The Role Of Martin Luther In From Conflict To Communion

In this paper, I will be exploring the document From Conflict to Communion: Lutheran-Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in order to answer four particular questions. The first question is: How does this text view the life of Martin Luther? The second query is: How does this document view the Reformation. The third question is: What are the most important developments in relations between the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches since 1900? And the last query is: What are the major obstacles that prevent Lutherans and Catholics from moving closer together in unity? After answering all of these important questions, I will conclude this paper with a brief evaluation of why I think this document is relevant and best exemplifies how

Luther is described as “an earnest religious person and [a] conscientious man of prayer.” He was also a man who personally struggled to find a gracious God, which he ultimately did through his study of the gospels. In the gospels, Luther found “true theology and... [acquired a deeper] knowledge of God... in the [person of the] crucified Christ.” “For him, theology was no mere academic pursuit, but the struggle for oneself, which in turn was a struggle for and with God.” Modern Catholic and Lutheran scholarship has shown that Luther was justified in his call for reform within the Catholic Church. Luther realized that the people of his time “were eager to hear better preaching and a theology that would help them to lead [better] Christian lives.” Unfortunately, Luther was maligned by the commentaries of Johannes Cochaleus, a contemporary Catholic German theologian, who portrayed Luther “as an apostatized monk, a destroyer of Christendom, a corrupter of morals, and a heretic.” However, today modern Catholic and Lutheran scholars would strongly disagree with this negative portrayal of Luther. Instead, scholars point out that Luther’s original intentions were purely reform based and that he had absolutely no desire to divide the church. His initial reforms were based on ideas that were rooted in the gospels, and this is attested to by Luther in his statement at the

The Second Vatican Council, which took place from 1962-1965, “affirmed [that there does exist] elements of sanctification and truth... outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church.” The Council Fathers also acknowledged that the liturgical action of separated Christians does engender a genuine life of grace that makes it possible for them to achieve salvation. The Council also positively recognized that Catholics and Protestants share several elements of sanctification in common: the creeds, baptism, and the Scriptures. The Lutheran World Federation responded to this gesture of reconciliation by the Catholic Church in their fifth Assembly which was held in Evian, France in 1970. The Assembly “acknowledge[d] that the judgement of the Reformers upon the Roman Catholic Church and its theology was not entirely free of polemical distortions, which in part have been perpetuated to the present day.” The Assembly then issued a formal apology to the Roman Catholic Church in response to Pope Paul VI’s plea from the Second Vatican Council for forgiveness for any offenses that the Catholic Church had