Indulgences

Since we watched the Martin Luther movie in class, I have been especially intrigued by the concept of indulgences. Apparently, indulgences are ways you can decrease the time you spend in purgatory for your sins.

I found a website that had some pretty interesting examples of indulgences. There was one that said if you recite a prayer everyday for a month, five years will be removed from a person's time in purgatory.

Another example was given, saying that if a faithful Christian devotes 20-30 minutes each day studying or teaching Christian doctrine, they will get three years off their sentence in purgatory.

This just sounds ridiculous to me! Who is responsible for deciding what counts as an indulgence or not? It seems like the Catholic Church is using fear tactics to exert their power over the people. Indulgences are nothing more than a way to keep people dependent on the Church.

The passage I read today in "Readings in Christianity" was very fascinating to me. It was a marketing technique and sermon given by John Tetzel and it goes as follows:

"Do you not hear the voice of your parents and other deceased loved ones crying loudly and saying 'Have mercy, have mercy on me, especially you my friends, because the hand of the Lord as touched me! We are in strong punishment and torment, from which you are able to rescue us with only a little money, but yet you do not want to!' Open your ears, as the father says to his son and the mother says to her daughter, 'Why do you punish me, and are not satisfied with my flesh?' It is as if they were saying, 'We gave you birth, we fed you, we raised you, we left you our earthly goods, and yet you are cruel and hard to us. You are able to free us easily [by purchase of indulgences], but you let us lie in flames, and delay the glory promised to us."

Wow! Tetzel is appealing to people's emotions here in the biggest of ways! Apparently the church was in need of money to help rebuild the St. Peter's Church in Rome and this was the main way they went about it! It's super fascinating how gullible people can be, and good for Martin Luther for opening the people's eyes to this injustice.