Nostalgia 1530

I am in a very Reformation-al mood today. The passing reign of King George, coupled with a teaching curricula which demands great attention to the details of that umbrella term "salvation", has made me hungry for the pure milk of the 1500's. (To add one more: the discussion with John G. concerning John Calvin's teaching on the fourth commandment.) To be honest, I was brought up in churches that always looked suspiciously at the Reformation in general, and John Calvin (e.g. He-who-should-not-be-Named) in particular. Oh yes, John Calvin and Beelzebub are synonyms to the ears of most low-churchmen!

There are some good reasons for this. Anabaptism, the basis for English and German Pietism and (closer to us) Revivalism, was not treated well by the Reformers and their heirs. John Calvin taught that heretics could lawfully be persecuted in civil courts and pursued by the military powers of the state. He was killed fighting in such a battle!

Nevertheless, the men and women who made up the Protestant Reformation, both the Reformers themselves, the Princes that supported them and the faithful which learned, listened and worshipped in their churches and schools, were people consumed by zeal for the preservation and transmission of the Gospel as it is taught in Scripture alone. Their tracts, sermons, books, pamphlets and lives are saturated with the same, and the soul is greatly fed by reading them.

To that end, I have been listening to several broadcasts of The White Horse Inn, a Reformation-friendly radio-talk program hosted by friend and theologian Michael Horton. (A scroll-down on their website gives access to a few interviews on the phenomenon of the Emergent Church.) Also, I recommend a look at the Augsburg Confession, available on the web with other documents in The Book of Concord.

Lynn-nore and I have actually been to Augsburg, to the site where the Emporer of the Holy Roman Empire Charles V, in the hopes of quickly settling this "religious" problem so that he could have more soldiers to wield against the Turks, summoned the Lutheran nobility to give a confession of their faith. Martin Luther's good friend Philip Melanchthon drafted a copy (with oversight from Luther himself, who corresponded with him from his hiding place at the Wartburg.) It was presented June 25, 1530 and is the first systematic presentation of the doctrines of the Reformation. I wish every Protestant would read it. Tellingly, the portion of the building which still stands serves as office space.