Why do Protestants say they, "reject man made traditions", and then follow the traditions of Martin Luther

Answer 1

They have no inkling of their own history they have no idea what a man made traditions are if they did they would know they do indeed follow man made traditions. If they took the time all of the sects of the protestants can be found in Luther's writings.They would rather put their faith in the hands of pastor bobo instead of the Church Fathers.

Answer 2

The words 'pot', 'kettle' and 'black' come to mind... but before you jump to the wrong conclusion, let me concede that man-made traditions HAVE sprung up in Luthernism (after the fellow's demise, I would add). Here's one tradition you should be particularly interested in (seeing as nobody so far has actually detailed even one supposed Luthern tradition).

The Luthern church in Germany saw the Sisterhood of Mary established in 1947. These godly ladies wear habits, have a Mother Superior and devote themselves to prayer and charity. They took a lot of stick from many Protestants who feared they were just copying Catholic Nuns. Not so. There ARE critical differences! But this tradition of Christians drawing apart from the world to be utterly devoted to the religious life certainly began with Catholicism. So there you have it - some Protestant Lutherns following the Catholic traditions! I hope you are suitably impressed!

Answer 3

SDA's are the only true protestants according to the Catholic church as they are the only ones that do not accept the transfer of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday instituted by the Catholic church and kept as a tradition of man and not by commandment of God.

Answer 4

just basing from the first answerer, they seem to not even aware of it.

edit: LOL!!! Luther's traditions approximate the Scriptures? someone's joking!

Answer 5

Jacob, Man made traditions are men's ideas of what they think should happen in the corporate church or in their personal local church.

Some of the practices of the Roman Catholic church are felt by protestants to be man-made not God- authored practices. For example: confession to a priest. Prot. believe each man can confess to God directly without a human intermediary.
For example: a person must be confessed up and all sins forgiven at death to be allowed into purgatory and then heaven. Prot. don't even believe there is a purgatory. They believe a person goes to heaven or hell based on their faith in Jesus Christ.

NOW, Martin Luther realized that the Bible taught salvation through faith. It was a huge revelation to him. He realized he did not have to do all these things to get God's favor. God already favored him when He accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. He didn't have to earn salvation it is a free gift!

NOW, in the years after Martin Luther had his great awakening about salvation through faith, not works, some people came to agree with His understanding of Scripture. They all began to worship together and some soul finally began calling them the Lutherans.......Down the road in history some people began to say, "If you want to be a Lutheran you must worship/believe God like we do." At that point man-made traditions began to creep into the purity of Luther's revelation and practices.

Any man's revelation can become another mans man-made tradition. God wants us to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. Not worship him in my little ideas of how a church ought to be to feel right to me.

This is the best I can do to attempt to clear up the difference between change brought about by God and ideas instigated by men(often for their own benefit, not God's honor) For example: In the middle-ages some clergy of the Roman Catholic church sold salvation for money. You can't really do that but they told uneducated people that you could pay your way out of sin and into heaven. This really happened. This is why it is such a wonderful thing when printing presses came into use. Then non-clergy people had a chance to read/study the Bible for themselves. Before then there were a few jealously guarded Bibles and maybe one in each fairly large church. The priests read and interpreted the Bible for the uneducated, illiterate people. They didn't always teach the whole truth of the Word of God.

OK , I'm quitting now....whew, my fingers are tired!! :-)

Thanks for asking, It is actually a very important question!

ONE last thing I want to say: Nothing I am writing here is meant to criticise the Roman Catholic church. I'm just explaining some things I was taught. I cannot afford to criticise anyone as I'm very far from perfect myself - as I'm sure you can see...=)

Answer 6

Very few people have actually researched the historical origins of their beliefs. Protestant Christians are no exception.

Answer 7

IF you studied Martin Luther you would know he did not start any "traditions". He discovered that the Catholic Church was not obeying the Bible and making things up as they went along. Which is why they have other books and tell their followers not to read the Bible. He wanted to stay one church and just remove what was being disobeyed and correct it. But the Catholic Churches corruption refused to be fixed. So his church is based ONLY off of the Bible. Equals truth.

Answer 8

I don't, I reject man made religion and that includes Martin Luther,pope...

Answer 9

Jahova's Witness are the only sect I am aware of that "reject man made traditions" and for the most part they do. It is impossible to reject them all. Many of our ethics, morals and governmental laws and ordinances come from man made traditions.

Answer 10

I'm no Lutheran, but I don't follow man made traditions either. I follow Jesus Christ, who also rejected man made traditions

Matthew 15

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=47&chapter=15&version=31