Ideas have consequences; therefore, it is convenient to review very well what we think and believe. That is thesis number 5 of my book: 95 theses for the new generation.
Before Luther appeared on the scene, there were several characters who paved the way for the Reformation. Figures such as Pierre Valdo, John Wyclif or Jan Hus insisted on reforming the Church through a purification of customs, that is, individual and ecclesial sanctification. The preacher Girolamo Savonarola, for example, was famous for organizing the Bonfire of the Vanities: a public burning of objects that were luxurious and associated with the libertine life. Savonarola denounced with that act the corruption of Renaissance Florence governed by the Medici. The prophetic courage of the Italian preacher earned him powerful enemies, such as the immoral Pope Alexander VI, who excommunicated him and condemned him to the stake.
Luther was fourteen years old the day Savonarola was burned as a heretic. His example of prophetic courage was one of the models that inspired the vocation of the reformer. More than two decades later—on his way to the Diet of Worms, himself accused of heresy and not knowing whether he would return from that trip or whether he would die a martyr—Luther carried with him an image of the Italian monk.
Luther was neither the first nor the last to seek to purify the practices and customs of the Church of his time. Nevertheless, his Reformation did something different from the previous ones: it focused on a revision of dogmatics. He not only focused on customs, morality, and individual failings; “May the life of the pope and his family be as it may be. Now we are talking about his doctrine », he said. He did not aim his artillery against the sins of the Church, but against sinful teachings.
“We must distinguish between doctrine and life,” said Luther; “If the doctrine is not reformed, the reform of morals will be in vain, since superstition and fictitious holiness cannot be recognized except through the Word and faith.” Although Luther admired precursors of the Reformation such as Savonarola, Wyclif and Hus, he also criticized them for having exposed the moral deficiencies of the Church, but without attacking the theology that was at its base. They had targeted the consequences of the problem, but had done nothing to address the causes.
CS Lewis said that we can spend our lives paying no attention to theological ideas, ignoring that dimension of reality. But that does not mean that we do not have any position taken on the issue. Rather, it means that we have “a large number of wrong ideas: bad, mutilated, and obsolete ideas. Because many of the ideas about God that are in vogue in our time are simply those that true theologians studied centuries ago and discarded.
Our theological ideas are not inconsequential abstractions that stain our faith in one color or another. They are not a mere backdrop to the true Christian life. Philosophical and religious ideas are dangerous, “as dangerous as fire, and nothing can take away from them that beauty that danger confers on them. But there is only one way to guard against its excessive danger, and that is to penetrate into philosophy and steep ourselves in religion.
Reviewing, deconstructing, meditating, and filtering our ideas about God and the world should be one of the first steps in reforming our Christian spirituality. It is not a work intended for intellectuals with little faith. It is not a distraction from true spirituality. As Richard Weaver said a few decades ago, ideas have consequences.
If we preach the centrality of the Gospel in all areas of reality, what we believe about God, the Bible, salvation and mission will greatly affect (for better or worse) our lives, our community of faith and society.