Happy Reformation Day! I know, you are confused. Reformation Day is always the last Sunday of October. This is both true and false. The Protestant Church has adjusted Reformation Day to the last Sunday of October in order to allow church services to be centered on both Reformation Sunday and All Saints Day on corresponding Sundays.
However, in reality, we should celebrate Reformation Day on October 31. No this is not a replacement for the secular holiday of Halloween. It is the day that Martin Luther wrote his letter to Albert of Mainz (pronounced Meints). You probably remember this letter as Luther’s “95 Theses.” In actuality this letter was translated into German and published as Disputation of Marthin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences. No wonder we have shortened it to the “95 Theses.”
Although Martin did not know it at the time, this was the beginning of his break with the Catholic Church and what we now call the Reformation.
Martin Luther was not alone he was joined by many other reformers, such as:
- John Calvin
- John Wycliffe
- William Tyndale
- John Hus
- Huldrych Zwingli
- John Knox
- And many others
Now you know the truth, Reformation Day is celebrated on October 31st, in reflection of a single letter, written in 1517, that sparked one of the greatest religious events in human history.
Praise the Lord for men that will stand for something at the risk of everything!
~ Micah Holtzinger
…preaching that aims to produce true evangelical remorse and contrition must devote itself to making God and His holiness look alluringly attractive and satisfying, so that, by the grace of regeneration and illumination, people will come to love it so much that they feel intense remorse over falling short of it.” ~ John Piper, “
“Seminaries don’t make pastors, churches do.”
Just a few days ago I watched a video podcast with two pastors of the “emerging” movement. Both of their churches have seen explosive growth with an average of about 1000 members per year. As I listened to their conversation it was obvious to me that they saw this growth as an indication of what they felt was the great need in their communities and and the failure of the traditional evangelicals, seeker driven, seeker sensitive churches, and the positive confession movement. They lumped them all together and viewed their message as a sissified Christianity or a legalistic Christianity. Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Community Church in Seattle has written, that the church has transformed Jesus into “a Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ,” a “neutered and limp-wristed popular Sky Fairy of pop culture that . . . would never talk about sin or send anyone to hell.” While his rhetoric may be a bit over the top, there is no doubt that there is a great deal of truth to his and others assessment of modern evangelicalism. Much of the evangelical church has soft peddled the Gospel with a simplistic user friendly message that emphasizes the love of God and ignores the sinfulness of man and God’s judgment. And the positive confession movement, best illustrated by Joel Osteen, compounds this problem with a message that is a mixture of Norman Vincent Peal and Kenneth Hagen.
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