Downton Abbey—a look back

Downton Abbey was a delight as a TV series, and I hope to see the movie. But have you ever wondered why the Grantham family were living in an abbey? Definition of an Abbey: a monastery under the supervision of an abbot or a convent under the supervision of an abbess. I don't claim to know anything about the British aristocracy or what the titles Countess, Earl, or Lady mean, but I do know they aren't priests, nuns or abbots. Our status symbols in the U.S. are all about money and celebrity, not titles--Jeff Bezos for instance is the richest man the world--and that means more power than a title handed down from his father. Even the wealthiest and most admired dynasties in the U.S. disappear in a flash when the money is gone, or the government takes it away. Movie stars who have a different admired status become wrinkled and don't get the good roles.

So why did Anglican British royalty and lesser folk live in buildings built by Roman Catholics? It goes back to the English Reformation and is one of the nastiest and unloving chapters in Christian history. King Henry VIII stole the wealth of the monasteries, had the owners killed off, chased off or imprisoned, and gave the lands and buildings to his supporters. The church had traditionally taken care of the poor and sick (as Jesus told them to do)--they were turned out also, and we had the seeds of the terrible poverty, wealth and abuses of the industrial revolution.

All Saints and Reformation Sundays

We had such a fabulous music selection on Reformation Sunday—choir, organ, brass.  I don’t know how these things are planned, if there is a worship committee or it’s the choir director Brian and organist Allan or the pastors, but it all worked together.  The prelude was a smashing organ-Trumpet piece called  Chorale with Interludes by Charles Callahan. https://www.morningstarmusic.com/composers/c/callahan 

Our musicians sit behind the congregation in the balcony, so I always have to turn around if I want to see them.  Anyway, as the prelude came to a glorious end, and the trumpet stopped, one pipe on the organ wouldn’t—a very low register with a rumble you could hear a few blocks away.  It must be every performer’s nightmare.  Dave Mann was the pastor who was leading the service (senior pastor Steve Turnbull gave the sermon), and he is also an organist, so he stood there and smiled and waited, but it got louder and louder and you could hear someone rustling around trying to shut down the organ.  So he decided to just go ahead with the Confession and Forgiveness, which had to be shouted. Soon the organ noise quieted down as it was shut off (?).  But an elaborate Call to Worship was planned, and we were not only reading scripture, but were supposed to sing all 4 verses of “A Mighty Fortress” interspersed with scripture, and the organ was needed for that.  So after each verse, the loud malfunctioning pipe would continue, and the lead pastor had to shout over it. Finally, at the end of that section, we heard the maverick pipe sort of quietly slink away.

During coffee time after the service in the narthex I asked one of the choir members how it was fixed and she said someone got a ladder and went up inside the pipes, and stuck in something to stop it.  I’m sure a repairman will be called.  The organ had a huge refurbishment in 2005, thousands and thousands of dollars which I think a donor paid for because it was about 30 years old, and I’m sure general maintenance is  expensive.  http://churchacronym.blogspot.com/2005/05/pentecost-concert-our-choir-presented.html

Today November 1 is All Saints Day, from which we get the festive contraction Halloween, for All Hallow’s Eve. So this coming Sunday is All Saints Sunday.  It too is a lovely service, but more sober.  The names of the congregants who have died since last October 31 are read from the pulpit. Since we are gone in the summer, sometimes I’m not aware of the death.  Then during communion the names of our own remembered friends and relatives are read from cards we had filled out.  "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus . . ." Hebrews 12:1

"Most Lutheran churches use the first Sunday in November to remember all the saints in the Church of Christ Jesus, especially those members and friends of the local congregation who have been called to Heaven in the previous year.

The custom of commemorating all the martyrs of the Church on a single day goes back at least to the third century. All Saints' Day celebrates not only the martyrs and saints, but all the people of God, living and dead, who together form the mystical body of Christ.

In Europe, All Saints' Day is also called All Hallow's Day ('hallowed' means 'sanctified' or 'holy'). October 31st, the evening before All Saint's Day is named All Hallow's Eve, which was contracted to Halloween." (Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Ypsilanti, MI)

Celebrating the Reformation

Upper Arlington Lutheran Church (UALC) is observing the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. We (at Lytham Road campus) had a great sermon and concert yesterday. Yes, Martin Luther did change things, but not necessarily for the better and not alone. There were huge movements afoot.

Luther is also credited with creating the modern nation state. Warring nationalistic states protecting their own borders speaking languages not known by their neighbor states replaced Christendom ruled from Rome, which was sort of an overarching umbrella organization with a common language —Latin— and a common religion, with common values.

The ruling nobility of about 1400 little states and cities lusted for the money and wealth that went to Rome. What resulted was less a reform and more a resurgence of the barbarian tribe mentality that had taken over the Roman Empire a thousand years earlier. The result was the modern nation states of Europe that went to war with each other for the next 400 years, resulting in the bloodiest century of all—the 20th. Instead of the Holy Roman Empire the world was gifted many church entities, all called Christian—Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, etc.--all controlled by the state. (Which is why the writers of the U.S. Constitution wrote into the document that the state could not control the church.)

Today we have something like 40,000 different Protestant, Bible only, non-denominational, and Restoration churches with thousands of little popes and scandals that would make Luther’s hair stand on end. Christianity has become a “Me and Jesus” movement in the U.S. and in Europe Christianity is being replaced with millions believing instead in astrology, lucky charms and pagan practices.
Some of the chapters of Rodney Stark’s excellent book on "Reformation Myths" are available at Google books. https://books.google.com/books/about/Reformation_Myths.html…

http://www.aei.org/publication/why-liberals-may-be-out-of-step-with-everyday-americans-when-it-comes-to-religion/

How to lose your audience

What if each time you tuned into watch Downton Abbey you got a blow by blow detailed history of how the English Reformation under King Henry VIII destroyed the Roman Catholic monasteries and nunneries and turned them over to private owners who were the King’s buddies? With all the death and cruelty involved and the poor who were devastated by the loss of support from the church?  Or what if when looking for appropriate comments to use at a musical ecumenical memorial for the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation all you could find is a blow by blow account of the brutal Peasants’ War in which 100,000 German peasants who thought Luther would support them instead met a bloody end?   Whose mind would be changed? Would you want the Catholic, Lutheran or Marxist view with your music?

Trapped. That’s how I felt when I attended what would be a wonderful  program of choral music, and instead got lectures (called “reflections”) so inappropriate for a lovely summer Sunday evening I thought I’d walked into a micro-aggression workshop for hate whitey or black lives matter rally. Most people love the black gospel and spiritual contributions to the American religious and choral tradition, and yes, they do know the history of the pain and suffering from which they came, but please don’t use them to club us into staying away from the concerts. I'm not sure how, but even "I'll fly away" by Alfred Brumley, a white Oklahoma sharecropper, seemed to have been roped into this meme of slavery. Perhaps I misunderstood, or dozed off.

We are living in an era of unprecedented human slavery. There is more slavery today than during the 18th century Atlantic slave trade. Children are used as soldiers, women and girls are taken as sex slaves, men are forced to work in mines.  In some countries like Haiti and the Philippines household slavery is just part of the culture and many don’t even recognize it.  Most of this happens in Africa, with heavy Muslim involvement, but what church program today would discuss that hot topic?  Very little of it, unlike Boko Haram stealing Church of the Brethren school girls for sex slaves from a school in Nigeria, makes it into the evening news. 

To compulsively return to a period of history when Europeans bought slaves from African Muslims and tribal chiefs and sold them to the colonies which later became the United States which  fought an ugly war to end it, is just not good commentary for a program of music celebrating freedom in Christ.

May 15, 1525, The Peasants' War

It’s only recently I learned about the Peasants’ War which began in May 1525. Imagine. Forty years as a Lutheran, and not a word or sermon on an event that killed over a hundred thousand and in many ways involved Martin Luther. As I’ve watched the Trump phenomena unfold, I thought back to this--exciting the masses about injustices and then flip flopping.

Martin Luther added to the unrest that had been going on for years—at least the hopes that ordinary peasants had for liberation from both the clergy and the ruling classes. There were many societal and economic changes happening, a rising middle class, the creation of free towns, displacement of agrarian workers, the importation of precious metals from the "new world," the rise of banks and money becoming the source of wealth instead of land, and rampant inflation. The feudal system of the old Roman empire in Europe had become like slavery by the fifteenth century—the peasants couldn’t even marry without approval of their lord and if the head of household died, the lord could take the best property from the family for his own use They couldn’t hunt or fish on the lord’s properties even though there were ancient agreements to this freedom that were being ignored. (Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn’t it?) The nobility classes were growing by creation of titles and becoming impoverished, with the poorest taking offices in the church because there was no more land. The clergy also had both wealthy and poor classes.

And then Luther declared Christians no longer had to answer to Rome or any other man. I don’t know how common the ability to read was among the peasants, but through their radical and extremist leaders they knew about Luther’s The Freedom of a Christian and his Babylonian Captivity. Those pamphlets in that day were like social media flare ups of today.  Luther declared that “no Christian was under the obligation to comply with any law which was enacted upon him by another man.” For thousands of peasants looking for justice for losing their rights, that was like throwing gasoline on the glowing embers of a simmering revolution.

At first Martin Luther encouraged the Peasants, who themselves were divided among the radicals and moderates and had many justifiable grievances going back a century, and he criticized the nobility and princes for being oppressive. He said he was one of them, even bragged about being from a family of peasants. But then he did an about face, “with the release of his pamphlet Against the Murdering Robbing Rats of Peasants. In it, he provoked and encouraged the nobles to shed blood in order to suppress the revolt, “stab, kill, and strangle.” Luther publicly exhorted the princes to exterminate the peasants. He called peasants pigs, stupid and incorrigible. He went as far as publicly proclaiming that the princes were not only ‘God’s swords’ but that it was also their sacred duty to preserve law and order on earth by punishing these most heinous and atrocious criminals [the peasants]. He believed that perjury, rebellion and hypocrisy called for harsh punishment.” (The Inconsistencies of Martin Luther Before, During, and After the Peasants’ War, 2011)

On May 15, 1525, and its aftermath, over 100,000 peasants were massacred—they were no match for their nobles’ soldiers. Luther, who had vowed to stand by the peasants, betrayed them and took the side of the nobility. Some reformers, who originally were Lutherans but abandoned Luther, said the new Lutheran church had less freedom of speech than the Turks (Muslims) and that Luther was taking more power than the Pope.

http://www.oakwood.edu/historyportal/Ejah/2011/The%20Inconsistencies%20of%20Martin%20Luther%20Before.htm

 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11597a.htm

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgZzuY4NSCE

 http://www.scrollpublishing.com/store/Luther-Peasants.html

 http://store.afcanada.com/store/product/1584/Luther-Works-Volume-46

Luther and Trump

If you know your church history, you know that Martin Luther split the church by deciding that Scripture meant what he said it meant, not what the Church declared. He discarded a number of books of the Old Testament, or said he didn’t like them (like James, Revelation, Esther, and Hebrews which remained canon, and he much preferred John to the other Gospels) all the while declaring “sola scriptura” to be the basis of faith. He changed the Catholic church’s definition of original sin and justification to one he created. 

  

But the implications went far beyond the church—probably because there were many forerunners of revolt who didn't like papal control, and the church was in great need of reform. Or, scratch a religion, any religion, and you get politics. Once that Bible cat was out of the bag, all sorts of interpretations began cropping up among others, and one was the horrible conditions of the peasants of Europe, who were virtually slaves to the local Lords. This was ready to explode even before Luther since their lives were so awful, not unlike slavery in the U.S. but often worse. So when the peasants got word of what Luther was saying and posting and writing (liberty in all things), they thought he could be their leader against both the church and the lords. Wrong. Luther sided with the German power structure, not the peasants. They rioted; Luther didn’t support them. Over 100,000 peasants died, as well as people in other classes who were poor or had less power. 

 

Let’s jump ahead 500 years. Luther was hot headed, intemperate, nasty, prone to deep depression, but brilliant in gathering supporters and translating Scripture into the language of the people, German. He touched a nerve both spiritually and politically. His ideas exploded all over Europe.

 

Does that sound familiar? Like today’s headlines?

The Reformation and the response of the Council of Trent

The Council of Trent addressed the two biggest issues of the Protestant Reformation--justification and original sin.  Father Robert Barron--always an outstanding, kind and thorough, yet poetic, lecturer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRZK92T8k28 

Christendom is gearing up for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation--1517-2017.  Be prepared!