No, we didn’t go out Trick or Treating nor did we pass out tracts instead of candy. My kids and I went and saw Sky Captain (which is an excellent movie made on Macs). The night before, we carved pumpkins. The digital camera-ette’s batteries died so I don’t have a picture of what we did.

Likewise, our church didn’t have a Reformation Day celebration or a Harvest Festival or anything like it. I had hoped that the church was going to do something to recognize the Reformation until I read this from The Dane. The Reformation was wonderful in that it moved the doctrine of salvation by grace alone through faith alone to the forefront (where it belongs) and for that we should be grateful. What we forget in the celebration of this is the sad division that it brought. Wouldn’t it have been better for a) Rome to agree with Luther or b) Luther and Rome to not anathamatize each other and continue as a united body to discuss and debate? Rome was too drunk on power and authority and Luther recognized the importance of the doctrine and wouldn’t back down. In the end Rome did the wrong thing for the wrong reasons and it kicked Luther out. They brought the division, not the Protestants.

So while we may rejoice that the gospel was made central again, we should be saddened that it divided the church. Oddly enough, the typical Protestant answer is the same as the Roman one: we’re the true church, they departed. And neither side seems to be too upset that the body of Christ has been divided.