In the period
between 1300 and 1500, several things were happening within the church.
Discontent was brewing; the Holy Catholic Church was doing certain things that
caused people to think twice about their motives. Several people were starting to squirm due to
all of these swirling actions. Shelley,
in his book states: “We call the period between 1300 and 1500 the age of “the
decline of the Middle Ages” because the idea of Christendom, which unified the
millennium between the fourth and the fourteenth centuries, was under vigorous
attack” (Shelley, 2008, pg. 216). The pope thought everything was going well,
but underneath the heat was turning up and things were about to boil over.
There were several
reformers; some of them extremely famous during the latter portion of this
period and others very unfamiliar as a whole but were some of the first people
to stir the pot with ideas of reformation.
These different groups of reformers found themselves fighting very
similar battles. Some took very similar
paths on the journey to reform, whilst others went down a bit of a detoured and
different journey.
One of the earliest groups in the
“early reformation” period where the Waldensians, who were founded Peter Waldo
who was a bit ahead of his time with the ideals he espoused. Born in 1140 as a rich merchant he one day
heard a message of poverty from a wandering troubadour. It was a message of how a young man sold
everything for the cause of Christ. He
decided to ask a priest how to live like Christ and the priest quoted Matthew
19:21 and upon hearing this, Waldo heeded the advice to sell all and did so
himself. Waldo taught a message of
poverty to the church and soon gathered a group of mere laymen in his cause and
they travelled preaching this message of poverty and giving all for the cause
of Christ. Shelley says of these men:
“The
Waldenses were so clearly a back-to-the-Bible movement that over the years many
evangelical Christians have tried to present them as ‘reformers before the
Reformation.’ Compared to the Roman
church’s doctrine of papal authority the Waldensian call to return to the Bible
does indeed sound like Luther or Calvin.
But their view of salvation, a life of penance and poverty, lacks the
clear not of God’s grace that sounded so powerfully in the Reformation”
(Shelley, 2008 pg. 209).
Obviously
something was stirring even in this early age, yet from this movement to the
Great Reformation there is a lack of the doctrine of grace, which Shelley
points out. So with the Waldensians
there is a clear continuity with the reformation, but a slight discontinuity as
well.
Other
early reformers were a group called the Friends of God, founded by Meister
Eckhart who died in 1328 (Stine, Presentation, 2012). This group was strikingly similar to the
Beguines and in fact had several of these laywomen within the movement
itself. The key tenants of this movement
were: “Authority of Scripture, priesthood of all believers, detachment from
things, God must set us free, not ourselves (and he sometimes does this through
suffering), and lastly they emphasized a personal relationship with God (much
of which was influenced by Bernard of Clairvaux)” (Stine, Presentation,
2012). Similar to the beliefs of the
Waldensian believers, these were mostly folks who were not “professional clergy”
but simply laymen and women as well as a deep understanding of a personal
relationship with God, which was not really being taught in the Catholic Church.
The
most influential preacher in this movement was Johannes Tauler who preached his
heart out with these key ideas of priesthood of all believers as well as all
people able to have the ability to have a deep, personal relationship with
Jesus and that the clergy didn’t have the corner market on this type of
spirituality. He was such a great
preacher that he even influenced Luther and I am sure his sermons were weaved
into the very theology of Martin Luther’s reformation sermons!
The
Friends of God obviously had a huge part to play in the coming reformation,
with their deep ideals, which went against a lot of the Catholic Churches
ideals about lay people and their role as well as the ability for a personal
relationship with God. There is much
more continuity with the Friends of God and the Reformers than the Waldensians. So much that the only thing I can speak of to
the way of discontinuity with the later reformers and the Friends of God is a
lack of teaching on the Friends of God’s part of predestination (which was a
huge portion of teaching by the later reformers).
A
group similar in geography as well as theology to the Friends of God in the
early days was a group known as Devotiona Moderna, which means: “Renewed
devotion” (Stine, Presentation, 2012). A
group which seems to have stemmed from this group was the “Brethren of the
Common Life” which was founded by the same person for both: Geert de
Groote. “Groote soon took up the cause
of church renewal. He felt deep concern
about the worldliness of the church.
Everywhere he saw evidence of inept priests, corrupt bishops and
ignorant, superstitious laity” (Sittser, 2007, pg. 202-203). Seeing the priesthood of all believers being
rejected or just not taught he sought to change that; in fact, this movement
“Made Spiritual Formation available to more lay people than any previous
renewal movement” (Stine, Presentation, 2012).
This movement also used printing to disperse its teaching and deeply
influenced the reformation that was forthcoming. These folks worked within the Catholic
Church’s system however and didn’t seek to reform the monastic life but to
renew it with the power of laity.
Moving
forward into the years, we come to two very powerful and influential
pre-reformer reformers: John Wycliffe and John Hus. The bell that seemed to be rung over and over
again within these early movements, on into the Reformation was that of regular
people being called to “the priesthood of all believers”. Wycliffe deeply believed this. Shelley quotes Wycliffe as saying:
“’God
gives no lordship to His servants with out first giving Himself to them.’ Every man therefore, priest or layman, holds
an equal place in the eyes of God. This
personal relation between a man and God is everything; character is the one
basis of office” (Shelley, 2008, pg. 226)
Wycliffe thought that the papacy was in no way right with what it was
doing, enforcing and how extravagant it was living; similar criticisms from the
Friends of God, Devotina Moderna and other early reformers as well as the
reformers of the Reformation. The major
players in the church were not doing their jobs according to Wycliffe and this
message was looking more and more correct to all people. Wycliffe went so far as to say the papacy was
“the anti-Christ itself” (Shelley, 2008, pg. 227). He soon took a great step, the greatest of
his life maybe when he “passed from an orthodox preacher eager to reform the
existing international Roman church, into a Protestant” (Shelley, 2008, pg.
227). This was a new and revolutionary idea: breaking ties with the Catholic
Church and beginning anew! He railed
against certain practices, pardons, indulgences, absolutions, pilgrimages, the
worship of images, the adoration of the saints and other things pertaining to
the papacy in general. Much of these
things he was against are true to the Great Reformation as well, even his
belief in predestination. He was truly
the first Reformer of the Reformation who began a great new way. The Schism within the Papacy caused so much
upheaval and this reformer added into the mix started to bust through the
cracks of the very cracked Catholic Church.
Another
large portion of his teaching was getting the Bible into the hands of ordinary
man which again was similar to the previous movements prior and rang true to
the “Priesthood of all believers”.
Christ as the true head of the church is an idea that was strongly
pushed by Wycliffe and picked up by another young rector named John Hus. Hus agreed with Wycliffe in many ways and
began to use his teachings as a launching point for reformation in Bohemia, as
Wycliffe did in England and the Friends of God did in Germany and Switzerland.
Hus speaking against the papacy and the idea of indulgences got him
excommunicated and thrown into prison.
He never relented, standing on Scripture that the things he preached
against were wrong according to Scripture.
He once stated: “I have said tat I would not, for a chapel full of gold,
recede from the truth” (Shelley, 2008, pg. 231 ).
These
early movements and people had much continuity with the Reformers, in fact so
much was similar that these movements and people could be considered “the early
reformers” because the teachings of: the authority of Scripture, the priesthood
of all believers, grace as a means for salvation (for the most part, except
with the Waldensians), the deep rooted idea that something was deeply wrong and
even sinful going on within the current hierarchy of the church and that
preaching the Word should take precedence within “worship” settings. Some of the beliefs were not consistent: some
believed in predestination and pushed that through in a big, hard way while
others didn’t. Some fought doctrine
issues like transubstantiation while others ignored such issues. Some of these early movements sought to renew
the current church as did Luther (originally), while others eventually broke
free from the Church and moved in way of the Protestant.
Much
of the teaching that came out of the lives and mouths of these early reformers
sparked the match in the latter reformers.
The message they brought was clearly ringing true in the ears, hearts,
minds and souls of the latter reformers, the likes of Martin Luther, John
Calvin and so many others.
References
Shelley, Bruce L. (2008). Church History in
Plain Language, 3rd Edition. Thomas Nelson Publishing, Nashville, TN.
Sittser, Gerald L. (2007).
Water from a Deep Well: Christian Spirituality from Early Martyrs to Modern
Missionaries. InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 Wheaton: Standard
Bible Society.
2 comments:
Good reflection on the breadth of the reform movement during these times. We so often forget, however, that these Christian's desired to "reform" the Roman Catholic Church. Most did not desire to break from the Church, in order to form a new denomination.
It is interesting to note that many North American protestants look back to the Reformation with pride in the division that happened. There is clearly a 'living wound' in the body of Christ due to the schism of the Protestant Reformation. To celebrate the reformation, in my opinion, is to make light of this wound in the body of Christ and misunderstand what the "reformers" meant to due. Instead of celebrating, we should mourn the schism.
I think the "reformers" really did reform the Roman Catholic Church. This is clearly seen in the Counter-Reformation and later reforms in the R.C.C. I can't help but ask: "would Luther, Calvin, Swingly and the other 'reformers' have issues with the Roman Catholic Church today, especially in regards to the post Vatican II reforms?"
Perhaps we need a new Reformation. A reformation of protestants who repent of their pride over the schism of the Church, pursue a renewed unity of ecumenicalism, re-embrace the mystery of the Sacraments (calvin and Luther were highly sacramental) and seek deep forgiveness for the ways the North American protestant churches have succumbed to consumerism, making Jesus a commodity.
Again, thank you for your reflections and I appreciate your thoughts.
I'm not sure I would say I look on it with "pride" per se but changing the things that were changed were necessary. Things were corrupt and the people needed the personal revival, knowing that they too had access to God. I think celebration does make light of a wound to some degree but it is something worth celebrating in that certain unbiblical things changed to be more on par with what God intended. Luther's theses were right on and the celebrating of his stance is where I go. Too often we forget the unneccesary bloodshed that transpired during the reformation and both sides were guilty of grievous sins during that time.
I think a new reformation is indeed needed, maybe not the same exact way in which you state here, but there is much sin and much woundedness within the body of Christ that needs healing. Working together for the cause of Christ is a definitive need and should be embraced by all, not scoffed at as it is by many.
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