Church Matters: Retrieving the Great Tradition

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Chur ch Mat ter s : Ret r i ev i ng the Great Trad i t i on

e. Did not follow the reformers respect for the fathers and the Great Tradition (and the need for all to be tested by Scripture).

f. The Radical Reformers, however, had no time for leisurely study, they were wanted, hunted, persecuted, marked men.

g. Menno Simons was rare: ministered over 25 years, wrote extensively (i.e., his complete works have over 1,000 large pages), and left behind a coherent, organized, and dedicated movement.

F. The central themes of the Reformation

1. Salvation and the theme of justification by faith . All of the magisterial reformers addressed the issues of salvation.

a. Reaffirmed righteousness as depending on God’s mercy in Christ’s saving acts not on religious or ethical merit

b. Called into question the Roman Catholic theological approach of justification as analytic, i.e., arising from something in the person justified, and replaced it with a Reformation view of salvation as synthetic, i.e., arising from something provided from outside.

2. The role of Scripture in religious authority . The Reformers acknowledged the canonical Scripture as the final authority in matters of faith.

a. The magisterial Reformers respected the fathers and apologists, and the ecumenical councils of the early Church.