{"id":34295,"date":"2018-05-29T06:00:53","date_gmt":"2018-05-29T10:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=34295"},"modified":"2018-05-26T09:42:51","modified_gmt":"2018-05-26T13:42:51","slug":"is-pope-francis-like-luther","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2018\/05\/is-pope-francis-like-luther\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Pope Francis Like Luther?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A number of observers are comparing Pope Francis to Martin Luther.\u00a0 Both are reformers of the Church!\u00a0 Catholic conservatives who resent how the Pope is seemingly trying to change the church\u2019s teachings on marriage, homosexuality, and various traditional practices are making this comparison and treating it as a bad thing.\u00a0 Liberals and ecumenists are treating it as a good thing.\u00a0 (See, for example, this<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

But Carl Trueman sees a different comparison.\u00a0 From\u00a0If Only Francis Were Luther<\/a>, in First Things<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\n

W<\/span>ith the advent of Wim Wenders\u2019s\u00a0Pope Francis documentary\u00a0<\/a>in theaters, the policies of the current pontiff will no doubt be the subject of considerable and heated discussion in the media. Thanks to the turbulent history of the Roman Catholic Church, historical analogies will surely abound.<\/p>\n

One such analogy is frequently proposed between Pope Francis and Martin Luther, and it is strengthened by Francis\u2019s occasional positive comments on the life and work of the Reformer. The resemblance is so close, in the eyes of some, that it provided the basis for a rather amusing\u00a0April Fool\u2019s joke<\/a>\u00a0in 2017\u2014amusing because it had a certain credibility to it.\u00a0 [The April Fool\u2019s joke was that the pope was declaring Martin Luther to be a saint.]<\/p>\n

More recently,\u00a0L\u2019Espresso<\/em>\u00a0carried an\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0drawing a comparison between Bergoglio and Luther, sounding an alarm about what the author saw as the pope\u2019s genuinely Lutheran tendencies and their implications for the Roman Catholic Church and Western civilization.<\/p>\n

As a Protestant by conviction, and a sometimes sympathetic commentator on Luther, I wish\u00a0L\u2019Espresso<\/em>\u00a0were correct in its interpretation of Francis as standing in the tradition of the Wittenberg Reformation. A move, for example, towards justification by grace through faith is much to be desired. But I fear it is not so. Though I do believe the current pope possesses a sixteenth-century analogue, it is not the good Doctor. It is someone much worse: Desiderius Erasmus.<\/p>\n

[Keep reading. . .]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dr. Trueman then goes on to unpack how Pope Francis is like Erasmus, with whom Luther had a famous dispute, as recorded in The Bondage of the Will.\u00a0 Pope Francis and Erasmus both advocate an undogmatic Christianity, focusing on love more than faith.\u00a0 That sounds good, but, as Dr. Trueman shows, it ultimately isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d say the conservative Catholics opposing Pope Francis are the ones, ironically, who are most like Luther.\u00a0 Opposing a Pope who is adding to Christianity, changing Christian teaching, violating traditional orthodoxy\u2013which is basically what the office of the papacy has been doing for centuries\u2013is exactly what Luther thought he was doing!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo by reynaldodallin via Pixabay, CC0, Creative Commons<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A number of observers are comparing Pope Francis to Martin Luther.\u00a0 Both are reformers of the Church!\u00a0 Catholic conservatives who resent how the Pope is seemingly trying to change the church\u2019s teachings on marriage, homosexuality, and various traditional practices are making this comparison and treating it as a bad thing.\u00a0 Liberals and ecumenists are treating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":34337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,20,38],"tags":[6950,6953,1386,2481,1919],"class_list":["post-34295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church","category-history","category-reformation","tag-church-reform","tag-erasmus","tag-martin-luther","tag-pope-francis","tag-roman-catholicism"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Pope Francis Like Luther?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Some people are comparing Pope Francis to Martin Luther. 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