuff very very very important in what happens in the

01:05:23

Reformation and so We can't forget this stuff We can't forget that the world is just coming out of a period of anachronism where only a couple hundred years later earlier people would paint pictures of David and David would be riding a horse

01:05:43

Wearing armor living in a castle and we go ha ha ha ha ha today, but that's what people thought because The the average

01:05:55

Medieval European never traveled more than seven miles any one direction from where he was born.

01:06:03

It's a small circle it's a small world and If that's all you've ever seen

01:06:11

Then you know what a king is so King David must have been like the king

01:06:18

I have and So we see this anachronism and this was by the way, this is also important because this is what allowed the papacy to gain such power the

01:06:32

Documents like the donation of Constantine the pseudo -isidore and decretals. These things are laughably anachronistic to us today but people in that day did not think in such ways to be able to recognize anachronism and When people started thinking that way when the

01:06:46

Renaissance comes along people like Lorenzo Valla start Critically looking at texts and going this is supposed to be from the 4th century

01:06:55

But it makes reference to stuff that actually didn't come about till the 8th century. So I mean just probably a fraud

01:07:02

I Was dangerous that was almost considered like witchcraft

01:07:09

Now be careful because what happens is We We who use these things, you know

01:07:16

Think these are the you know, we were wedded to these it'd be so nice. We got it surgically implanted or something

01:07:24

We are So accustomed to being able to just use this and grab information and stuff like that That we think so highly of our technological advancement that we think very

01:07:37

Very poorly of those who came before us and we when we when we realize they Engaged in anachronism then we all these these people must have had

01:07:44

IQs half of ours. No No These people could concentrate for periods of time that almost none of us today can

01:07:57

Almost none of us today can if most of us were thrown into a situation

01:08:06

To try to survive on what they survived on daily we'd die Don't the the the amount of knowledge they actually had

01:08:22

Given the educational the lack of educational system was astounding and In many ways in many ways,

01:08:33

I would say that the average IQ is higher Because there was less distraction

01:08:41

So be careful. It's real easy to go. They thought they thought David Well, the only reason you don't know that is because someone told it to you a long long time ago

01:08:53

If if you had grown up in the situation there and would you have been brilliant enough to have thought that out? Those are those are some of the some of the questions

01:09:03

So there's some of the background that's so very important to an understanding of what gave rise to the

01:09:10

Reformation We only have a few minutes. We we had a technical issue and had to restart the stream and stuff So we've we've lost part of our time but I do want to just briefly run through some of the pre -reformation reformers as well to to help with some of the background and Yes, I will be covering all of this in The church history series at PRBC sometime next year.

01:09:35

We just didn't time it real well to fit with the October 31st thing, but And not everybody who watches it watches or listens to the program

01:09:45

Follows the stuff at PRBC and vice versa and things like that. So so so there you go When you talk about pre -reformation reformers

01:09:57

Most of the time you start with with someone like like John Wycliffe You could go back

01:10:05

History just It defies the simplistic categories that we often try to force it into it really does

01:10:15

We have we have men like Gottschalk people who tried to Emphasize Augustinian theology during the medieval period

01:10:31

Were they pre -reformers? They got in a lot of trouble Gottschalk certainly did

01:10:39

It's hard to say but most of the time when historians refer to The pre -reformation reformers they start with John Wycliffe 1328 to 1384

01:10:55

He Interestingly enough My understanding is that in his own handwriting

01:11:08

We have one dozen different ways of spelling his last name in his own writing.

01:11:16

Now you might say What's that all about? The idea of standardized spelling had not developed yet.

01:11:23

Young people you cannot use this as an excuse You don't live in the 14th century

01:11:30

Okay But you do need to know that the idea of a standardized spelling system grammar system

01:11:40

Especially in English Had not yet developed at that point in time

01:11:47

So if you see the Wycliffe Bible translators you see it spelled, you know Wyclif or Wycli ff

01:11:57

Wycli ff Wycli ffe Wycli ffe

01:12:02

There's just all sorts of ways of doing it and Wycliffe would not have cared The other which is nice He taught at Oxford Oxford University had been founded earlier than that time period of course and he was a priest who pastored at a

01:12:24

Parish called Lutterworth Lutterworth He worked to get rid of immoral priests a common problem in England of the day

01:12:35

He received his doctorate in 1372 which means he only lived 12 years

01:12:41

After receiving his doctorate receiving a doctorate could kill you. That's sort of how that worked and in 1376

01:12:48

He published a book called on civil dominion and once again The reality is that very often

01:12:58

I Can't think of an exception in European English in American history where politics didn't have something to do with Reformation movements religious movements very frequently there is a

01:13:17

Necessary sometimes sometimes not necessary Connection between politics and religion

01:13:28

So he writes a book on civil dominion a work that was very favorable to the crown and civil government over against papal intrusion now

01:13:38

Normally when I'd be presenting this material I already would have gone over both what's called the pornography the low point in the

01:13:47

Roman papacy in the 9th and 10th centuries and Then the huge rise in papal power that had taken place in the 11th and 12th centuries and the

01:14:03

Constant conflict that existed between church and state because of sacralism

01:14:12

Sacralism was the the default. So what do you do? and so He had taken his stance with the king over against the

01:14:24

Pope By 1378 he began publishing his doctrinal perspectives with pamphlets that attacked certain

01:14:31

Roman Catholic beliefs He began by stating that Christ alone

01:14:36

Not the Pope is the head of the church by 1382 only two years for his death.

01:14:45

He was opposing the entire doctrine of transubstantiation having Recognized that it was a theological novum that at in his day

01:14:55

Dogmatically, it was less than 200 years old But again, you have to do research to discover things like that at this particular point in time

01:15:07

He held the concept of solo scriptura though he did not utilize that specific phraseology

01:15:12

He said the Bible not the church is the sole authority In his book triologous

01:15:21

Written shortly before his death. He wrote these words quote therefore if there were a hundred Popes and All the

01:15:28

Friars were turned into Cardinals their opinions in matters of faith should be believed only in so far as they are founded in Scripture Well, that's solo scriptura whether you use the term solo scriptura or not

01:15:42

He taught that the entire Christian faith was to be found in Scripture and Because of this and this becomes very important because of this he felt that the people should have the

01:15:52

Bible in their mother tongue For every Christian was duty -bound to study it now you need to understand literacy rates were extremely low and so Protestantism as Protestantism Has always been an educational movement

01:16:14

I mentioned earlier the Lutheran schools Always the idea of possessing the

01:16:22

Word of God and hence We have been the ones who have been the primary force behind Bible translation

01:16:28

Bible distribution and the teaching of reading So that you might possess the

01:16:33

Word of God and read the Word of God for yourself. It's all all connected together all Connected together

01:16:43

Wycliffe used the term sola gratia in Defining his doctrine of justification grace alone

01:16:50

He repudiated the distinction between bishop and presbyter which needs to be repudiated because there is no distinction biblically between the two even though of course again by Wycliffe's day there it had been a distinction that had been believed for a thousand years

01:17:07

Well, maybe a little less than that So, how could you question such a thing?

01:17:13

Well, if you believe the Bible is the ultimate authority then you test even what you've been believed for a thousand years by what's found in in scripture

01:17:22

He repudiated the excessive worship of images and relics the proliferation of ceremonies superstitious pilgrimages and the external observance of rites in general

01:17:34

He finally repudiated the veneration of saints as well. Now again, it might be real easy for us today

01:17:42

To go well, of course We repudiate the same things. But again, it's it's impossible for you to put yourself back into that time period and to recognize what it took to Do what these men did?

01:18:02

It'd be very very difficult and how far would any one of us have gone

01:18:10

Don't don't turn these people into cartoon characters and Exalt yourself by saying well,

01:18:17

I've done. Okay, so Wycliffe Repudiated these things I would have If you just you know, as long as I could read the

01:18:25

Bible, I would have seen all that stuff myself Okay if you want to If you want to think that You go to it

01:18:38

I Happen to know enough about history that I'm not sure I would have and know enough about myself

01:18:47

So Wycliffe was summoned to Rome a number of times and Many papal bulls were hurled against him

01:18:55

But England was in no mood to cooperate with Rome in the first place this particular point in time again politics and In 1378

01:19:08

The great schism took place in the papacy the Avignon papacy the

01:19:15

Babylonian captivity Which would divide? the papacy into two and eventually into three before it was finally healed the

01:19:25

Council of Constance in 1415 and this obviously Keeps Rome just a little bit busy.

01:19:33

They can't concentrate on Wycliffe any more than Leo the 10th could concentrate on Luther only a little over a hundred years later

01:19:44

Wycliffe began a translation of the Bible in English that was condemned by the Roman Church and Copies burned all over England Why Well, it's real easy to just simply paint

01:20:00

Rome as the great enemy of the Bible, but it was an ecclesiastical thing It was dangerous they really believed that That it was dangerous to the spiritual health of Christians to have direct access to the

01:20:14

Bible and How how would that come to be? Maybe we'll wrap up with this and and then we can well next time we'll talk about the

01:20:21

Lawlords and go on to Jan Hus But how did that happen? How does something like that How do you go from?

01:20:28

The apostolic period to now here at the end of the 14th century and it's like oh the

01:20:33

Bible is dangerous thing We can't have people read the Bible That wasn't a straight line When we were in England, I'm sorry.

01:20:43

We were in Germany Every church we went into had these astoundingly beautiful Stained -glass windows

01:20:54

Well, I was raised to think stained glass is a bad thing But I happen to love color so I've always secretly loved stained glass

01:21:05

You know the light that comes through it and how it you know on a cloudy day It looks different than on a bright day and it looks different in sunrise and in sunset.

01:21:13

Oh, you know and What you have to realize is during the the low point of the

01:21:22

Middle Ages where where Even the majority of the clergy are illiterate They had to find some way of communicating the story

01:21:32

And while the sermons became shorter and shorter became sermonettes and just simply storytelling You ended up telling the stories of the faith in the windows

01:21:43

Uh with with images That was the only way people knew

01:21:49

You'd point up there and see what's happening. There is this and this happened there and that happened and Was it wrong?

01:21:57

To tell the biblical stories that way if you're going to go that far You're going to have to say the children's bible story books are wrong.

01:22:04

You shouldn't have children's bible story books You just give them the king james version They can't read it big deal

01:22:10

Uh, just listen in church There are some people that'll go there Okay. Well, whatever Eventually what happens?

01:22:21

Is the leadership of the church becomes quite accustomed and takes advantage

01:22:29

Of the fact that people are totally dependent upon them for their knowledge of what is in scripture

01:22:38

And now it's used negatively not to communicate truth But to protect falsehood because there have been doctrinal developments during this time period and they're they're not positive doctrinal developments and so Almost everything that we can object to today started from a good idea

01:23:01

With good motivations but things change things change over time

01:23:09

And Wycliffe recognized that in his day things had gotten pretty bad pretty bad indeed

01:23:15

And so the people needed the word of god. You couldn't trust the corrupt clergy To be the ones to communicate this people needed it.

01:23:23

That's why he Does his own translation not from the greek but from the latin vulgate

01:23:30

So The the greek translation would have to await a later time period but Still the point was possession possession of the word of god in your own language

01:23:43

Radical thing radical thing, but it started a movement called the lollards. We'll talk a little bit more about them

01:23:49

Next time around so Wrap things up and We will leave time in future dividing lines for Current events and things that are going on But I do as we have opportunity between now and the time of the reformation and immediately thereafter that we don't there's nothing magical about october 31st

01:24:12

Make sure that everyone has hopefully a a fair and grounded understanding

01:24:19

Because it is important to so many things Because each one of us is has been impacted by these developments

01:24:28

If we don't know the history, then we don't know how we've been impacted and we can't filter that out we have to know to be able to Accurately analyze our own position.

01:24:39

So hopefully this has been of use to you lord Will and we'll see you the next time on the dividing line.