A LUTHERAN POPE?

Yesterday the Pope visited Erfut, the monastery that was home to Martin Luther, and what might be described as the spiritual home of the Reformation. To have a Pope address leaders of the Lutheran church at this site is ironic almost beyond description. It also begs the question as to which church Luther would himself feel most comfortable with were he alive today – a Lutheran church that has in many ways slipped so far from the ideals of its founder, or a Catholicism that regularly speaks with greater clarity about matters of faith?

At the end of his address the Pope made some interesting observations. The first was a thinly veiled attack upon Pentecostal and Charismatic churches:

The geography of Christianity has changed dramatically in recent times, and is in the process of changing further. Faced with a new form of Christianity, which is spreading with overpowering missionary dynamism, sometimes in frightening ways, the mainstream Christian denominations often seem at a loss.

Clearly the See of Rome feels the threat of what it regards as its possession by God given right being taken away by these Pentecostal upstarts. This is the case especially in Latin America, where to be a Christian does not now necessarily mean being a Roman Catholic – and it must be as unsettling for the papacy as was Luther’s Reformation. The Pope’s concern is that, “This is a form of Christianity with little institutional depth, little rationality and even less dogmatic content, and with little stability.” That is perhaps a fair criticism, but does not in itself invalidate what is happening. By definition, whenever a new move of God begins it takes time for institutions and theological depth to develop – and sadly it is often the development of those very things that kills off spiritual vitality.

The Pope’s final point was well made, and worth quoting in entirety – it is one with which most Pentecostals would probably identify!

The second challenge to worldwide Christianity of which I wish to speak is more profound and in our country more controversial: the secularized context of the world in which we Christians today have to live and bear witness to our faith. God is increasingly being driven out of our society, and the history of revelation that Scripture recounts to us seems locked into an ever more remote past. Are we to yield to the pressure of secularization, and become modern by watering down the faith? Naturally faith today has to be thought out afresh, and above all lived afresh, so that it is suited to the present day. Yet it is not by watering the faith down, but by living it today in its fullness that we achieve this. This is a key ecumenical task. Moreover, we should help one another to develop a deeper and more lively faith. It is not strategy that saves us and saves Christianity, but faith – thought out and lived afresh; through such faith, Christ enters this world of ours, and with him, the living God.

I’m not sure Luther himself could have put it any better.