Rethinking the Reformation

It's a little late to be talking about Hallo Reformation Day, but Michael Spencer's post is really more about how we should view the Reformation itself. A few highlights:

• I no longer believe Luther ever intended to slay the Catholic Church and establish the wonder of contemporary Protestantism.
• I do not believe true Christianity was restored or rediscovered in the Reformation.
• I’m convinced that it didn’t take long for Protestantism to accumulate enough problems of its own to justify another reformation or two.
• I believe we ought to grieve the division of Christianity and the continuing division of Protestantism.
• I no longer believe the theology of the Reformers was the pinnacle of evangelicalism or is the standard by which Biblical truth itself is judged.

No argument here. I wrote about some of this earlier, in The Successes and Failures of the Reformation. It bears repeating, though, if only because of the increasing movement toward judging one's theology, if not one's actual salvation, by the litmus test of the theology of the Reformers.

I purposely left most of Michael's excellent list out. Check it out for yourself.


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