Five-hundred years ago this week, Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, and Christianity has never been the same.
To mark the start of the Protestant Reformation, several Central Alberta churches, including Red Deer’s Kentwood Alliance Church, are hosting special services and celebrations.
On Halloween night, Garrett Gillespie, a pastor at the Kentwood church, is costuming himself as Luther (his wife Holly will be Mrs. Luther). They will lead children through educational activities around the historical event.
Instead of pinning the tail on the donkey, blind-folded kids will pin Luther’s ‘theses’ onto a door, while learning what the reformer’s beefs were with the Roman Catholic Church of the time.
When the children toss coins into a bucket, they will learn that Luther — a professor of theology, composer, priest and one-time monk — opposed indulgences. These were ‘sold’ by the Catholic pope in the early 1500s as a way of buying people’s souls out of purgatory. “It was like paying your way into heaven,” said Gillespie.
Luther’s followers believe salvation is not earned by good deeds but received as a gift of God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ, as redeemer from sin.
Luther also challenged the pope by teaching the Bible is the only source of divine knowledge. When he helped translate the first Latin Bible into German, making it available to regular people, this also had huge impact on German culture, fostering the development of a standard German language. It even influenced an English translation — the Tyndale Bible.
Protestant hymns were composed by Luther, and his marriage to a former nun set a precedent for clerical marriages.
Gillespie said some of thechildren’s activities will include a three-legged race — perhaps symbolizing the three-day period over which Luther defended himself under papal questioning. Luther proposed an academic discussion of the practice of indulgences in his Theses of 1517. His refusal to renounce his writings resulted in his excommunication and condemnation as an outlaw.
Luther’s theses had far-reaching implications, said Gillespie. “For us Protestants, they symbolize the reclamation of the gospel.” Protestant churches throughout the world are marking the 500th anniversary. “It’s a big deal all over Germany…here not not quite as much,” said Gillespie, but some local churches are celebrating in their own way.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter