Happy Heresy Day!
By Shaun Kenney | Monday, October 31st, 2011 | CultureI keed… I keed…
Today isn’t just Halloween… today is the day that Luther excommunicated himself from the Christian faithful and spawned a rebellion against God and Christ’s Holy Catholic Church Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenburg.
The Protestant Reformation would roil Europe in the bloody Wars of the Reformation for the next 50 years, ending finally with the Peace of Westphalia and the advent of the consolidated Ottoman Empire, which was once checked by the Holy League in 1571 at Lepanto and would be turned back finally by joint Protestant-Catholic forces at Vienna in 1683 — beginning Islam’s steady decline over the next 300 years until the present day.
Over 400 years later, with the idea of Christendom a distant memory, secularism the dominant religion of the time, and the enemy at the Gates of Vienna once more… Christ’s prayer “that they may all be one” (John 17) still goes unanswered in many ways. Yet the body of believers is waking… slowly perhaps, but waking nonetheless.
Martin Luther begged for a Christianity that was lived. For Catholics, Halloween begins a three-day remembrance that we all must die (Halloween), that saintliness is possible (All Saints Day), and that there are many who have gone on before us waiting to join us in Heaven (All Souls Day). This should stand in stark contrast to those preaching political rebellion on the eve of Guy Fawkes Day (Nov. 5th) where political change is trumped over personal conversion.
Now is a season to reflect on personal reformation above political revolution, as Christ did while he walked among us. Now is a season to reflect on those who have gone before us. Now is a season to pray for the Christian Restoration and ask yourself how you are living your faith, and if not… why not?
Happy Reformation Day.
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About the author
Shaun Kenney is the Chairman of the Fluvanna County Board of Supervisors, former Communications Director for the Republican Party of Virginia, and an active blogger since 2002. Shaun lives in Thomas Jefferson's backyard with his wife, six children, and a modest attempt at a farm in Kents Store, Virginia.
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Comments
19 Responses to "Happy Heresy Day!"
Now is the season to hope for 3 Musketeers bars instead of that awful candy corn in the kid’s Halloween haul.
Dude — candy corn is AWESOME. You can get a Three Musketeers bar any ol’ time.
Personally, I think that Reese’s Cups are the best. I get a bag of them every year and then hold them back from the trick-or-treaters, telling my wife that someone asked me not to hand them out because of the dangers of peanut allergies. Works every year.
HR-brilliant!
Shaun: Candy corn is the worst. Well, it’s not as bad as licorice, but other than that, it’s the worst.
So, in light of some of the recent political discourse, are you calling Protestantism a cult?
Wow Shaun- Pretty bold. What do you suppose would have happened over the past two millenia if someone had declared, “today is the day that Jesus excommunicated himself from the Jewish faithful and spawned a rebellion against God and His chosen people”? I would never make such a statement, nor would most of my fellow 0.2% of the world’s population. But I do know what happened to thousands of us over the centuries – not for making such bold statements but merely for having a different faith than Christ’s Holy Catholic Church. But we’re all much more enlightened and tolerant now, right?
I keed….
Shaun: Weren’t republicanism (the system, not the party), classical liberalism and individual rights perfected in those same rebellious Protestant states?
Steve: I’m with you on the candy corn issue, too (no offense to Shaun)!
Ken,
There is no question about the persecution that the Jews have suffered over the centuries. Growing up as a Catholic child, I was taught in Catholic school that the Jews killed Jesus while the Spanish Inquisition and the Vatican’s silence during the Holocaust were glossed over. However, I and most Catholics I know now accept the need at the time for the Protestant Reformation (I was taught in Catholic school that it was the Protestant Revolt) and we are more enlightened and tolerant today. There is much we can learn from other religious faiths. I remember when my wife and I attended our first Bar Mitzvah. Halfway through the ceremony I leaned over to her and whispered, “I wonder if the Pope knows about this ritual? We could use this in the Catholic Church.” Our sacrament of Confirmation seems to pale in comparison. And Mormons are some of the best parents I have ever known.
Let’s go back to the candy. Shaun, see this link:
http://www.pages2send.com/candycorn/index.shtml
@Jason –
Truthfully no… “republicanism” was, of course, a very old Roman idea. Classical liberalism is a humanist idea (in the Catholic sense and not the modern, secular sense). Individual rights are as old as Aristotle.
In fact, it was St. Bellarmine who struck down the Protestant “divine right of kings” — an idea totally alien to Catholics who saw the Holy Roman Empire as the ideal commonwealth.
What the Protestant Reformers did accomplish was two distinct things: (1) altering interest so that it was no longer a “usurious” practice to charge it, and (2) developing what is commonly known as the Protestant work ethic.
In terms of political innovations, the Reformers had remarkably few. It was only with the American Revolution that a group of Protestant leaders could truly call something their own… and yet even then, they borrowed strongly from the natural law political philosophers of the time (Sydney, Grotius, and Locke who borrowed from Bellarmine, Aquinas, Aristotle, Cicero, Cato, etc.)
Of course, that natural law understanding of governance is being attacked from all sides… but still has her champions in the Christian West (I hope).
@HisRoc –
Dude… you just totally ruined it.
@Ken –
Guess there’s a reason I wrote (1) a longer post and (2) used the strikethrough feature, eh?
If you’re offended, you probably deserve to be. If you read the rest of the post and placed my thoughts alongside your own for a time, mission accomplished.
There’s a number of us who are avid First Things readers here on Bearing Drift. This Lutheran-Catholic give-and-take is good natured and usually occurs this time of year. Enjoy it!
@C.J. –
Apparently, candy corn is a cult… a cult of ONE, baby!! More for me!
If the Pope had believed that anyone would have taken a nut like Martin Luther seriously, Luther would have been burned at the stake like any other heretic in that age.
Luther only managed to get a foothold as some German princes saw in him the opportunity to eschew the scrutiny of The Holy See.
Read Joseph Sobran: he wrote a book that traces virtually every modern evil back to Martin Luther.
~Sigh~. Shaun, Shaun, Shaun. How you like to stir the pot.
Sola Scriptura. Sola Fides. Sola Gratia.
Love ya, man.
I only wish I had candy corn right now.
Tracing every modern evil back to Martin Luther is like tracing anti-semitism back to Jesus. Some “followers” of Jesus may have been and may be anti-semites, but that’s not what he taught. In the same light, some “followers” of Luther may have taken his work and skewed it for their own benefit, but that was not his purpose. Luther never wanted to split the church, he wanted to reform it. He wanted to stop practices such as paying for forgiveness. And he wanted to make the Bible accessible to all of the people, since it was their lack of access to it that helped to contribute to the real herecies of the day.
And I’m a chocolate lover, too, but I’m with you on the candy corn, Shaun.
Oops…. should hereSies. Dumb fingers.
I really like the painting of Luther there… do you know who did that one??
Ferdinand Pauwels in 1872.
I can’t believe the stuff that gets posted on Bearing Drift sometimes. That true believers would taint a political blog with such blasphemy is sinister, and just plain wrong. Worse, it is one thing to voice an opinion on something that means so much to a vast majority of the population, but it is quite another to draw such horribly incorrect conclusions about it, offending so many people’s sensibilities that reputations are destroyed and violence is done to the most basic concepts we hold dear. Kenney really summed it up best – you can get a Three Musketeers bar anytime! Candy corn is almost pure sugar, none of those annoying additives like chocolate, or marketing gimmicks such as fluffy whipped nougat, just sugar, corn syrup, and artificial colors baby! Halloween wouldn’t be the same without calorie dense candy corn!
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