Reflections on a
Gift of ‘95 Theses’
The Rev. Dr. Ray Silverman
E
arly in January I received a request from Irv Kaage to review a 208-page
manuscript he calls, “95 Theses.”
My immediate thought was that this was a brilliant idea. I was aware that
Martin Luther had nailed the original “95 Theses” to the door of the All Saints
Church in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1517. It was a protest against the abuses of
the clergy, and the advent of what became known as Protestantism.
Some 250 years later, Emanuel Swedenborg was to launch a new protest –
one which we recognize as the Second Coming of the Lord. It was a protest not
just against the abuses of the clergy, but also against the idea of “faith alone,”
which Luther had championed so vigorously. Luther was making a case for an
individual’s direct relationship with God, without need for an intermediary
priesthood. All a person needed (to come into a direct relationship with God)
was faith – faith alone, not the priesthood, not the church, not penances and
indulgences. Just faith.
While Swedenborg agreed with Lut