My New Favourite Reformer
In my research for an essay on what a preacher should wear, I happened to stumble across a guy who has now become my new favourite reformer (not that I had one before!) His full name is Andreas Bodenstein of Karlstadt, but most people just call him as Karlstadt. If you haven’t guessed from his name, he was German, and he was an Evangelical around at the same time as Martin Luther (who is usually credited with starting the reformation).
Interestingly Karlstadt is the person who gave Luther his PhD. And in fact, before Luther famously nailed his 95 theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Karlstadt had already nailed his 151 theses to the door of the church! Karlstadt and Luther had a bit of a falling out and up until recently, he’s been painted in a bad light because of that. One of the reason they fell out is what interests me.
On Christmas day, 1521, Luther was away (in prison I think) and Karlstadt was left in charge of the church they were both at. Being the radical reformer that he was, he decided to make a few changes. Karlstadt decided to preach in his normal clothing and since he was an academic that was his university gown. He also offered the Lord’s Supper to the normal people, a practice which had ceased, he held the service in German (the common language of Germany at that time) and didn’t do all those Catholic mass ritual stuff that was disputed at that time. He also taught that ministers can marry, and practiced his preaching by marrying in the January. When Luther came back, he was annoyed and changed everything back to how it was saying it was too much change. A few years later, though, Luther went on to wear the gown himself and Karlstadt decided that actually the gown wasn’t enough and went on to wear peasants clothing, the equivalent today of preaching in your trainers!
The thing Karlstadt is criticised for is that he moved too fast and was too much of a radical. (Luther is criticised for not moving fast enough!) And if I’ve learnt anything from chatting to my Grandma about my Grandpa, Hugh Morgan, (Minister of Malpas Road Evangelical Church for a number of years) it’s that you can’t move a church on unless you take the people with you. It’s that tension of going forward and doing what’s best and right but doing it at a pace that’s going to be helpful to those already in your church. I guess wisdom is the key, and I know I’m going to need plenty of that if and when the time comes!
You’re writing an essay on what you should wear when you preach!?!? Man, that Bible college you go to is miles ahead of where I thought it was.
I think Stuart Olyott’s book about preaching should some it up for you. Apparently unless i wear a suit, tucked in shirt, tie and am under 12 stone, I’m not allowed to preach. Dang right!
Mate, great blog. On the note of change I see you use the golden word in your last sentence - ‘wisdom’. Whenever anyone talks about the pace of change they say we need ‘wisdom.’ I find this both encouraging and extremely frustrating. Let me explain. If we mean ‘fear of God’ then I am all for wisdom. Because if I fear God then I won’t let a song be more important than a soul, a tie more important than a conversion, and cultural elitism more important than gospel proclamation. That means we change very fast and that may mean some people leaving the church. But that’s OK because they will be happier in a church that doesn’t reach the lost or have any of the values that Jesus had.
However my fear is that when ministers talk about ‘wisdom’ they mean ‘fear of man’. Let me give you some examples:
-No one understands the words of the hymns we sing. No one will ever come in and be challenged or convicted by them. Lets use modern words so that people can understand and be saved. Answer: Wisdom says no as Mr Davies may leave and the EMW fraternal may pick on me.
-Our church meeting is like a trip to Saint Fagans. It is cold, unwelcoming and out dated. Members refuse to bring their friends and family as they know it will put people off the glorious gospel. Answer: We better not change because Miss Jones father paid for the organ, and there are people who have been in this church for 50 years - therefore their fallen weaknesses come over and above the word of God, the mission of the church, the state of the lost, and the day of judgement.
Jonny - if you mean ‘fear of God’ (which means fast change) then I am with you 100%. But if you even slightly mean ‘fear of man’ (especially reformed people) I have to disagree with you.
Which is it?
Sure, sometimes you’ve got to make changes even when there are people who disagree. And sometimes people will leave because you’ve made essential changes that have gospel purposes, and I’m fine with that. But surely it is better to allow at least the majority of people to catch a vision, realise the need for change and come with you all the way, than to make a sudden change without anyone realising why and most of your ‘workforce’ leaving just because they didn’t understand? That’s the wisdom I mean. It takes wisdom to know how to infect people with vision and wisdom to know how soon to take steps and move them on.
Maybe I say this because I’m not a pastor yet, but surely people can and do change if they can see the need and the vision? (that is people who understand the nature and mission of the gospel and if they don’t understand that then they need to be taught that.) God deals with us in a gradual way, not in a sudden and complete way upon conversion, sometimes in sudden and painful leaps but not all those leaps at once. Isn’t this a wise model for how we move a church on?
So in short I would say, yeah changes are essential if we want the church to grow rather than stagnate and die. That’s what my essay is about with the preaching in my trainers! But I think there are dangers both in moving too fast and in moving too slow and to put my neck on the line, I would say that the Welsh church as a whole is moving far, far too slowly. But pendulum swinging can be a risky business!
I might be wrong, but hey, I’m still learning!
It is worth asking whether the deeper things that need to change are things like the ambition of people, and their perception about what outsiders actually think of their church (if they actually know that it exists).
And if you are the pastor it has got to bother you more than anyone else in the church that the vast majority of the people in the community are indifferent to and ignorant about the gospel. You’ve got to feel that constantly and instill that in the church. You’ve got to model it. You’ve got to make it your ambition that everyone in your community will hear the gospel and trust God with the results. A church doing that will be healthy and will find it easier to change the non-essentials.
Sadly in Wales too many churches are looking to the state of the culture and not to the gospel to find their encouragement and boldness. I’ve come to Deeside expecting God to work, and I’ve come expecting that he has entrusted us to preach the gospel to non-Christians.
Just checking Jonny. I am with you 100%. I knew you were proper wise!
Thanks for your comment Martin. I agree that we need to keep the main thing the main thing. I think we will always be in danger of falling between two extremes - syncretism and sectarianism. I guess Jesus was extremely wise in the way He prayed for us in John 17!
For your essay on ministerial dress, have you considered James Jordan’s argument that the Biblical ministerial dress in a white cassock alb and a blue stole?
Thanks for the hint Marc. I have looked into the wearing of various gowns all that clobber, but have decided that I will be arguing against the wearing of such things. The reason being, such gowns are generally derived from Karstadt’s use of university gowns, however a theology for wearing the gown has grown around the practice and tradition (as is often the case, the theology follows the practice). Karlstadt’s reason for wearing the gown was that it was his normal clothing, not that it had the significance it is now given of setting apart a minister or whatever. That’s why he went on to wear peasant’s clobber! Thanks though, I may be able to get another source in there!