Are my Catholics friends saved?
Image of "Dawn: Luther at Erfurt" which depicts Martin Luther discovering the doctrine of Justification by Faith. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The Protestant Reformation threw the Christian world into chaos. At the beginning of the 1400’s the Pope ’s authority was absolute and the only means of salvation were the sacraments given under his auspices. There was a secular/sacred distinction that was ironclad, meaning that the priests and laity lived in practically two separate worlds. There was no concept of church membership, corporate worship, preaching, or Bible reading in the churches. And as far as doctrine was concerned, there was no debate—the creeds and declarations from Rome (and soon to be Avignon) were the law. Things had been this way for six hundred years. In a world where life expectancy was in the 30’s, that is essentially the same as saying that the church had been in the dark forever. But if you fast-forward to the end of the 1500’s, all of that had b