I’ve been asking questions on Twitter and Facebook in an effort to understand what most evangelicals think about the Reformation. Having spent most of my Christian life in Charismatic and Armimian churches, many of my friends (though genuinely saved) don’t subscribe to Reformed Theology. Curiously, some of them quote  Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening Devotions, but they also quote Oswald Chambers, Rick Warren and Charles Finney, leaving me to wonder if Spurgeon makes that much of an impression on them.

Sometimes things make you scratch your head in bewilderment.

Anyway, few of my friends have responded to my questions. Perhaps their silence speaks volumes about their indifference to the Reformation. And I get that. I need to confess my own indifference to the Reformation before the Lord brought me into Reformed Theology.

I did receive one response that disturbed me. The person declared that the Reformation was indeed very important to her, citing several changes in the Roman Catholic Church. Those changes, however, resulted from Vatican II, which happened about 450 years after the Reformation, and only made surface level changes within Catholicism.

Perhaps I misunderstood my friend’s comment. If so, I hope she’ll publicly correct me and better help me understand the point she wanted to make. But the fact that nobody else questioned her apparent confusion of the Reformation and Vatican II causes me to wonder if people really make a distinction between the two events. I realize that not everyone enjoys history, but these two major events really have little to do with one another.

Perhaps my friend isn’t representative of most 21st Century evangelicals. Sadly, I suspect she just may be. If so, I fear that modern-day evangelicals are headed into new Dark Ages, every bit as apostate as the centuries leading up to 1517.

Ignorance about the Protestant Reformation explains much of the compromise among present-day evangelicals. If we don’t know at least how the issues of justification by faith alone and the authority of Scripture caused the Reformers to stand against the papacy (often losing their lives in the process), we will quite probably compromise our own doctrine and seek fellowship with people who embrace a different gospel. I pray that my friends, as well as evangelicals in general, will look at the Reformation and see the critical importance of doctrine. May they then glorify the Lord Jesus Christ for restoring His Word to His beloved Church.

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