Ep. 50 - Reformation Day？ Dr. Martin Luther Will Have It So!
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Summary
On this episode of The Michael Knowles Show, host Michael Kosta confesses that he was wrong about a Disney princess costume he bought for his 8-year-old son, Moana, because he thought it was racist to wear it.
Transcript
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There is so much to commemorate today. It's Halloween. It's Reformation Day. It's trigger
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a college student in 2017 day. So festive. We will discuss why lefties are so angry about Moana
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and then top 10 myths about Martin Luther. Then Donald Trump Jr. trolls Hillary. British
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socialized medicine bans fat people from getting surgery. And the Podesta group might drop the
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name Podesta because then they won't be criminals who colluded with Russia or something. I'm Michael
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Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. I got to tell you, I am so embarrassed. I should make a
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preemptive apology. But by the time I had bought my eight-year-old Moana costume at Party City,
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it was only after that that I read the Cosmo article that Moana is racist. It's racist to
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wear the Disney princess costume. So I'm really sorry. It's just, I guess, a preemptive apology.
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Obviously, it was too late to get a new costume. So here I'd already had to slit open the back. So
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really, my sincere apologies. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. According to Cosmo, according to Cosmo and
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bulletin boards at elementary schools and colleges across the country, but I repeat myself, it is
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racist for white people to wear Moana costumes. Now, luckily, I am a bit swarthy. So I might get away
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with it. That is possibly the saving grace is my Sicilian background. But Faith Moore, the daughter of the
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Lord of the multiverse, Andrew Clavin, has a good piece at PJ explaining how the left completely
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misunderstands what Disney princesses are. So they say, if you are not Arabic, then you can't be
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Jasmine or something. If you're not Middle Eastern, you can't be Jasmine. If you're not Hawaiian or
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Polynesian, then you can't dress up as Moana. And the premise there is that the essential aspect of
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these Disney princesses is the color of their skin, when obviously that is not the case. The
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essence of Cinderella, the heart of the Cinderella story is not that she's a white girl. The heart of
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Rapunzel is not that she's a white girl. Wait, what? Excuse me? I know this is pretty shocking.
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Even Beauty and the Beast, even Beauty and the Beast, the heart of it is not that Belle is a white
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girl. Honestly, even Snow White, which is one that it's right in the name, is white, you know,
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it's a German fairy tale. But even that isn't about the race, right? It's about that she's the
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fairest one of them all. It's a fairy tale and it's a metaphor. Are you being prophetic right now
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about Snow White becoming racist? Yeah. Well, it is, you know, it's obviously a metaphor about her
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spiritual fairness and her inner beauty and her inner fairness compared to that wicked old
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stepmother. So I think the left as usual misses the point, but they're pouncing on censoring Halloween
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costumes for a reason. Let's not forget that that craziness at Yale with the student,
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Gerilyn Luther, screaming at her professor saying, this is not an intellectual space,
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it's about creating a home. That was over a Halloween costume. That was over an email that
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that professor's wife had sent out saying that ostensibly 18 to 22 year olds at one of the elite
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universities in the world can dress themselves. They don't need teachers to hold their hands and lay
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out their costumes for them. And the reason the left pounces on this is because if you scratch a
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lefty deep enough, you'll get a totalitarian. They love censorship because at this moment,
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the leftist view of the world is an unrational one. It's an unobjective one. It borders into
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relativism and it's one in which different competing groups with competing interests have to yell at each
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other and whoever's loudest wins. It's not one where we can have follow logic through a dialogue
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to arrive at a logical conclusion. This is where Shapiro gets the phrase, facts don't care about
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your feelings, right? It isn't just people who have no recourse to reason and no recourse to logic
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screaming and bashing each over the head. Now, they try to ban the speakers at college campuses. They try
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to ban Ben or Charles Murray or Christina Hoff Summers. And they catch a little flack for that
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because they're shutting down a reasonable lecture. But because Halloween costumes are not inherently
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logical, they're not really about ideas per se, they try to ban them to flex their censorship muscles
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and that impulse becomes unrestrained. So, you know, I probably should have thought this through
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because the rest of the show deals with serious matters, you know, like the Protestant Revolution
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and Martin Luther and everything that's in the news. But I can't change out of my Moana costume.
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So, enough about Moana. It is Halloween, but it's also Reformation Day in full Moana attire.
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I will turn the potpourri up to 11 and delve into the top 10 myths about Martin Luther.
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Number one, Martin Luther did not set off a reformation. He set off a revolution. This is
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just a matter of definition. Rather than reforming his own ecclesiastical institution,
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he didn't do that. He didn't change the Catholic Church. And Martin Luther's actions led to the
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breakaway of countless churches throughout Europe and the world. G.K. Chesterton described him as one
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of those great elemental barbarians to whom it is indeed given to change the world. And the excellent
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historian, Jacques Borsen, credits the Protestant Revolution with initiating modernity, which he
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describes brilliantly in his book, From Dawn to Decadence. Highly recommended. Number two, Martin
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Luther most likely never posted his 95 theses to the door of the All Saints Church in Wittenberg.
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You know that famous line, I got 99 problems, but the Pope ain't one, bang, bang, bang? Probably
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didn't happen. He certainly sent them to Albert of Brandenburg, the Archbishop of Maines, but there's
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no evidence that he ever nailed the theses to the door. He never wrote about it. He never wrote about
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posting the theses. And claims to the effect that he did didn't appear until 30 years after the alleged
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event. Number three, this is the big one. This one's going to take a little while because people
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really misunderstand this one. Luther did not cause the Church, the Catholic Church, to end a long-standing
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practice of selling eternal life through indulgences. That's just a lie. It is stunning how little
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that is so central to the Protestant Revolution and to the modern era as indulgences. Let's
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establish a definition. An indulgence is, quote, a remission before God of the temporal punishment
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due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed
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gains under certain defined conditions through the Church's help when, as a minister of redemption,
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she dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfaction won by Christ and
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the saints. If that was too many words for you, the sins have already been forgiven. And the indulgence
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that one gets at rare times in history by donating to charities or giving alms, that indulgence is for
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the temporal relief. It's for the relief of penance. It's not for popping out of purgatory a thousand
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years early, and it's not for going from hell to heaven. Now, it's true that there were some corrupt
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professional pardoners who extorted money in exchange for bogus promises. There were forgers
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who sold fake indulgences, but none of this had any agreement with Church doctrine. In fact, as early
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as 1215, centuries before Martin Luther, the Fourth Lateran Council suppressed abuses of indulgences
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by strictly re-articulating the limits of their scope. In 1392, more than a century before the 95
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theses, Pope Boniface IX wrote to the Bishop of Ferrara to condemn members of religious orders
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who were fraudulently claiming that the Pope had authorized them to sell the forgiveness of sins
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to ignorant and hopeful faithful. Now, because indulgences strictly refer to temporal penance,
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the Rouen Cathedral has been nicknamed the Butter Tower, this cathedral in France, the Butter Tower,
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because some of its funding came from the sale of indulgences that allowed the faithful to eat
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butter during the penitential period of Lent when theoretically they should have been abstaining,
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you know, they shouldn't have very flavorful food, it's a time to kind of do some penance and think
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about the sinful nature of man and of this world. Even this sale is misleading because no one could
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ever buy indulgences outright. Rather, they had to give alms to some charity. Of course, it's easy to
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see how abuses would creep in in that case, but it wasn't like you write a check and you get a receipt
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and that's it. There is at least, there was always at least the veneer of donating to some charity.
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Now, even if there's a difference between selling a 40-day Butter Eating Pass and purporting to sell
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eternal life, Pope Pius V at the Council of Trent forbade all grants of indulgences involving any fees
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or other financial transactions to severely address any abuses. This was a couple decades, three or four
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decades after Martin Luther, very shortly thereafter. Martin Luther, this is number four, Martin Luther
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was not terribly pluralistic. He led to this breakaway of the church and all these various sects and
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denominations. He himself was not terribly pluralistic, as some might think. It is true, he did say, quote,
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let the Turk believe and live as he will, just as one lets the papacy and other false Christians live.
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That's fairly tolerant. He also said, as the Pope is Antichrist, so the Turk is the very devil.
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Of the Jews, and I'm quoting one sentence out of a long literature describing Martin Luther's
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thoughts on the Jews, he said, quote, eject them forever from this country, first to set fire to their
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synagogues or schools, and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will
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ever again see a stone or a cinder of them. Not very tolerant. Number five, Martin Luther did not
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unchain the Bible so that the common man could read it. There is a myth that before the Protestant
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Revolution, Bibles were put under lock and chain. Literally, they were locked up so that common men could
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not read them. Now, they were frequently attached to a chain, as were all large books at the time, so that
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people couldn't steal them, because books were very expensive. But Bibles were available everywhere, in whole
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book form, prayer books, stained glass windows, and artwork. Scripture was everywhere. Number six, this leads
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directly into number six, Martin Luther was not the first to translate the Bible into a common language.
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This is obviously true, because St. Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, then the common language, in the
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fourth century. When Luther began his work, when he began his Bible translation, there were already 18 German
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translations of the entire Bible going around. Number seven, Martin Luther was not a populist. We have
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this idea, this common perception of him as a man of the people, retrieving Christianity back from
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oppressive elites, but Luther had fairly harsh words for German peasants. One need only consult his book,
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this is the title, Against the Murderous Thieving Hordes of Peasants, and his subsequent defense of that
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book, open letter on the harsh book against the peasants, and we can understand that Luther's,
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we can understand Luther's guilt and confusion at having inspired the peasant war by his theological
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proclamations. This brings us to number eight, a difference, I suppose, between Luther and the
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Lutherans, between Luther and people who followed in his tradition. Martin Luther believed in the literal
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presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He wrote, quote, who but the devil has granted such a license
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of resting the words of the Holy Scripture? Who ever read in the scriptures that my body is the same
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as the sign of my body, or that it is the same as it signifies? What language in the world ever spoke so?
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It is only then the devil that imposes upon us by these fanatical men, not one of the fathers of the
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church, though so numerous, ever spoke of the sacramentarians. Not one of them ever said,
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it is only bread and wine, or the body and blood of Christ is not there present. He fully believed
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that the Eucharist is the body of Christ, not that there is some, it's a symbol of the body of Christ,
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or it's some remnant that we have of the body of Christ. Number nine, Martin Luther added a word to
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the Bible. This is also little known, but while prior and virtually all subsequently revised
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versions of the Bible translate Romans 3.28 to read, quote, for we hold that one is justified by
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faith apart from the works of the law, Luther translated that passage as, quote, so now we hold
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that man is justified without the help of the works of the law, alone through faith. That addition of
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alone is theologically important. The implications of this creativity would become very important as
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the Protestant Revolution progressed into our modern era, but quite creative, a little addition
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there. And number ten, Martin Luther obviously didn't like the Pope very much, he did not like
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that authority, but he did defer to at least one theological authority outside of the Bible on at
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least one occasion, and that man's name was Martin Luther. Luther addressed Catholic criticisms of his
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translation in his open letter on translating. He said, quote,
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Please do not give these donkeys any other answer to their useless braying about that word sola
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only than simply this. Luther will have it so, and he says that he is a doctor above all the doctors of
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the Pope. Let it rest there. I will from now on hold them in contempt, and have already held them in
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contempt, as long as they are the kind of people, or rather donkeys, that they are. And there are brazen
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idiots among them, who have never even learned their own art of sophistry, like Dr. Smit or Dr.
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Snotnose, and such like them, who set themselves against me in this matter, which not only transcends
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sophistry, but as Paul writes, all the wisdom and understanding in the world as well. Truly a donkey
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does not have to sing much, because he is already known by his ears. That is all obviously an
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interpretation of judge not lest you be judged. Okay, I have brayed enough on the topic of
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Reformation Day. Let's bring on our panel to discuss the news. We have an excellent expert
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panel today. We have Allie Stuckey. We have Daily Wire's own Jacob Berry, and for the first time on
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the panel of deplorables, my pal, Kira Davis. Now, I know, look, I know that you want to listen to
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them. I know you want to see them, especially Kira. You've never heard from Kira on this show.
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I got to tell you something, guys. This is Halloween. In order to keep me in Moana costumes,
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these things are very expensive, by the way, even though you have ripped them up to make them fit
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onto a grown man, you got to go to dailywire.com. We have to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube
00:14:46.800
right now. If you go to dailywire.com right now and you're already a subscriber, you watch the rest of
00:14:50.620
the show, thanks for subscribing, keeping the lights on in this place, keeping me in these kind of
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cheap costumes and employed, at least for another day. If you're not, then go over there. It's $10
00:15:02.260
a month, $100 a year. You get me. You get the Andrew Klavan show. You get the Ben Shapiro show,
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blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you get this. You get, I got to tell you guys, they were sold
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out of Moana costumes at one of the stores I went to. There are going to be leftist tears flowing from
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the heavens. It is going to be Noah's Ark part two, speaking of Reformation Day and new advances
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into Christianity. So make sure that you go to dailywire.com, get this leftist tears tumbler,
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the finest vessel for salty, hot or cold leftist tears in the world. Subscribe on YouTube,
00:15:49.180
All right, panel, I feel like we have just beaten Moana and poor Martin Luther to death here. So I
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want to get into the really important news that obviously is changing our country. Donald Trump Jr.'s
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tweet and Hillary Clinton's stupid comments asked on Monday what she would dress as for Halloween.
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Hillary Clinton responded, I think I will maybe come as the president. So Donald Trump Jr. responded
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and he said, that's cute. She can borrow my Donald Trump mask. Jacob, which is scarier?
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Rather, which is the scariest? Is the Hillary Clinton as president costume the most frightening
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costume that has ever been posted for Halloween? Oh yeah, most definitely. I saw someone posted a
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comic strip. I believe it was, I believe it was Michael Ramirez. I could be wrong, but it was a girl
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dressed as Hillary and she wouldn't leave the house that she got the candy from. And the people
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passing out the candy were like, oh, that's a nice touch. Yeah, it's especially scary. It's like
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Hillary Clinton won't go away and now we have to endure all these masks of her and all these blue
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costumes, all these blue dresses that she used to wore, her famous pantsuits, which by the way were
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around long before Hillary Clinton ever wore them. Well, fair enough. I also, this is apropos of
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nothing. I recently learned Winston Churchill invented the male romper, the romp him. That's
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just a little tie in with the, with the Hillary Clinton suits. Kira, if Hillary Clinton went as
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Donald Trump for Halloween, would that be culturally appropriative of cantaloupe colored Americans?
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No, I mean, I think they're both privileged white people. I think as you pointed out earlier in your
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commentary on the Moana costume, you know, it's really important that we stick to our own race
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when we're doing costumes. You should never want to be like someone else. You should never want to
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elevate someone of another race or gender as, as someone you aspire to be. You got to keep them in
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their place. You don't want to do that. You got to keep those people in their place. So your options
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for Halloween costumes are very limited. And I think Hillary and Donald, I mean, they're very
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compatible looks wise. They both ran for president. They're both rich, you know, so, you know, they
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have a lot in common. I think it's fine for her to go as Donald Trump. I think it's really cute. We
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all like to pretend. We all like to dream and fantasize. And, and she's still fantasizing about
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being the president. That's fair. She's staying in her lane. And, you know, Trump was a Democrat for
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many years, so she's staying in her lane. So much in common. They both like chicks.
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Yeah. Brutal, brutal, but possibly true. I'll edit that out. It's okay.
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Allie, Allie, people keep describing Donald Trump as unpresidential. Meanwhile,
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a losing presidential candidate is parading around the country, stoking conspiracy theories,
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blaming everyone else on earth for her loss, and questioning the results of an American election.
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Who is really being unpresidential here? Well, first I want to say that Donald Trump Jr.
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absolutely wins the troll of the year. I mean, his trolling is like right up there with Michael
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J. Knowles, which means it's really, really good. Y'all can get together and like teach a
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trolling 101 class. But honestly, Hillary Clinton makes it pretty easy. She keeps on walking into
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these cringeworthy situations. I mean, for crying out loud, she, which I am not the person who made
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this joke. I've seen this several times, but she wrote the first book with the question and answer
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on the cover. What happened? Hillary Clinton. She keeps on walking into these situations in which
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people can so obviously point out both her incompetency. Is that a word? I think it is.
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But that's not what I was going to say. And just her, her complete lack of self-awareness
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about both who she is now. And I guess, I don't know who she believes people see her as. I think
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she has a very inflated view of her own, um, her own popularity. No, she seems pretty humble to me.
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She said, no, you know, speaking of Hillary's cultural appropriation and her inflated view of
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herself and lack of common touch, this was up until about three weeks ago. You can still find it on the
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Wayback Machine. On HillaryClinton.com, on her campaign website, there was an article titled
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Seven Ways Hillary Clinton is Just Like Your Abuela. And it used these various Spanish words. Like it
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said, Hillary Clinton and your abuela both understand the importance of el respeto, you know, and they
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keep like going with these little el fontan, the respeto or whatever the heck, you know. And this was
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up for almost a year after her election loss. The cultural appropriation eventually got us before the
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2017 Halloween season, but truly, truly out of touch. A local health committee in the United Kingdom's
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socialized medicine regime has just announced that for an indefinite amount of time, it will ban access to
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routine or non-urgent surgery for the obese and for smokers. Jacob, isn't universal health care just great?
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Oh, yeah. I mean, it's wonderful. But my question is, how are they going to, how are they, how are they going to
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make this happen? Because there are some people who have like legitimate health reasons, and that's
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why they're overweight. So are they just not going to, are they just not going to give surgeries to,
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to you just period if you go over a certain weight? That doesn't make any sense to me. I think it's,
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I think it's very... And the smoking too, Jacob. I mean, sometimes I get a little tired after a day
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of work. That's my, my physically, I get a little tired. So I need to have a little nicotine and a nice
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Cuban cigar to relax. Exactly. That's just medicine, man. That's science. Exactly. And like, what next
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are they going to, or is the British universal health care system is going to say, hey, you have
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a wrist. That's a pre-existing condition. We're not going to give you a hand, your hand surgery
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because you have a wrist. I mean, this, this is the logic as far out as it can play out. And I think
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it's just despicable, especially when you have people like Bernie Sanders saying, we need a universal
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health care system like Canada and England. I mean, it's just the most ridiculous thing. And that's why
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a good old fashioned American private health care system is what we need.
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I did not expect that Jewish New York accent from that man, Jacob Berry. Well done, sir.
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You bring up this great point of the pre-existing condition. We're now seeing in a socialized
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medicine regime, the reintroduction of pre-existing condition clauses like obesity to keep the costs
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down because the costs start soaring. Kira, in a socialized health care regime, is it necessary
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to ration care like this? If taxpayers are funding someone else's surgery, don't they deserve a say
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in how that person can live their lives? Well, I have an interesting perspective on this because
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I'm actually Canadian and I was born and raised in Canada. I moved to the U.S. as soon as I finished
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high school because I like America better. Sorry, Canadians. But I did grow up under socialized
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health care and I was a victim of rationing. And I know many people who have been and are. It is a
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real thing that happens. What happens is when you give the government control over your health care,
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you give them control over every decision. So everything you do can be under the government
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purview. It's really like a free ticket to fascism. I mean, if they decide, yes, that sugar is bad for
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you, then they can start saying, look, we either have to ban sugar or we have to ban people from
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eating sugar or ban people from getting surgeries if they've eaten sugar. Because this is their
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justification for everything. Everything is, well, we're all paying for this and it's not fair. And
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so you're right, Michael, you hit the nail on the head. Like what ends up happening is the
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pre-existing condition ends up coming back because the government says, oh, well, now that we're paying
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for it, you know, we can't afford for you to take liberties with the things you eat and drink. And
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even things like the places you go and how much outdoor time you get, how much time you spend on the
00:23:50.120
couch, like all of those things begin to come into play when you give the government that much power
00:23:54.820
over your life. So I can tell you as someone who has been turned away from a hospital with pneumonia,
00:24:00.120
hey, we have no beds. You can probably get better at home. You know, that this is the end game of
00:24:06.920
socialized medicine. It's inevitable. And I'll tell you, my mom still lives in Canada. She's a senior
00:24:12.800
citizen now. And she is very low on that list of priorities. The government does have an equation
00:24:20.780
that they use to pass out funds and treatment. And she's on the low end of that equation. So there
00:24:26.820
are times when they say, look, we've measured out how much we think you have of your life left
00:24:31.540
versus like what a younger person has. We don't know if this treatment is best for you. You know,
00:24:37.480
we'll go with the cheaper, like Obama said, we'll give you the pill. And she comes here to the US
00:24:42.200
and, you know, I'll be like, I don't feel good. I'm going to call the doctor. And I get in that day
00:24:46.880
and she's just like blown away that I can get into the doctor. And, you know, and my thing is,
00:24:51.620
this is what you get when you pay for it. That's right. And they've got that equation. They know
00:24:55.600
what her health is worth. They know what her life is worth. They just don't worry. Those technocrats,
00:25:01.000
they figured it all out. There's the algorithm. And oops, sorry, we can't give you any medicine
00:25:05.600
whatsoever. A government big enough to give you anything you want is big enough to take everything
00:25:10.280
you have. A wise man once said, Allie, are we inevitably heading down this path towards socialized
00:25:16.360
medicine? Do people people now expect health care is right in the United States? Are we headed there
00:25:20.760
whether we want it or not? Well, if Republicans could just have a majority in Congress and take
00:25:26.820
the White House, then maybe we would get something done with health care. Oh, oh, wait, but they have
00:25:31.940
those things that we're still not getting done. So unfortunately, I don't really have a very rosy view
00:25:37.120
of what we can do with health care because our Republicans have thus far failed us. But if they can get
00:25:43.880
their act together, then there is certainly hope for it actually being repealed or replaced. And
00:25:48.620
maybe we're on the way to that. But then the New York Times might say mean things about John McCain.
00:25:53.720
So I don't think we're going to be able to grab that vote. They might be mean to him.
00:25:58.280
The New York Times loves conservatives so much.
00:26:01.380
They really matter. Their opinions are really credible, right?
00:26:03.760
Yes. Okay. So we all agree that socialized medicine is stupid, that it doesn't really work,
00:26:10.420
that you're giving everyone care as a formality, but the quality of care actually goes down to it's
00:26:15.220
not compassionate at all. We hear the rhetoric all the time. But Michael, I really want to talk
00:26:20.780
to you about the Reformation. All right. We have a little extra time. Bring it on. I did. I was
00:26:26.960
thinking about bringing his eminence Paul Bois on the panel today, but I figured since the first
00:26:32.920
entire half of the show was all potpourri, potpourri up to 11, I'd make it a fully Protestant panel for
00:26:38.720
the second half. Yes. Lay it on me. Yes. Okay. So here's what I have to say, because some of those
00:26:45.580
myths are absolutely correct. It is true that he probably never nailed the 95 feces up on the door.
00:26:53.840
In fact, he had no intention whatsoever of revolutionizing the church or even reforming the
00:27:00.080
church. The letter that he actually wrote to the archbishop that you mentioned was almost, he almost
00:27:05.160
sounded like sycophant. He, I mean, he was sucking up to him so much. He was this very kind of in the
00:27:10.740
beginning, this very humble guy who just said, Hey, just FYI, there are priests and there are people
00:27:17.820
professional partners around these indulgences and they think that these indulgences count for
00:27:24.360
salvation. We probably should fix that. So it wasn't so much that he was accusing the church
00:27:29.980
leaders necessarily of directly saying that, Hey, these indulgences are tied to your salvation,
00:27:36.160
but that they were allowing people to believe that he felt like either intentionally or unintentionally,
00:27:42.880
they were leveraging the guilt of the people to believe that these indulgences in some way paid
00:27:47.780
for their sin. And that was the problem that he presented, which is why he presented the 95 feces.
00:27:54.080
Of course, we also know that Martin Luther wasn't this perfect guy. You read some of his quotes that
00:27:58.380
were also an accurate description of him, but of course we can't use his character to necessarily
00:28:03.260
invalidate his entire theology. I think the best thing that Martin Luther and probably the biggest
00:28:08.580
thing I disagreed with you on, but the best thing that Martin Luther presented were the five solas.
00:28:12.900
Of course, the biggest one being by faith alone. And that was his greatest contention with the
00:28:18.000
Catholic church and also his greatest accomplishment in breaking away from the Catholic church because
00:28:22.800
in his belief, they had been contaminated so much in the 16th century into believing just as the
00:28:28.940
Pharisees did that somehow their salvation was also earned by works or also were earned through
00:28:37.320
sacraments. And he said, that's actually antithetical to what the gospel preaches.
00:28:41.640
If that was the case, if it was faith and something else, if it was by grace through faith
00:28:46.760
and money, by grace through faith and works, then Jesus would not have had to die. He wouldn't have
00:28:52.480
had to die. He would have said, he would have just come and said, Hey, Peter, on this rock,
00:28:57.280
I build my church. Okay, great. I'm heading up now. He would not have had to die a gruesome death
00:29:02.720
and be resurrected. And so what Martin Luther said, even though, yes, he was not the first
00:29:07.080
one to translate scripture for all the common people, he reminded people, you do not need a
00:29:12.640
priest. You do not need sacraments to go to the throne of God confidently. That is exactly
00:29:18.280
why Jesus died because Jesus is your intercessor. No one else, no man in a robe, no one else. And
00:29:24.400
I'm not even saying that Catholics, especially Catholics today believe that, but that's what
00:29:28.440
Martin Luther was standing up for. And now of course he's dragged through the mud for dividing
00:29:32.780
the church and causing this chasm, which he absolutely did, but it was for the sake of
00:29:37.540
salvation because intentionally or unintentionally people were being led to believe that indulgences
00:29:44.180
and paying for their sins in some monetary way or through works was how they were going to gain
00:29:49.700
salvation. And that completely maligned the cross of Christ and Martin Luther raised awareness about
00:29:55.020
that. And for that, I am extremely thankful. There is, I will, I will grant he did change
00:29:59.680
over time, but he did change over time. So earlier on, he was a little bit better, more of a reformer
00:30:05.700
than later on. All of the antisemitic comments came later in his life. They weren't, they didn't
00:30:10.480
come earlier in his life. However, let's not forget that he did add that first sola, that only faith
00:30:16.080
from Romans. He added that. And, and in subsequent translations, but that is not the only place where
00:30:21.980
the Bible talks about by faith alone. And in fact, if you just want to look at the gospel in general,
00:30:26.440
the fact that Jesus had to die, that would not have had to happen if it was faith and something
00:30:34.480
else. He could have just said, Hey, Allie, be a little bit holier, act a little bit better. If that
00:30:39.500
was the case, he would have been totally fine with the Pharisees because the Pharisees were the holiest
00:30:43.820
of them all. But obviously it wasn't about works. It was about faith. Of course. But I think it's a
00:30:48.560
straw man. I don't see anywhere in church teaching where the Catholic church has ever taught that
00:30:54.060
through works, you will earn your salvation. The church explicitly didn't call that a heresy.
00:30:59.120
That's the heresy of Pelagius in the fourth or fifth century. The, and we do know, I'm, I am
00:31:05.020
certain, of course, Christ's sacrifice was perfect. But let's not forget that, that Christ says to
00:31:11.520
Peter, Peter, you are this, you're a rock on this rock. I'll build my church. Here are the keys to the
00:31:16.540
kingdom of heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Whatever you bind on
00:31:20.520
earth will be bound in heaven. He also said, there will be many who come to me and say, Lord, Lord,
00:31:25.120
who will not see the kingdom of heaven. And of course, James says, faith without works is dead.
00:31:31.680
Absolutely. And that's actually exactly what Martin Luther came to preach about,
00:31:35.380
that there will be many who say, Lord, Lord, who actually will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
00:31:39.040
Because what Martin Luther did is he said, this is not about your external proof of whether you are
00:31:47.160
saved or not. This is about your heart. And I'm not saying the entirety of the Catholic faith,
00:31:51.940
faith preaches otherwise, but he felt where he was, that that was the trend that was going on. At least
00:31:57.440
the people in the Catholic church were starting to focus too much on the outer works and not enough
00:32:03.260
on true repentance in their heart. And that's exactly what Martin Luther came to refocus the
00:32:10.040
church on, was focusing on the heart transformation that grace through faith actually accomplishes.
00:32:16.660
Because you're right, faith without works is dead, but works without faith is nothing.
00:32:21.620
Sure. But when has the Catholic church ever taught otherwise? When has the Catholic church ever taught
00:32:26.060
that you'll earn your way to heaven through works? I don't, I don't deny that there were corrupt
00:32:31.280
professional partners. Obviously, many popes condemned them explicitly. But if Martin Luther's
00:32:37.200
problem was with some local bishops and some local priests selling heaven or trying to sell heaven
00:32:43.460
to ignorant people, then that's a political conversation. That's not a theological refutation.
00:32:49.440
Ali just said that. The issue is, the issue is instead of saying, oh, okay, Martin Luther,
00:32:56.600
we'll look this over, we'll talk about this. He was persecuted for coming to his archbishop and
00:33:03.400
saying these things. He was brought and told to say mea copa before him. And instead of, and instead
00:33:08.300
of doing that, he stood his ground. And of course, like, as you said, years later, he seemed to become
00:33:12.920
a little bit embittered, but let's not forget. That's an understatement. Sure. Yeah. Well, as my,
00:33:17.700
as I'm saying, you know, it was because Catholic mobs attacked his followers and, and burned them
00:33:23.700
at the stake and stoned them. Well, if anybody was a proponent of burning at the stake, I think we
00:33:28.740
would all agree that Martin Luther was a, was a proponent. Well, sure. And I'm not going to defend
00:33:32.660
Martin Luther, uh, in his entirety. After all, if there was one thing Catholics and Protestants were
00:33:37.140
united in, it was the persecution of the early evangelicals. Of course, they weren't called that back
00:33:41.700
then. But you know, that, uh, exactly what Ali has said, it's more about by, uh, by faith alone and,
00:33:48.740
uh, and standing up to the corruption of his day. You know, I will bring up this point though,
00:33:53.060
because I am sympathetic to a lot of these Protestant arguments. And I do like a lot of
00:33:57.140
Protestant theologians and apologists. Uh, but it, there is this one sticking point because the,
00:34:03.220
the question here, especially with Luther is, is the church, the church is the Pope in the Petrine line,
00:34:10.340
in the line of Peter. And did Christ institute a real church on earth with a real clergy and real
00:34:16.900
buildings and real windows and real places? Or is it a strictly an ethereal sort of thing
00:34:23.460
that floats about and does not have real, uh, clergy and real, uh, windows and things like that?
00:34:29.300
And it just seems to me that in a, in a religion, which is based on a fact, it's not based on a
00:34:35.140
philosophy. It's based on a fact, the incarnation of the divine logos into a particular person in,
00:34:41.380
through a particular mother at a particular place in a particular time where he performed particular
00:34:46.740
miracles in space and time on real people, and then literally was killed by someone named Pontius
00:34:52.580
Pilate, and then was a literally resurrected, stayed around for six weeks and then ascended into heaven.
00:34:57.620
That it makes sense to me that that guy would have picked 12 real people to be the apostles.
00:35:03.140
And when he said, I establish a church would have established a real institution on earth.
00:35:08.100
It's, it's hard for me to get beyond that. And to think that really, uh, there was, there's,
00:35:14.180
there's all fact, a unity of the symbol and the symbolized of the logos and the creator and the
00:35:19.780
creation. But then it just becomes ethereal after that. I will give, we're, we're going to get to the
00:35:25.620
Podesta group. That's way less interesting than this. And it is Reformation Day. So I will give my
00:35:29.540
Protestant panel the last word around the horn. Kira, any thoughts?
00:35:33.940
Yeah. I mean, I'm a former atheist. I was raised by atheists and I may, I, I made a decision to follow
00:35:40.660
Christ, you know, um, in my teenage years. So all of these arguments about, to me, Reformation Day is
00:35:50.100
nothing more than a historical discussion and always has been just because of how I came to faith.
00:35:56.900
All I can say is I'm listening to you guys talk and I find it fascinating as someone who loves and
00:36:00.900
who loves history and, and theology. I'm, I'm a huge theology nut. I read everything I can get my hands
00:36:08.100
on. Um, but I, at the end of the day, for me, um, everything you're talking about,
00:36:13.700
none of it is a salvation issue. Um, and I didn't not to, I don't mean to, um,
00:36:20.020
you know, condescend or say that these issues aren't important and they're not important to
00:36:24.020
you, Michael, as a Catholic or to you, Alison, as a Protestant. I mean, I guess they're important to us
00:36:28.180
all. And it is important to be able to understand the nature of God and what he did. But I also think
00:36:33.540
at the end of the day, I really truly do believe it. I mean, I pursue a relationship with God
00:36:38.500
because before him, I was empty and before him, I was lost. And before him, I was headed to, um,
00:36:44.260
a life that I don't know if I'd still be living this day. So for me, my only motivation is to ever,
00:36:50.500
is to be closer to Christ and to be, and to learn how to live. I believe that this is the life we have
00:36:56.580
been given. We, we're not waiting for heaven that that'll come, but we shouldn't be waiting for
00:37:00.420
heaven. We should be working on, you know, our relationships with each other and our relationship
00:37:05.460
to God's kingdom here on earth. So for me, I mean, I'm listening to these things and I'm like,
00:37:09.700
I mean, it's interesting, but I don't care that much. I mean, it isn't for me, it's just a
00:37:16.340
salvation. It's all about the Jesus. It is. Yeah. It is a really great job of making the Catholic
00:37:20.660
church seem absolutely perfect. Come on, get out of here. Stop it. I'm, I'm just trying to work
00:37:25.220
out my treasure in heaven. Uh, uh, Ali, any final thoughts? I have too much to say and it's a lot
00:37:32.500
more divisive than that. Although that was very beautiful. And I agreed that it is all of these
00:37:37.620
things. I believe that at least are not central to the conversation about the gospel. I believe
00:37:44.660
that if you believe in by grace through faith alone, that Jesus alone is what grants you salvation and
00:37:50.900
reconciles you to God, then all of this other stuff is it's supplemental. It's secondary.
00:37:56.260
It doesn't actually matter towards one of our salvation. I do think it's important. And it's
00:38:03.300
also very, it's, it's fascinating. I mean, you mentioned whether the church is a real physical
00:38:09.220
church or whether it's some ethereal thing. I think that's actually kind of a false dichotomy. I don't
00:38:14.020
think it's either the Catholic church and some ethereal random thing that Protestants believe in that we
00:38:18.900
don't know how to tie into. We believe that it's the body of Christ, that if it's by grace through
00:38:23.700
faith, whether you're part of the Catholic church or whether you're on a plane in Africa,
00:38:27.140
but you believe that Jesus alone is true for salvation, then you are part of the body of
00:38:32.100
Christ. And to say that the church only exists within the walls of Catholicism is a very small
00:38:37.940
mind's view in, in, in my view of what Christianity and what the body of Christ truly is, which is this
00:38:44.260
living being dynamic thing that is predicated on one's faith in Christ and not sacraments,
00:38:52.020
not being a part of the Catholic church, nothing like that. Because in my view, that just adds
00:38:55.940
something to the gospel. It is by grace through faith. And if all of us believe that, whether you
00:39:00.260
are Lutheran, whether you're a Calvinist, whether you are, uh, whether you're a Catholic, and that's
00:39:06.100
really the only thing that matters. But the question of course is, I'm sorry, go ahead.
00:39:10.340
Go ahead. No, the question is, did, did Christ institute that church? Did he institute those
00:39:15.140
sacraments? Did he say you have the power to forgive sins? Did he say you break this bread
00:39:20.180
and eat it in memory of me? I think that's a, well, it's a disagreement that I think that
00:39:24.580
Protestants and, and Catholics have. And I do believe that there is probably a misunderstanding
00:39:30.740
among Protestants of what the sacraments are for. It's been explained to me by someone who is devoutly
00:39:36.020
Catholic. And he explained it very well, because at one point I was under the impression that
00:39:39.940
sacraments were actually necessary for salvation. He explained that they're not necessary for
00:39:44.820
salvation. And he pointed to the points of scripture in which he believes that they were actually derived
00:39:48.900
from. But it is all about the Jesus. It's all about, that's what's necessary for salvation is the
00:39:53.700
Jesus. All of the other stuff, maybe it's instituted by Christ, uh, but it all follows from that.
00:39:59.220
Matt, that's absolutely right. All right, Jacob, we've just heard excellent points from Allie and
00:40:04.340
Kira. How are you going to end this discussion on a low note? Are you going to hell or heaven,
00:40:09.940
Jacob? Tell us now. I'm going to heaven. I'm sure everybody here is in the body of Christ,
00:40:14.020
but Jacob, I mean, come on, man. I don't know. My whole thing is, I think this is actually really
00:40:19.860
good for Catholics, Protestants, and evangelicals to talk about these things, because I agree with Allie,
00:40:25.620
in the end, it's, and as you also reiterated, Michael and Kira, it's also about Christ and Jesus.
00:40:32.980
And I think, like for instance, the church I went to seminary in, they always invite Catholic leaders
00:40:38.260
and vicars and priests to teach, and they don't issue a letter of correction after they preach.
00:40:43.420
They just let them come, and they let them preach. And I think that if we saw more unity like that in the
00:40:49.780
body of Christ, whether again, like you're Catholic, Protestant, evangelical, all this stuff, all these
00:40:55.140
wounds happened over 500 years ago, maybe some of them sooner, but we need to come together as one
00:41:02.420
body, one faith, and work together. So I think these conversations that we're having, we should have
00:41:08.100
them, because I think it represents a good coming together to talk about our differences, as Peter and
00:41:13.380
Paul did in the Bible. Absolutely right. But the Pope is the Antichrist. And that, and that. We also
00:41:20.660
forget, we have to have that point at the end. Well, to quote Martin Luther, it is because Kira Davis
00:41:27.460
says so, that is why. I believe that. Excellent discussion. Thank you all for being here. An excellent,
00:41:32.980
an excellent reform of the Reformation Day topic earlier in the show. We have Allie Stuckey, we have Jacob
00:41:40.020
Berry. For the first time on the show, Kira Davis, thanks for being here. I'm Michael Knowles. This
00:41:43.620
is The Michael Knowles Show. I'm going to now change out of my Moana costume, so that I don't go
00:41:48.340
trick-or-treating and traumatize, and traumatize everyone in Hollywood who hasn't already been
00:41:52.580
traumatized. Get your mailbag questions in for this Thursday, and we'll see you tomorrow.