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PRINCIPLES AND METHODS
Undoubtedly, in the Roman Catholic Church, the care of
“souls had become seriously infected with this disorder in the
years immediately preceding the Reformation, when the
system of penances, indulgences and other instruments of
discipline were grossly misused by the Church’s representatives
everywhere.
The Reformation
The revolution in religious thought which occurred at the
Reformation was, to a great extent, a reaction against the
demoralising effect of the Roman Church’s misuse of her
power and responsibility in the realm of the care of souls.
Some writers claim that the Reformation had the effect of
making men feel that every bond of moral restraint had been
loosened. According to Luther, the freedom of a Christian was
freedom to accept the restraints imposed by religious principle.
Nevertheless, it was a real freedom in the realm of personal
choice and behaviour. Luther believed that religion transcended
morality, since life itself could not be truly or religiously lived
while the individual subordinated himself to authority and
slavishly obeyed external rules or instructions in order to avoid
the perils of thinking and acting in freedom, on his own
responsibility.
Inevitably such a view brought into being a completely new
conception of the meaning of the care of souls and the practical
responsibilities it entailed. It became an evangelical activity.
In the development of the evangelical method Luther’s
importance derives from the fact that, owing to the nature of
his own personality, he became the classical type of
evangelical spiritual adviser. According to the Lutheran conception
Christ is the real bearer of the burden of the soul’s unsatisfied
desire and the work of the evangelist is but a continuation of
Christ’s deed. There is abundant evidence, however, that
Lutheran Orthodoxy did not, in practice, live up to Luther’s
own inspiration.
It is not easy for posterity to form a just estimate of the
conditions that brought about deterioration, and at length a
crisis, after the Reformation. Why did the Lutheran
inspiration fail?
No doubt the social conditions of the period had much to do
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