You will often hear in sermons detailing how God can use inherently imperfect people for great things that Abraham could be a coward, David committed adultery and conspiracy to commit murder, and Simon Peter had a short fuse and could be wishy washy. These Biblical examples are all true and accurate, and are testaments to God's faithfulness to use us, flawed and fallible, to do mighty and wondrous things. But, you will seldom if ever hear among these examples the likes of Martin Luther, John Knox, or any of the most pivotal figures of what we came to call the Reformation.
Being a member of a Calvinist church, I often hear great reverence of the titans of the Protestant Reformation, the great theologians who helped steer the Christian faith out of the clutches of the Catholic Church. The immense respect for these men to which I've been subject is one of the reasons why I was so dismayed and disappointed over time to read that many of these figures were, frankly, some rather vile people.
It should have come as no surprise that they were dirty, rotten sinners like me, because that's what we all are, from the pulpit to the porcelain. But when one is surrounded by such high praise for these men - men who are seldom, if ever, mentioned in the same ilk as an adulterer like David or a murderer like Moses to point out how God can use the worst of the worst - it makes the discovery of their "dark sides" much more devastating. If one is well versed in the flaws of Biblical heroes, but those who teach them dare not utter anything negative about Reformation heroes, a kind of subconscious reverence can be built for these men, and one is prone to forget that they, too, were awful human beings who God used to further His kingdom.
Again, it shouldn't have been so shocking that these men, as fallible and fallen as Hezekiah or Job, were guilty of some awful deeds, just as I am. But I assert that our praise of these Reformers has become so borderline idolatrous that we are prone to forget - or willing to leave out - what despicable acts accompanied their efforts. Christians should openly condemn the atrocities and seedy acts of those that many praise to the point of portraying them as blameless and spotless. This is the same mistake that we Americans made with the likes of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson when we heralded them as heroes of our country; patriots and visionaries they were, but we swept their sins under the rug for so long that our very culture became affected to the point of serving them as flawless idols.
But what a Christian must also remember is the same lesson we're taught from the Bible and the pulpit about Peter, Paul, David, and a slew of other Biblical figures - that we are all fallen human beings. Scripture tells us, "in Your sight no one living is righteous" (Psalm 143:2), "there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin" (Ecclesiastes 7:20), and most memorably, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).
There can be, however, a difference when looking at the lives of David - who repented of his crimes against God and strove to live a just life - and Martin Luther, of whom there is no evidence that he ever repented in his hatred towards Jews. But if God can use those who don't even believe in Him for His purpose - Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians for example - then He can certainly use those who proclaim Him but continue in evil ways: the most obvious example being the Pharisees who were among the instruments through which Jesus went to the cross to fulfill God's purpose of shedding His blood to redeem you and me for our multitudes of sins.
Again, the most disheartening aspect of reading about the flagrant evils of many Protestant Reformers is the amount of heroic praise they are given by the Church today, and the fact that their work was so important in Church history. It can become tiring to hear "God uses flawed people for great things," so this blog's closing passage from the Book of Revelation puts it into much better perspective. We must remember that the flaws of Knox and Luther is irrelevant in the bigger picture, in the story of Christ's Church, against which "the gates of Hades shall not prevail" (Matthew 16:18). If every Christian in the world today were to turn away from Christ and convert to scientology, that would not render Him any less true. To claim that it's the faithfulness of Christians who make God all-powerful is nothing but laughable vanity.
The bigotry of Martin Luther can never render Jesus' love and grace ineffective. If a hypocrite proclaims Jesus as Lord yet does not obey Him, the hypocrite is only a hypocrite, but Jesus is still Lord. It is Christ who overcame - not John Calvin.
"And I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, 'Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals?' And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll, or to look at it. So I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll, or to look at it. But one of the elders said to me, 'Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals.'" -Revelation 5:1-5
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