Gene Edward Veith points out a news story about Professor Jerry L. Walls, who teaches the idea of purgatory and has written about it in Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation. Walls apparently buys into the Catholic understanding of the purification of believers. As this article explains, followers of Christ must be purified even if they are forgiven of all their sins. Their sanctification is not fully accomplished by Christ’s work on the cross, but by some spiritual process between death and paradise. David Gibson of RNS states, “In recent years, the emphasis [for purgatory’s purpose] has swung from ‘satisfying’ the justice of God through painful reparations to one of sanctification, or becoming holy.

“’To suggest instead that Christians will enjoy a kind of express executive elevator at the time of death is to suggest that those who work hard on holiness in this life are wasting their efforts,’ John G. Stackhouse, Jr., a popular evangelical author at Canada’s Regent College wrote in an essay on Walls’ ideas in The Christian Century.”

This Catholic writer explains, “Catholic theology takes seriously the notion that ‘nothing unclean shall enter heaven.’ From this it is inferred that a less than cleansed soul, even if ‘covered,’ remains a dirty soul and isn’t fit for heaven.” But I guess Christ’s atonement does not accomplish this, so though we are fully saved by his grace, we must be fully purified by purgatory’s refining fire, which has been a big problem historically (not to mention the fact that the Protestant Bible doesn’t allow for even prayers on behalf of the dead).

Carl Trueman writes, “If Augustine freed the church from the back-breaking self-martyring piety of Pelagius, Luther freed her from centuries of obfuscating complication. . . Luther saw clearly that the Christian life is actually distinguished not by elaborate complexity but by its beautiful, simple, accessible Christ.”

The wonderfully Reformed Ligonier Ministries issued a survey through LifeWay Research to identify what points of doctrine Americans believe. As you would imagine, Americans are all over the theological map, but what statements do they believe reflect reality? Will there be people in heaven who have never heard of Jesus Christ? Forty-one percent believe so. Is even the smallest sin worthy of damnation? Only fifty-one percent of self-professed evangelical protestants believe that’s true and only ten percent of all respondents agree strongly. Is God unconcerned with my day-to-day decisions? Twenty percent say he is unconcerned. And pertinent to the central question of the Reformation, must someone contribute his own effort to his personal salvation? Seventy-one percent of surveyed Americans agree, fifty-four percent being evangelical protestants.

Dr. R. C. Sproul believes our country is sliding into a new dark ages of spiritual life, and this survey doesn’t change his mind. Get all the details on their website, including a great infographic.

Notice the section on worshipping alone. That’s one of those points of application that reveal our theological assumptions. Do we need worship the Lord together? Is our salvation essentially individualistic? Does a local church have any spiritual authority over us? Americans appear to have lost an understanding of the purpose of a local church.

Churches with what we call high liturgy have suffered bad press from many believers who find it easier to point their faithlessness in their congregations than in their own, low liturgy churches. They accept the bad idea that creeds are lifeless and only spontaneity is of the Holy Spirit. In doing so, they have missed their own rich Christian history, which can be rediscovered in the catechisms and confessions of the holy catholic (universal) church. To those who are unfamiliar with these writings, let me give you the first two questions from the Heidelberg Catechism, one of the written teachings to emerge from the Reformation.

Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?



Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

Question 2. How many things are necessary for thee to know, that thou, enjoying this comfort, mayest live and die happily?

Answer: Three; the first, how great my sins and miseries are; the second, how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries; the third, how I shall express my gratitude to God for such deliverance.

The second question sets up the rest of the catechism, and the first question–isn’t it glorious?