When most folks think of today, they probably come up with an image of this guy:
That being said, the guy folks should be thinking of is:
In case you didn't recognize him, that's Martin Luther, who was probably just a couple of steps more sane than Michael Myers. Or maybe even less sane, considering that you never really thought of Myers as crazy, just really freaking evil.
What does Luther have to do with Halloween? It was on this day 493 years ago that he allegedly nailed the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenburg. The rest is history. The consequences that flowed from Luther's arrogance are way scarier than any horror movie. The shattering of Christendom, multiple wars, the eventual rise of the "Enlightenment" (yeah, I know; it would have happened anyway), not to mention the millions of souls that were jeopardized by his heresy and schism, along with the continued deterioration of Christianity as more and more schisms and heresies are born every day and new ecclesial groups started to manifest them.
You want terror? Try turning on your TV and seeing this:
In the beginning, there was Luther. A few centuries of theological begats later, we have this.
Thanks, Martin. Thanks a lot.
You can find some of Luther's documented flights from sanity in this old post. It's not Daphne du Maurier, but it can chill the spine a bit.
Sleep tight.
2 comments:
Apropos of the time of the year, have you ever seen this fine essay from Stanley Hauerwas on Reformation Sunday?
It can be linked at:
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/10/stanley-hauerwas-on-reformation-sunday/
A selection:
Reformation names the disunity in which we currently stand. We who remain in the Protestant tradition want to say that Reformation was a success. But when we make Reformation a success, it only ends up killing us. After all, the very name ‘Protestantism’ is meant to denote a reform movement of protest within the Church Catholic. When Protestantism becomes an end in itself, which it certainly has through the mainstream denominations in America, it becomes anathema. If we no longer have broken hearts at the church’s division, then we cannot help but unfaithfully celebrate Reformation Sunday.
That's a pretty remarkable bit of work.
The part about Protestantism becoming an end to itself is absolutely true. The most popular preachers these days denounce religion as evil and doctrine as a horror. The only real point anymore is to find/create a place that is just different from the place that they came from.
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