Luther's integration of faith and culture

Luther's integration of faith and culture

Luther''s integration of faith and culture

Introduction

Christianity is the name given to that definite system of religious belief and practice which was taught by Jesus Christ in the country of Palestine, during the reign of the Roman Emperor, Tiberius, and was promulgated, after its Founder's death, for the acceptance of the whole world, by certain chosen men among His followers. According to the accepted chronology, these began their mission on the day of Pentecost, A.D. 29, which day is regarded, accordingly, as the birthday of the Christian Church. In order the better to appreciate the meaning of this event, we must first consider the religious influences and tendencies previously at work in the minds of men, both Jews and Gentiles, which prepared the way for the spread of Christianity amongst them. (Martin Palmer. Ballantine, 2001)

Explanation

The whole history of the Jews as detailed in the Old Testament is seen, when read in the light of other events, to be a clear though gradual preparation for the preaching of Christianity. In that nation alone, the great truths of the existence and unity of God, His providential ruling of His creatures and their responsibility towards Him, were preserved unimpaired amidst general corruption. The ancient world was given to Pantheism and creature-worship; Israel only, not because of its "monotheistic instinct" (Renan), but because of the periodic interposition of God through His prophets, resisted in the main the general tendency to idolatry. Besides maintaining those pure conceptions of Deity, the prophets from time to time, and with ever increasing distinctness until we come to the direct and personal testimony of the Baptist, foreshadowed a fuller and more universal revelation — a time when, and a Man through Whom, God should bless all the nations of the earth. We need not here trace the Messianic predictions in detail; their clearness and cogency are such that St. Augustine does not hesitate to say (Retract., I, xiii, 3):

What we now call the Christian religion existed amongst the ancients, and was from the beginning of the human race, until Christ Himself came in the flesh; from which time the already existing true religion began to be styled Christian. (St Augustine).

We may trace in the world at large, apart from the Jewish people, a similar though less direct preparation. Whether due ultimately to the Old Testament predictions or to the fragments of the original revelation handed down amongst the Gentile, a certain vague expectation of the coming of a great conqueror seems to have existed in the East and to a certain extent in the Roman worlds, in the midst of which the new religion had its birth. But a much more marked predisposition to Christianity may be noticed in certain prominent features of the Roman religion after the downfall of the republic. The old gods of Latium had long ceased to reign. In their stead Greek philosophy occupied the minds of the cultured, whilst the populace were ...