Wednesday, January 29, 2025

 

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ** 

It is the 29th of January 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

There are certain people in my life- friends but also listen to the Almanac and, I believe, serve all of you indirectly.

Let me explain.

I’ve got a friend- he’s a husband and father and healer-of-animals who happens to listen to the show and is in a bible study with me and just this morning (yesterday for you) said that the show two days ago- on Jubilee, Pilgrimage, and Indulgence “left me hanging with some questions.” Perhaps that resonated with some of you as well… after all, a little bit of church history might attach this word to the Reformation, the Middle Ages, the Crusades, and today?

Let me start by letting the Catholic Church define what they mean:

“An indulgence is the extra-sacramental remission of the temporal punishment due, in  God’s justice, to sin that has been forgiven, which remission is granted by the Church in the exercise of the power of the keys, through the application of the superabundant merits of Christ and of the saints, and for some just and reasonable motive.”

In lay terms, it is a kind of extra portion of grace given out by the church for the spiritual edification of believers who follow a prescribed action or “do a good work.”

They became official in the time of Pope Urban and the first Crusades and were, of course, perverted by some in the 16th century (they were exchanged for alms, which look a lot like they were being sold) and still exist today- especially in this year- for Roman Catholics- a year of jubilee.

Now, let me try to explain to a Protestant crowd. It developed from a particular emphasis on grace as a “substance”- a popular medieval notion of “what things are made of.” This emphasis opposed grace as not a thing but a “disposition”—as in, “that person was gracious to me.”

In the Catholic emphasis on “substance,” grace can be doled out for Christians' spiritual benefit. A good catholic will speak of an “indulgence,” as I recently read like “post-surgery physical therapy”- the problem is solved -these are for sins already forgiven, but these are exercises that “help to heal,” that is- they lessen temporal punishment [read: purgatory].

As the merits are believed to be “super-abundant,” they can be, according to Catholic teaching- applied to the believers themselves or to those believed to be in purgatory.

Purgatory is, of course, a doctrine that developed in the church of the Latin West (or Roman Catholic Church). Thus, the Eastern churches and Western Protestant churches tend not at least to reject the language, if not the idea of a post-death purging of sins.

The Protestant churches emphasize grace not as substance but as disposition, such that God either looks on you graciously on account of Christ or He doesn’t. The “merits” of Christ would thus all be “imputed” or “charged” to you such that you “have” the righteousness of Christ.

I don’t think it’s helpful to make an absolute statement like “Catholics believe grace is a substance, and Protestants believe grace is God’s disposition to us,” but we certainly see emphases among Protestants and Catholics that look like this. (I want to be careful because grace or “charis” appears over 150 times in the New Testament and has a range of uses.)

The rub that we found with Luther on yesterday’s show was that he rejected the right of the Catholic church to develop doctrine based on tradition without clear Scriptural foundations. This would be the most helpful way to understand “Sola Scriptura”- the Protestant cry “Scripture alone,” which is the foundational difference regarding the question of authority.

So, indulgences are a Roman Catholic practice of giving out grace- understood as a substance- to believers to help them grow spiritually and to lessen time in purgatory, either for themselves or those believed to be in purgatory. The system was developed in the 11th and 12th centuries and then attached to the new “jubilee” years, but it can be attained outside of those years, too.

I hope that clarifies a little. You can always send me your questions and clarifications to address here on the almanac.

 

The last word for today from the daily lectionary- from the ministry of Jesus in Luke 4:

40 At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. 41 Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah.

42 At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. 43 But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” 44 And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 29th of January 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose favorite graces include beauty, charm, and Grace Thomas: American Girl, he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man whose favorite Grace is Grace O’Malley- 16th-century Irish lady-pirate- I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.