The
Peponi Post
2H
Hilary 2018
News from across the Peponi community
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23
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Last week, I spoke about Martin Luther King Junior—the civil rights campaigner of the 1950s and 60s in the United States. I want to wind the clock back some considerable time to a period where discrimination, division and injustice seemed to be part of normal life; and in many cases all done in the name, on behalf of, or as a consequence of God’s justice. Some 500 years ago, a German scholar aged 34 pinned a notice for debate on a church door and the impact went—as we would say today— viral. It was translated, distributed throughout Germany, on to Rome and beyond. The scholar was another Martin Luther but one who was not a King nor Junior—just Martin Luther, and this nailing of his 95 theses began the Protestant Reformation. It does not take much of a twist of thought to see this Martin Luther as another Civil Rights activist. Martin Luther was born in 1483 and became a very prominent professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg.
America. Dialogue has brought healing. Nearly twenty years ago, the World Lutheran Federation and the Catholic Church signed a joint declaration which said that “By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit.” Forgiveness is not something we can simply buy—for Christians it requires an understanding that it was Christ’s actions when he was amongst us that we are forgiven. In our daily lives forgiveness requires us to let go of our anger and hurt and allow ourselves to move on and regain our relationship with others and indeed God. In Islam, forgiveness is central to the belief that Allah is merciful—as Hasan Al Basri said “the best attribute a believer can have is forgiveness.” The union between faiths—including Christian denominations—can also be based on a sense of mutual understanding, love for one another, and forgiveness.
Luther was a radical in many senses and found fault in a great deal of what surrounded him. Like Martin Luther Junior, who acted more recently, he took to his pen, wrote, argued and presented ideas that went against the thought of the time. Luther could not reconcile the wealth of the Pope, his cardinals and ministers, when people around him were starving. It is said that on 31st October 1517, he nailed a document to the door of the church in Wittenberg. In his theses, Luther confronted false teaching and malpractice in the church. He objected to the way the church extorted money from the poor, and pointed to the wealth of the Pope. Mostly, however, he condemned the practice of selling ‘indulgences’; pardons for sin, provided by the church in return for payment. For Luther, forgiveness could not be bought or sold, it comes through repentance and faith and only God can grant it. Luther’s theses expressed the doctrine of justification by faith. Restored relationships with God come through God’s grace alone, by faith alone, through Christ alone. This reading of the New Testament became the foundation for the Reformation of the Christian Church.
So, when we cry with Luther, ‘Here I stand I can do no other,’ help us humbly to receive the insights from those who stand somewhere else.
Five hundred years later, the Church has moved on. Christians worship in some 43,000 denominations, expressing their Christianity in different cultural ways. The majority of Christians are not white or European but from Africa, Asia, and Latin
Mark Durston Headmaster