In 16th century Europe, the Catholic Church came up with a great fund-raising scheme. The scheme dealt with what were called indulgences. Basically, the plan worked like this: You would give money to the church and it would release the souls of deceased family and friends from purgatory, a made-up place where sin is purged after death, or even from hell.
This horrible, sin-filled trick preyed upon the guilt of the peasants, many who were illiterate and none of whom owned a copy of the Bible that they could read.
In a review of “Against the Sale of Indulgences,” by Martin Luther, Jim Jones of West Chester University of Pennsylvania shares this candid assessment:
The sale of indulgences was a byproduct of the Crusades in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Crusaders were promised immediate salvation if they died while performing a good deed, such as fighting to "liberate" the Christian holy city at Jerusalem. The Church based this on the argument that good works earned salvation, so paying money to support good works could do the same. To justify the sale of indulgences, Church leaders argued that they had inherited an unlimited amount of good works from Jesus, and the credit for these good works could be sold to believers in the form of indulgences. In other words, indulgences were something like "confession insurance" against eternal damnation. If you purchased an indulgence, then you wouldn't go to hell if you died suddenly or forgot to confess something.Luther, other reformers and eventually the Catholic Church realized this was erroneous and phony. Only the blood of Jesus can bring us salvation, as described in Ephesians 2:8-9: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast."
In later years, the sale of indulgences spread to include forgiveness for the sins of people who were already dead. Examine the message in this passage from a sermon by John Tetzel, the monk who sold indulgences in Germany and inspired Martin Luther's protest in 1517. "Don't you hear the voices of your dead parents and other relatives crying out, 'Have mercy on us, for we suffer great punishment and pain. From this, you could release us with a few alms . . . We have created you, fed you, cared for you and left you our temporal goods. Why do you treat us so cruelly and leave us to suffer in the flames, when it takes only a little to save us?' [ Die Reformation in Augenzeugen Berichten, edited by Helmar Junghaus (Dusseldorf: Karl Rauch Verlag, 1967), 44.]”
You may be asking why I am telling you all of this crazy German theology from the 16th century. I will tell you why. No one would be more critical or outspoken against the abusive behavior of selling indulgences than the secular culture that speaks so piously throughout our media. Yet they are the ones selling the modern indulgences, called “carbon credits.” They have the same motive — that you can be saved if you:
• Buy phony carbon credits
• Buy proper light bulbs
• Avoid plastic bags at Publix
• Drive electric cars
All of these play on “guilt” that the secular world wants to feel. Here is the truth: You will not be good, righteous, or a better person by loving or worshiping the earth. Paul warned in Romans 1:25: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.”
We are to be good stewards of the earth, but we are to worship God!
Just a few thoughts to ponder.
