CHRIST IN WINTER:
Reflections on Faith and Life for the Years of Winter…
500 years ago, on the just
past Oct. 31, an obscure Augustinian friar named Martin Luther nailed a list of
95 points on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. The “theses”
detailed the ways in which he felt the Roman Catholic Church needed to be
reformed.
At the time there were
basically only two forms of Christian church, each calling itself Catholic,
which means universal. There was the Eastern Church, usually called Orthodox,
and the Western Church, centered in Rome. They had been basically one church,
which deserved the title of “catholic,” since it was universal, but Eastern and
Western Christians split in 1054 AD, basically over the pope--that is, whether
to have one. The Eastern Church was against. [1]
The Rome church continued
to call itself Catholic since it was “the only true church.” When the church
refused to enact the badly needed reforms that Luther championed, he left, and
his followers, ever since, have been known as Lutherans. That was the start of
what we call The Reformation, because Luther did not want to divide the church,
he just wanted to reform it.
At the same time Luther
was trying for reform in Germany, John Calvin was working for it in
Switzerland. To distinguish his followers from Luther’s, they were known as
“Reform” or “Reformed,” simply meaning people of The Reformation who were not
specifically Lutherans. Those are folks we know today as Presbyterians.
When John Knox tried to
bring the Reformation to Scotland, he ran into a lot of trouble, like people
trying to kill him, so he fled to Calvin’s Geneva to let things cool down.
There he became convinced of the truth of Calvin’s approach and took the
“Reformed” back to Scotland, which is known even today as a Presbyterian
stronghold because of Knox’s work.
McFarland is a Scottish
name, and my family was Presbyterian. My father, though, married a Methodist,
so that is what I am, which is a real advantage at family reunions, because all
those Presbyterians are predestined to eat healthily, but we Methodists, being
of the free will persuasion, are able to choose freely as many pieces of pie as
we want. [2]
Now there are many
Presbyterian denominations. In the town where I live, we have three different
types, and as the saying goes—One is United, one is Reformed, and one is
neither united nor reformed.
The forebears of the one
known as Reformed came directly to South Carolina from Scotland, because,
unlike other Presbyterians in Scotland,
they refused to admit any king but Jesus, and so were persecuted by the
English king, who ruled Scotland. Like so many other immigrants, they came to
America looking for religious freedom.
Because they were so
convinced that King Jesus brought freedom to all, they were opposed to slavery,
on Biblical grounds. They wanted to free the slaves, but it was illegal in
South Carolina even to buy a slave and set himher free, so they moved to
southern Indiana, where they ran the Underground Railroad, along with the
Quakers, and an occasional renegade Methodist or Baptist.
I learned much of this
when Richard Holdeman, who has a PhD in biology, as well as his Doctor of
Ministry degree, and is a biology professor at IU as well as the pastor of the
local Reformed Presbyterian church, spoke recently to us Methodists and told us
the story of his people.
It’s a great story, and it
says that often when the church is at its best, it’s underground.
JRMcF
johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com
I occasionally tweet as
yooper1721.
1] The split was known as
The Great Schism. When we were high school freshmen, we learned about it in
World History, with Coach Delbert Disler. Since the coach’s favorite sports
writer was Dan Scism of The Evansville Courier, we began to refer to him as
“The Great Scism.”
2] A gross misuse of
“predestination,” which has only to do with whether a person will go to heaven
or hell when they [3] die, not anything else. Predestination is not fatalism,
as in what you have to eat at reunions. I still like having free will at those,
though.
3] I hate the singular
“they,” but we seem to be stuck with it, and no one else will use the himher or
shehe words I thought up, except for former IU basketball player, Will Sheehey,
which is pronounced as Shehee.
Spoiler Alert: If you have
read this column in the last 3 months, all that follows is old news:
I stopped writing this
column for a while, for several reasons. It wasn’t until I had quit, though,
that I knew this reason: I did not want to be responsible for wasting your
time. If I write for others, I have to think about whether it’s worthwhile for
you to read. If I write only for myself, it’s caveat emptor. If you choose to read something I have written, but
I have not advertised it, not asked you to read it, and it’s poorly constructed
navel-gazing drivel, well, it’s your own fault. Still, I apologize if you have
to ask yourself, “Why did I waste time reading this?”
Also writing it keeps me
sane, almost.
Katie Kennedy is the
rising star in YA lit. [She is also our daughter.] She is published by
Bloomsbury, which also publishes lesser authors, like JK Rowling. Her new book,
What Goes Up, came out July 18. It’s
published in paper, audio, and electronic, and available from B&N, Amazon,
Powell’s, etc.
Two problems with writing
a blog for old people: an ever smaller # of available people, who can’t
remember to click on the blog link.
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