Essay Comparing Luther's And Menno Simons

Introduction In this paper I want to compare Luther’s and Menno Simons view about Church. We can learn a lot about our Modern church if we understand definitions Reformers thought. I will try to argue that Luther’s view might be better to help incorporate Church into our post-modern World than Anabaptist Doctrine of church, which actually has had most likely more influence on modern Free-Churches. Whereas the Lutheran Church sadly is devoured by absolute Liberalism.

Luther Luther was a German Augustinian monk who also was ordained as priest and taught theology at the university of Wittenberg. Undeniably Luther can be said to be the most influential of the Reformers since he was the one who lit the fire to the already existing gunpowder barrel. However he never planned to actually create a new church, like other later theologians have tried. In this respect we shall see a lot of commonalities between Luther

However he criticised the way the Catholic Church saw the sacraments. For Luther only true faith will bring about salvation, this faith is also the faith necessary for the sacraments, however the sacraments are not necessary for salvation. The Catholic Church however taught that through the sacraments, sinners who are not in mortal sin can be saved. What then was the purpose of the sacraments? For Luther the sacraments were reminders of God’s faithfulness and His promises. Similar to how in the Old Testament people built up altars to remember covenants and promises by God. The sacraments are therefore usually a follow up to salvation. Baptism especially was a necessity, not to be saved, but rather as answer to salvation. Luther argued that Infant Baptism was still important, the child will receive faith through the baptism. Therefore he is not firm set on the order of baptism and faith, however this topic did not come up until later the Anabaptist introduced rebaptism into