Reformation II

 

Comparisons

Reformation II

The Hallmark Reminder

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

 

            Today’s athletes talk about rights and privileges. And the players 50 years ago talked about obligations and responsibilities.

Lou Holtz

            Comparisons

            Fifty years ago, may not have been the correct comparison.

A more appropriate number was probably 60, but the point is valid. The good coach’s words reveal a truth within society to which most of us can relate.

            The problem is the year, 1971, may have been much more like 2021 than not. In fact, the comparisons are pretty striking. Starting with an increasingly unpopular president, the events of the year were almost a mirror image of our current conflagration.

            Inflation became a runaway train wreck that year. It became so bad that a 90-day wage and price freeze was imposed. That did little to impact the rise.

            Immigration became a burgeoning issue, and the cross-border invasion wasn’t just domestic. English parliament passed a bill to counter the assault, but even that wasn’t the only country in the crosshairs. The United Arab Emirates was established that year. It consisted of various former British Colony principalities (of which Abu Dhabi and Dubai were included). In a short period of time, only about 15% of the population were native born. The rest of the refugees were border jumpers.

Oil was and became an even greater economic driver in that country. That very category led to the fuel shortages of the ‘70s which changed the complexity of the Middle East and the rest of the world to this day.

The relationship with China was also showing signs of dusting off centuries of imposed isolation. The fellow residing in the White House that year enlisted a so-called national ping pong team and sent them to represent the US in that country. Unbeknownst to him an economic revolution would be spawned in part because of that political thaw.

The year 1971 was a continuing political train wreck in Viet Nam. Both New Zealand and Australia served notice the were packing their gear and heading for home. America should have done the same thing, but remained the main dance card for four more years when Saigon was allowed to fall. The discord and political upheaval continued to fuel deeper divisions politically that have never healed.

            The comparisons of that empty suited withdrawal and that of the 2020 Afghanistan retreat are so similar future history books find it hard to separate the two treasury busting escapades. Some great multiple choice test questions are guaranteed to arise.

            Violence begets violence, too. Northern Ireland was on fire in 1971. The Protestants and the Catholics demonstrated that not a single, worldly church leader could lead their extended family of Jesus Christ to the middle of the bridge and declare that divided homes are not what lead to peace or tranquility. No, that demonstration revealed a continuing, age old failure of church leadership. It remains a central theme of chaos and unrest. The recent meetings in Rome between the current fellow in the White House and the Pope offered no hope for change.

            The point can be illuminated in blazing lights. As long as money and support can be exchanged for favored positions of authority and prestige, basic tenets of doctrine are negotiable.

            The Hallmark Reminder

            We should be reminded that nothing in worldly context is permanent.

            The First American Revolution was fought to a defined and temporal conclusion. The Second American Revolution, too, was fought to a defined and temporal conclusion. The First World War was fought to a defined and temporal conclusion. And, alas, the Second World War was also fought to a defined and temporal conclusion.

            We are learning the same conditions apply to all social ailments. Fuel shortages, inflation, immigration, and tax and spend orgies all seem to reoccur at fairly defined intervals. Religion should take the top spot, though, for periodic upheaval. Corruption in religion is a cardinal factor for conflict.

            That is why the impact that one man, Martin Luther, had on the Western World 504 years ago on October 31 is so monumental.

            That was the day the young Augustinian friar nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. The blaze that fire starter created threatened to engulf the entire known civilization. He was hauled in to face the consequences of challenging church policy only to be hurled into an inferno of hate and contempt by church hierarchy.

            The problem for the church, however, was that he was merely calling attention to the teachings that He had promised.

            The church wasn’t successful in countering the upstart. A revolution was started that led to what we refer to the Reformation when one man, Martin Luther, set in motion the movement for the reform of the abuses in the Roman Catholic Church ending in the establishment of the Reformed and Protestant Churches.

            An entire epoch of world affairs arose.

            Reformation II

            The content of the 95 Theses was not merely a snapshot in time.

            That list of theses arrayed against church and societal abuses is as fresh today as it was in 1517. In fact, when a secular burdened president can sit down with the pope and derive and declare his actions regarding the sanctity of life comport to the blessings of the church something more than a wayward soul faces hell and damnation.

            Luther’s list should be nailed permanently to the front door of St. Peter’s Basilica!

            It should also be taught in every church. As my pastor reminded us last Sunday, Reformation Sunday, it isn’t just Lutherans who face the consequences in God’s court having no defense, no case at all in the adherence of works, coin, and law alone.

            What should rile us is what riled Luther and that is the pardons of purgatory signed and sealed by the church and the kingdoms of man deriving passage merely by coinage because … faith and God's Grace alone seals our fate.

 

            Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico.