Epigraph: And hold fast, all together, by the rope of Allah and be not divided; and remember the favour of Allah which He bestowed upon you when you were enemies and He united your hearts in love, so that by His grace you became as brothers; and you were on the brink of a pit of fire and He saved you from it. Thus does Allah explain to you His commandments that you may be guided. (Al Quran 3:104)
The Ninety-Five Theses, was written and hammered by Martin Luther in 1517, at the entrance of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Saxony and is widely regarded as the initial catalyst for the Protestant Reformation. The disputation protests against clerical abuses, especially the sale of indulgences.
The Muslim Times’ Editor’s comment: The collaboration between two churches, 500 years after the break, can serve as a road map for different sects of Islam also.
Source: The Huffington Post
By Tom Heneghan and Tom Miles
PARIS/GENEVA, June 17 (Reuters) – Senior Roman Catholic and Lutheran officials announced on Monday they would mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 as a shared event rather than highlight the clash that split Western Christianity.
The Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) presented a report in Geneva admitting both were guilty of harming Christian unity in the past and describing a growing consensus between the two churches in recent decades.
The 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, the doctrinal challenge that launched the Protestant Reformation, will be the first centenary celebration in the age of ecumenism, globalisation and the secularisation of Western societies.
“The awareness is dawning on Lutherans and Catholics that the struggle of the 16th century is over,” the report said. “The reasons for mutually condemning each other’s faith have fallen by the wayside.”
They now agree belief in Jesus unites them despite lingering differences, it said, and inspires them to cooperate more closely to proclaim the Gospel in increasingly pluralistic societies.
Categories: CHRISTIANITY, Europe, Islam
AAWRWB. History has been marked at various points by the phenomenon of splitting into sects bringing about disunity. Yet, when truth emerges out of Allah’s grace in a society which is in need of guidance, a similar phenomenon of splitting is observed, separating truth from falsehood. This true offshoot however, has the potential of uniting seekers of truth into a single united community. But while single souls gather into that single united community one at a time, have we ever observed whole sects becoming united with each other and does islam offer us a recipe for this to become possible or does the will of Allah function differently? And what does islam teach us about the path to follow by one who witnesses the emergence of a split within one’s united community? Anyone’s thoughts about this? Jazakallah