It is (Re)-Written: Protestant ep 4/7

THE WAR TO END ALL WARS

Ernest Shackleton and his group of explorers washed up on the beach. They had not been heard from since their ship had broken upon the waves and accounted lost at sea months earlier. Taken in by one of the locals, his first question was concerning the war that had just begun when they first embarked. “Is the war over?” he inquired. His benefactor eerily replied, “The war is not over, millions are dead, all Europe has gone crazy.” Like most people at the time, Shackleton had believed that a war between Europe’s major powers would very quickly come to an end. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany is reported to have assured his troops at the commencement of hostilities in the summer of 1914 that they would be home by Christmas. Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch of France was confronted with the need to replace the soldiers' cloth caps with metal helmets for greater protection and was reported to have stated, “Don’t bother, the war will be over before the helmets reach the front.” Such were the expectations all over Europe’s empires. Yet the first world war was to become the greatest slugging match they had ever yet seen. At the battle of the frontiers, before the stalemate of the trenches, France was losing 22,000 men a day. Germany was equally taking a punch, so much so that there was no time to properly train recruits. University students were simply given a hurried week’s basic training and thrown at the meat grinder. To sustain the costs of war, nations quickly dispensed with the gold standard. It was now seen for what it was, a desperate war for national survival. A war to end all wars.

---

A Man For His Time

The night before Luther pinned his thesis on the Wittenberg Castle Church door, the elector of Saxony, uncle to the emperor, prince Frederick the wise had a dream

“I dreamt that the Almighty sent me a monk, who was a true son of Paul the Apostle. He was accompanied by all the saints, in obedience to God’s command, to bear him testimony, and to assure me that he did not come with any fraudulent design, but that all he should do was conformable to the will of God. They asked my gracious permission to let him write something on the doors of the palace-chapel at Wittenberg, which I conceded through my chancellor. Upon this, the monk repaired thither and began to write; so large were the characters that I could read from Schweinitz what he was writing. The pen he used was so long that its extremity reached as far as Rome, where it pierced the ears of a lion which lay there, and shook the triple crown on the pope’s head. All the cardinals and princes ran up hastily and endeavored to support it.” - (D’Aubigne, Hist. of the Reformation pg 95)

Luther was a scholar, and his action that coming morning of pinning his thesis was no different from say publishing an article in a scholarly journal. Moreover, what he published was a disputation, a call to debate, and in debate a little more color and personality is often indulged than other forms of discussion. The issue that had so exercised our champion was on indulgences. To Luther, his dispute was with John Tetzel the preacher of Indulgences. He believed that such a man went around misusing the name of the pope, so he reasoned, that if he brought this matter to the attention of the pope, the Vatican would see what a fraud they had in their employ and dispense with him for corrupting the purity of the gospel. He thus sent a copy of his thesis to the Archbishop of Mentz.

“When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ says repent, he means that the whole life of believers upon earth should be a constant and perpetual repentance” - Luther Martin, Thesis 1

John Tetzel [holding cross] Inquisitor and Seller of Indulgences entering town with much fanfare

I love how all of this came together. Martin Luther is still oblivious of what he is doing. No one had an idea of wherewithal this was leading, but watch the brilliant mind of God at work

“Tetzel indeed felt that an adversary like Luther was too much for him alone. Greatly disconcerted at the doctor’s attack, and exasperated to the highest degree, he quitted the vicinity of Wittenberg, and repaired to Frankfort-on-the-Oder, where he arrived in the month of November 1517. The university of this city, like that of Wittenberg, was of recent date; but it had been founded by the opposite party. Conrad Wimpina, an eloquent man, the ancient rival of Pollich of Mellerstadt, and one of the most distinguished theologians of the age, was a professor there. Wimpina cast an envious glance on the doctor and university of Wittenberg. Their reputation galled him. Tetzel requested him to answer Luther’s theses, and Wimpina wrote two lists of antitheses, the object of the first being to defend the doctrine of indulgences, and the second, the authority of the pope” ibid pg 108

a drawing of Conrad Wimpina

Why did Conrad think it necessary to write a second anti-thesis in defense of the Pope’s authority? Evidently because he saw what everyone else including Luther had missed, that the 95 theses were not merely an attack on indulgences, they were in very fact an attack on Papal authority. Notice here how briefly a man enters the story whose unwitting role is to reveal the true issues in this apparently minor argument. You’ve got to love God’s mind in crafting this whole scenario.

“These second theses of Tetzel’s form an important epoch in the Reformation. They changed the ground of dispute: they transported it from the indulgence-markets to the halls of the Vatican, and diverted it from Tetzel to the pope” - Ibid

---

My apologies if I rushed to this before enumerating Luther’s upbringing, but it is necessary to see this first all because this is what God kept doing in Luther’s life. God kept pushing him into corners in order to open his eyes to the real issues at stake. We need also to see this in our very own lives, God always trying to get us to see the bigger picture behind the challenges and conflicts we experience. If we can only connect with His mind, the mission of our lives would become clear and nothing else would consume our attention. In sickness or health, in lack or in plenty, in failure or success, our joy will be full; for we will know what He knows, our tomorrow will be sure in Him and we shall know our place in the war to end all wars.