This Saturday was the second of two plenary sessions by
Dr. Root of Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. Rather than bore those of you who might read and are not theological students, I'll just hit the highlights of this second session. I'm sure each person there had a different idea about what the highlights were, that's just how the Spirit works through the Word--it is different for each of us.
First, my cohort in listening to the theology behind the reformation, Deidra, was absent...in the hotel room of all places, with a migraine. So I let her sleep it off while I took 18 pages of notes while knitting a sweater for Ella. The thing about older students is that we become overachievers in class, even a class without a grade--and if I had not had the sweater, I might have taken 36 pages I suppose.
One of the things that surprised me was that Luther was very disappointed in the Reformation as a whole--he was one who believed in working for change inside the system in place. It took him quite a while after he started the movement before he decided the Pope was indeed an antiChrist--a papal bull that excommunicated him might have moved him in that direction of course. He often spoke and wrote too fast to think through all of his theology. In short, he tended to be what we might nicely refer to as brash...or not so nicely, a jerk. When there was a Saxon visitation in 1527 he was deeply disappointed that the original reasons for the reformation were forgotten and the peasants were simply revolting. He found the ministers revolting too--generally b/c if they came over from the Catholic side, they were still not teaching the very foundations of Christian belief.
He felt called to improve on what "Christian Life" means and so wrote his Small Catechism for families and the Large Catechism for pastors. Just in case you are now asking the question, the Small Catechism has the
Ten Commandments and Luther's explanation for each, the Apostle's Creed explained in three articles, and the Lord's Prayer, explained in 7 petitions. Of course the Sacraments of Baptism and Communion are also explained. He includes morning, evening and noontime prayers also, but these just a guide as to what you might pray. All of these are the basics of Christian Life, and Luther felt like the average person should know them and reflect on them as life-long learning. He said that even after being a studied professor, he still had to go back to the basic works and reflect and he still came up wanting. In many places these are still studied and memorized by students who are up for Confirmation in the Lutheran tradition.
In the Large Catechism, which I think should be read by all laity now that people are so literate, I couldn't get past the first commandment explanation without feeling convicted. Deidra said the one that she thought was most convicting was the explanation for "Thou Shalt Not Kill" because of the many ways we do kill others each day (which might indeed lead to killing physically)--but gossip and demeaning our neighbors are ways to kill others as much as we might brutalize another.
A note to say that if you got the Small Catechism out and looked at it, the Ten Commandments might not be listed as they are in your Bible. Then you have to know this other little piece of history and that is that Luther translated the Latin Vulgate Bible into German because that was what was available to him, there being no other translations available at the time. Now scholars translate directly from the Greek and Hebrew and still there are many points at which it is left to interpretation from syllabic languages what a word "truly" means. This is just my two cents, the professor did not say this. But I understand the context in which these works were translated and thought if you didn't know, you might want to also.
Of course we were given some terms that we had no knowledge of before now (and definitely not me as I'm not a Latin scholar: Simul Justus et Peccator--at the same time justice and sinner. I stop here to say I'm only on page 6 of my notes and know that I can't possibly encompass a whole day's worth in a few paragraphs here. It does help me to process what I learned, but I'm not sure I've enlightened anyone else.
I was fascinated to learn that until later, during Calvin's Geneva speech making, there was no numbering of verses in the Bible. So citations from the Lutherans writing the Book of Concord (mainly Luther and Melancthon) were done by chapter and not verse until recently. One of the things that we learn about is that Luther did believe that reading the Bible was the way to improve Christian life, not a way to make us fight each other. He was not one who backed down from an intellectual fight though. He knew that when he decided not to recant the words in his books that he would be executed. Remarkably, he was not.