Did you know that in his initial translation of the Bible into German, Martin Luther translated the Gospel passages which we now agree go, "Repent and be baptized..." as, "Do penance and be baptized."
What follows here is an idea that I've actually been musing over for some time and trying to figure out what to do with.
Institutionalized, parish priest-dominated, Christianity has normally, but often begrudgingly, been honest enough with the teachings of Jesus and His early followers to acknowledge that repentance is central to being a disciple of Jesus.
But, what?
Finds the way evangelists and prophets and apostles call for repentance too black and white and too harsh and judgmental and the act of real people actually repenting too undignified and emotionally messy to fit into their tidy vision of proper, dignified and somber churchianity?
So, shepherd mafia churchianity handles repentance in two ways:
1. It institutionalizes it. It places the means by which a person turns from sin...and enters the CHURCH... into the hands and programs and plans of its institutional hierarchy...
...through, for example, the writing of creeds and cathecisms...or even just new member classes and small groups.
2. It creates sacraments, or ordinances, to process repentance.
It's interesting that Luther originally relied on two sacraments to initiate people into the church, penance and baptism.
Did you know that, in its earliest days, Luther saw three sacraments? Baptism, Communion...
...and Penance?
But the way of Jesus is much more simple and direct. It doesn't demand the creation of an organized church or of an institutional hierarchy.
It doesn't require the involvement of pastors and parish priests. In fact, it involves something quite the opposite--the Priesthood of all Believers.
Paul, as I say often, noted that the household of God has been built, humanly speaking, on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
And, read the Book of Acts.
Peter and Paul could barely open their mouths without commanding people to repent.
It's time for God's people to let raw and primitive calls for repentance to be made, without institutional involvement or interference, by apostles, prophets and evangelists...
...the men and women gifted and empowered by the Spirit to bring people from sin and to the Lord.
We must repent.
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