{"id":8368,"date":"2017-10-26T01:03:23","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T01:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/?p=8368"},"modified":"2017-12-14T02:57:30","modified_gmt":"2017-12-14T02:57:30","slug":"a-second-reformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/a-second-reformation\/","title":{"rendered":"A Second Reformation"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Dan Jones<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
With October 31 coming up next week, I’m sure quite a large section of Christianity is eagerly awaiting the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
I was very interested last week while listening to Kinship Christian Radio to hear Janet Parshall on her show “In The Market” interview David Robertson on his thoughts on the Reformation.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Robertson is a fairly regular guest on the program and, as noted on Parshall’s website,\u00a0he is the minister of St Peter\u2019s Free Church in Dundee, Scotland, and a director of the Solas Center for Public Christianity. He is the author of several books, including\u00a0The Dawkins Letters \u2013 challenging atheist myths\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0Magnificent Obsession \u2013 why Jesus is Great.<\/i>\u00a0He has publicly debated Richard Dawkins and other prominent atheists throughout the UK and Europe.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
He also writes a blog\u00a0 called “The Wee Flea,” often has unique and thoughtful insights on various aspects of Christianity, and (of course) has that wonderful Scottish accent we all so enjoy.
\n<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Anyway, Robertson’s main point is whether we should indeed be celebrating the Reformation.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
After all, what began as a German monk nailing 95 theses to a castle door in Wittenburg resulted in about 200 years of violence and awful bloodshed in the name of God. On his blog, he actually questions whether the Reformation might rightly be viewed as a kind of jihad. (Actually, the seeds of the Reformation were planted hundreds of years before Luther got out his hammer and nails by Jan Hus, Peter Waldo, and John Wycliffe– but I digress.)<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
In the end, Robertson advocates that we do indeed celebrate what was good about the Reformation, but also acknowledge and learn from what was bad about it.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
But his most interesting statement wasn’t his main point.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Robertson is of the opinion that what the church needs right now is a Second Reformation.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
He makes the point that after the Reformation, the Counter Reformation, and the Enlightenment, Protestant Churches became “the nice cuddly, cute and culturally ineffective organizations we see today.”<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Ouch.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
He goes on to quote\u00a0Carl Trueman, Professor of Historical Theology and Church History at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, who says:<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u2018But when all you see in the past is your own reflection, you cannot really learn very much from it. The 500th anniversary will have been a wasted opportunity for real theological and ecclesiastical reflection if it becomes merely an exercise in semi-fictional hagiography in the service of self-affirmation.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
(Hagiographies are the idealized laudatory biographies of the saints.)<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
This was all sinking in to my rather thick noggin rather slowly when Parshall took a call from a listener who asked (in essence) “What’s the difference between reformation and revival?”
\n<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
And suddenly, the bells were going off.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
I’ve been praying for and writing about awakening, repentance, and revival for years. I ask the Lord for it daily.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
And, to his credit, Robertson answered there really wasn’t much difference at all.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Reformation, renewal, revival– whatever you call it, bring it on, LORD!<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Perhaps 500 years is the fullness of time.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Today’s Praise<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
Repent, therefore, and reform your lives, so that the record of your sins may be cancelled, and that there may come seasons of revival from the Lord,\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
Acts 3:19 (Weymouth New Testament)<\/b><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Dan Jones \u00a0 With October 31 coming up next week, I’m sure quite a large section of Christianity is eagerly awaiting the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 14:57:52","action":"delete","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8368"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}