Blog #5 2/15/09

Religion is a huge subject! So, I chose to write about the Lutheran Religion and the Lutheran history. The Lutheran article I read was about the three things I mentioned above. I am half Lutheran, a quarter Orthodox, and another quarter Jewish due to the fact that my dad is Lutheran while my mom is half Orthodox, half Jewish. I am more into the Lutheran religion than the other two and I mostly do go to Lutheran churches. However, I do have many criticisms of the Lutheran religion. In the article it says that "Lutheranism simplifies Catholic practices," but it is much more reformed and much different than Catholicism. For example, Lutheranism believers completely look down upon any type of ornamental decoration or worshiping of saints while the opposite is true in Catholicism. Also, another criticism I have is that Martin Luther himself believed that everything is based off of scripture (sola scriptura) in the Bible and that people are saved only through their faith (sola fide), not by works they do. Because of this, he discouraged pagan philosophers to experiment in the sciences or any type of new knowledge for that matter. If people would have listened to this even more, there would be a much less developed world than there is today. Copernicus had  gone against Luther when he found out that the sun did not revolve around the earth. Luther told him that it could not be so because in the bible it said "Joshua bade the Sun not stand still." If Copernicus had not gone against Luther, who knows what our solar system beliefs would be to this day! Mainly, Lutheranism was founded by Martin Luther. Surprisingly, he was a Catholic before he split off of the Church to find his more pure form of religion, free of the waste of the ornamental and sinful Catholic church. In European History, we learned that Luther was so enraged by the Catholic religion that he posted his 95-Theses on the wall of a church in Germany, his home country in hopes that the Church would reform its practice and preaching to be more accurate with the sayings in the Bible. I personally agree with Lutheran's rejection of 5 sacraments and in only keeping Baptism and Holy Communion because during the time purgatory (waiting to go to heaven- very long) was deemed to be able to be shortened for loved ones who had died by purchasing indulgences. Indulgences were originally just a way for the Catholic church to get money from people, and Luther exposed this in his 95-Thesis. I think that that was a wrong thing to do and that is why I believe that indulgences should not be a sacrament. I support his decision in keeping Baptism because it can be seen as God giving his blessings so that the person came become a member of Christ's Body on earth. Also, I support his decision in keeping Holy Communion (aka the Eucharist- was the belief that giving bread and wine are in the form of the Christ's body and blood) because it is the real presence of God's forgiveness.