Luther Quit Too Soon

How the reformers stopped short of true reform (part 1)


by Gene Edwards with humor and comments by James Rutz (used with permission)



The Reformation was made possible by one man. And it wasn't Luther. It also wasn't Zwingli or Hus or Wycliffe or Calvin or Hobbes. The credit goes to Frederick the Wise, without whom Dr. Luther would have been turned into a little pile of carbon by age 34, if not earlier.

Frederick the Wise, alias Frederick III, just happened to command the largest army in Europe, and he was royally peeved because he had not been made Pope. In fact, there was a lot of unrest all across northern (non-Latin) Europe over the behavior of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy down in Italy. Now, in Saxony, where Frederick ruled, there was this perfectly delightful, beer-loving German monk who taught Augustinian theology at the University of Wittenberg. And he was really upset with the church. Luther's conduct and writings were reprehensible to the Roman Catholic Church, and normally he would have been put on trial as a heretic and burned alive.

*But Prince Frederick, bless his heart, took a shine to Luther, and decided to give protection to the Germanic radical. Essentially what Frederick said was, "Let that man say what he has to say; let no one touch him." And no one else had an army big enough to argue with him.


If you do not understand Frederick the Wise's army, you do not understand the Reformation. Catholic malcontents had been around for centuries. The key to the Reformation's success was not some great spiritual revival, but the military might of Frederick (who, ironically, probably remained a Catholic to the end). The final outcome of this was that the land of Saxony removed Roman Catholicism as its official state religion (the first nation ever to do so). To fill this vacuum, Luther was given free rein to establish a whole new state religion from the ground up!

That brings us to the era where we picked up the lion's share of Protestant practices. Luther had before him a nation filled with empty, ex-Roman Catholic church buildings. He sent his followers out to man these church buildings and to promulgate his teachings to the faithful. Earlier, many Catholic priests had read Luther's writings and had left the Catholic ministry. Most got married, and many came to Luther's home seeking teaching and direction. (He performed no small number of marriages between ex-priests and ex-nuns, and ordained a host of "Lutheran" ministers.)

*During these incredible times, Luther produced an entire ecclesiastical structure out of bare bones, created a flood of Lutheran literature and got it distributed. He single-handedly created a Protestant catechism for children, a Protestant hymn book, and a Protestant Bible, which he translated, published and distributed.


While doing all this, he taught and trained ex-priests to become Lutheran ministers and Bible expositors. Wherever possible, he was sending these men out to serve as Protestant ministers to those empty church buildings all over Saxony.

*Those Lutheran ministers were looked upon as a Protestant version of a priest. Up until that time the "pastoral role," the pastoral practice of the Protestant world, did not exist. The modern-day pastoral concept began in Wittenberg, Germany. So did a lot of our other "New Testament practices." Here is the story of Wittenberg.




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