Between worship services and talks with people, I stepped into the church library for a time of peace and quiet. Sundays for a church our size can get real chaotic! With close to 5000 people coming in and out each Sunday, our church sure isn't a place to look for peace and quiet! Okay, let me qualify some stuff a bit, our church is chaotic on Sundays and our worship services are "alive and kickin'" but we do have some moments of silence and peace.
I went to my second-favorite section, Church History- first favorite being the Worship and Music section. Lately, I have been reading a lot about Church History- both past and in-the-process-of-writing history! The study of the history of the church cannot be divorced from the study of liturgy and vise versa. Good thing that next semester I will teach a fusion of both subjects into one major course for which I am really excited.
Without a systematic reading plan, I simply took a book with an interesting title and sat in the black leather couch.
St. Peter's Basilica. It occupies a unique position as one of the holiest sites and as the greatest of all churches of Christendom. In Catholic tradition, it is the burial site of its namesake Saint Peter, who was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. It is believed that Saint Peter's tomb is below the altar of the basilica. For this reason, many Popes, starting with the first ones, have been buried there. There has been a church on this site since the 4th century. Construction on the present basilica began on April 18, 1506 and was completed in 1626.
What a lot of people don't know and what interests me about this fascinating work and monument of art and religion is that it was built with the promise of salvation to anyone who would give enough or a lot of money for its construction.
The building program was so massive it required so much money for which the leadership of the church formulated ways to generate the much needed resources. People from all Christian lands, both peasants and royals alike were required to contribute to its building.
Church leaders became so desperate at fund raising to meet the demands of the building program, they decided to "sell salvation" by selling indulgences. Indulgence is the full or partial remission of temporal punishment due for sins which have already been forgiven. The indulgence is granted by the church after the sinner has confessed and received absolution. The belief is that indulgences draw on the storehouse of merit acquired by Jesus' sacrifice and the virtues and penances of the saints. They are granted for specific good works and prayers.
Johann Tetzel (pictured above), a German Dominican preacher remembered for selling indulgences and for speaking the couplet, "As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs." Tetzel even went as far as creating a chart that listed a price for each type of sin.
Unlearned believers sacrificed as much as they could of their hard-earned monies so they or a relative who had died ahead may buy their way out of prolonged suffering in purgatory.
For those who know their Bibles, there isn't a hint of doubt that such teaching is absolutely contrary to the Word of God. Salvation is a free gift of God, received only by true repentance and faith in Jesus as the Messiah, a faith given by God by His grace and unmediated by the church.
Salvation is entirely the work of God. Luther wrote that Christians receive such righteousness entirely from outside themselves; that righteousness not only comes from Christ but actually is the righteousness of Christ, imputed to Christians through faith.
Thank God for the Reformation!
Reformation Sunday is barely a month away (October 26, 2008).
No comments:
Post a Comment