Any Season Good for Forgiveness

The recent political environment has created opportunities for friction between friends and families. I’ve seen a lot of posts on social media about how to survive the holidays in a conflicted family. I’ve also heard stories and had my own experience of individuals unfriending friends and family members on Facebook because of “offensive” posts. And…

The Church’s Role in Feudalism

In the last post, the system of feudalism was explained. This week we want to look at the role of the church in feudalism. To review: Feudalism was a system created to provide land, resources(food), and service(military) to those who needed it. But how did the church relate to this system. Christianity became the official…

Fuedalism

In order to understand the context of the Reformation, it is important to understand the how society was structure. The structure was called feudalism. The King owned the land. He would give land to subordinates in exchange for resources like food and soldiers. The king gave land to Nobles in return for money and knights….

Was the Advent Wreath a result of the Reformation?

The first Advent wreaths began to appear in the 16th Century in Germany. This is not a direct result of the Reformation, but it could be argued that as Roman Catholic faith practices were being eliminated from the lives of believers that other practices entered into the vacuum. The original Advent wreath had candles for…

What was it about indulgences?

Martin Luther famously had a problem with indulgences. He wrote his 95 Theses about what he saw as abuses of the church concerning indulgences. So what is an indulgence? An indulgence is a way to make up for your sins by purchasing, with money, and indulgence that would get you into heaven sooner. We have…

Re-Form-Ation

It is important to understand how the Reformation began and what the original intent of the reformers was, as we look back on the history of the Reformation. When Martin Luther wrote his 95 Theses, his intention was not to create a new church, but to re-form the one and only church — the Roman…

Protestant Reformation — Chuck Knows Church

Rick Steves on the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation

Gratitude

This time of year we tend to spend some time thinking about gratitude, what it means to be grateful, and what we are grateful for. (Pardon the dangling participle.) I was taught manners as a child. Part of those manners was to say, “thank you” when someone did something for you. A stranger opening a…

What makes you a Christian?

I am frequently asked the question, “Do you have to go to church to be a Christian?” This is becoming more and more of an issue as the definition of what regular worship attendance has changed in the last decade or so. It used to be that regular worship attendance meant that a person attended…