Monday Morning Music Ministry

10-31-21

Christian Patriots in America increasingly seek a figurative wishbone. But it is a backbone, not a wishbone, that we need, faced as we are by contemporary challenges.

The end of October has been appropriated as a secular holiday despite its origin as Hallowe’en, the holy evening before All Saints’ Day. It is not a national or a legal holiday, of course, but it rivals the others – I believe every month but May has a “legal” holiday that allows for three-day weekends and used-car sales; and most have been shoved to Mondays for such reasons.

Reverence and reflection are no longer justifications for these holidays. Easter and Thanksgiving have been sanitized and renamed on school calendars. The birthdays of Washington and Lincoln have been subsumed by a “presidents’ day” that equally honors Millard Fillmore and Warren Gameliel Harding. And October’s real bank holiday is being changed from remembrance of Christopher Columbus to any ethnic group with a pulse except White people.

The national neutering of meaningful observances has not quite reached the other significant event related to the last weekend in October: Reformation Day. It has been reduced to a relatively obscure celebration in America, although October 31 is indeed a national holiday in many European countries.

Reformation Day is associated, of course, with Martin Luther. October 31 was not his birthday, nor the day he cited as having a revelation that the Christian Church had become corrupted in certain ways that required reforms consistent with Bible tenets. It was the day, rather, that the professor and monk finally was motivated to list his critiques – there were 95 of them he called “theses” – and affix them to a cathedral door in Wittenberg, Germany. It was a common practice to post announcements and invitations to public debates.

Most people know the outlines of his story. He was not the first devout Catholic to dissent from some Vatican practices. Popes had mistresses and children; political intrigues and nepotism were rife; and the sales of “indulgences” promised alleviation from punishment for souls not quite good enough to enter Heaven.

Holy hucksters actually used the slogan, “When the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”

Such things appalled the theological student Luther. He was informed by Bible passages that faith alone, not works or devices of humans; and that Scripture alone, not added rules and schemes, assured people of their standing with God. As a monk he could read the Bible (in Latin, the only language the Church allowed), and everyday worshipers were forbidden to read it.

For a hundred years other reformers had similar observations, but people like Jan Hus, John Wycliffe, Thomas A Kempis, Peter Waldo, and Geert Groote spoke their minds, and were routinely excommunicated, persecuted, and often tortured and burned at the stake or dismembered.

Luther wanted to reform the Church, not start a revolution. He wanted Roman Catholicism to be purified, and did not intend to start a denomination. But his cause was taken up by other clergy members, and by princes who wanted to be free of Rome’s political control.

I desire here to do more than honor the beneficial spiritual and cultural revolutions Luther indeed inspired, which included translating the Bible into the language of the people, writing memorable hymns, and animating the movements that spread literacy and promoted democracy – for the responsibilities of the Individual were seeds he planted that sprouted in Enlightenment thinkers and republican governments.

What I want to recognize, honor, and emulate is the towering figure of Martin Luther, the example he set as a man of conscience who exercised integrity when he was threatened.

When he was a called before ecclesiastic judges in the city of Worms, he was aware of his lost position as a priest and a professor; his excommunication form the Church; and the likely sentence of death. In Washington’s Museum of the Bible is a letter he wrote the previous night, addressing his impending execution. He had been chased, accused, condemned, and charged with heresy and causing civil unrest.

Luther was given a “lifeline”: to retract his writings, withdraw his complaints, recant his beliefs… renounce his conscience and the truths of the Bible. Like Galileo, he could have acceded to ignorant lords and fallible fools, and continued his life and work. But… “I can not, and I will not, recant. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.”

At that moment uncountable forces of Christianity and Western civilization were in a crucible. The course of history would have been very different if that brave man had compromised.

His example, his answer, “Here I stand. I can do no other,” should be a watchword in the battles we face today. That example, that answer, must be our response… no matter what issues confront us, threats we face, sacrifices we risk, or costs we must pay.

You refuse to compromise your position on racist trash in schools? “Here I stand. I can do no other.”

You deny the government’s demand that it asserts control over your body? “Here I stand. I can do no other.”

You oppose new standards of sexual morality and threats to our children? “Here I stand. I can do no other.”

You dare believe that abortion is murder?” “Here I stand. I can do no other.”

You are willing to risk the criticism of family and neighbors, to be called a “hater,” to hurt peoples’ feelings? “Here I stand. I can do no other.”

You will speak out against churches that are “accepting” of new religion or no religion, bending its message to excuse sin? “Here I stand. I can do no other.”

Some brave protesters – “protestants” – lost their jobs and friends and sometimes their lives. Some, like Luther, were protected by people inspired by his integrity. Some lived to take his message to the arts and philosophy and governments as they formed themselves.

… and some, today, lament that Luther’s integrity – his examples, his answer – is a thing of the past. Have people of faith, parents, citizens, patriots, given up?

Would you renounce the things you believe, the things you once thought were true? Would there be enough evidence of your beliefs that would even let the world accuse you in matters of right and wrong? What is worth losing your integrity for – in the end, what do you stand for? Or will Christian Patriots learn to say:

“Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.”

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Please watch this clip of Luther’s answer, from the powerful 1953 movie:

Click: Here I Stand.