Today is Halloween for most people. In church history, October 31 is considered the start of the Protestant Reformation in 1517. Tradition has it (the history is a little murky) that on that day, Martin Luther, an Augustinian friar, nailed a list of 95 propositions for debate on the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg, in the German state of Saxony. Soon, thanks to printers looking for excuses to use their new presses, copies of the 95 Theses (as they became known) were spreading across Europe, igniting a firestorm.

Luther’s list was the culmination of a running argument he had been having with church officials over the sale of indulgences. It had been sparked by the arrival in Luther’s neighborhood of perhaps the supreme indulgence seller, one John Tetzel. Let me stop here and say that if you have any interest in this affair, I highly recommend watching Luther, the 2003 biopic staring Joseph Fiennes (Ralph’s brother) in the title role. (Be aware that, by a weird coincidence, there is another 2003 movie called Luther which about a British detective.) The film also features Alfed Molina as a wonderfully twisted Tetzel, and Peter Ustinov, in his last film, as Luther’s protector, Prince Frederick the Wise.

The sale of indulgences was probably the epitome of the corruption and superstition of the medieval Catholic church. While the Renaissance and its new thinking was expanding, it was still very limited. Luther makes clear that 1517 Germany, and by implication much of Europe, was still mired in the Middle Ages.

Indulgences were essentially heavenly get-out-of-jail free cards. They were certificates authorized by the pope releasing the person for whom they were bought from a certain number of years in purgatory (more money = more years canceled). That purgatory was a thing, and that the pope could get your deceased relatives out of it, was part of the medieval world view which, like spinning plates in a circus act, was destined to soon crash to the floor.

In a touching scene in the movie, a young woman of obviously limited intellect, comes Luther to proudly show him the indulgence certificate she has just bought from Tetzel. We watch her smile drop as a crestfallen Luther tells her to save her money because the certificates are worthless. The message is clear. The church is taking advantage of people’s gullibility and anxiety to finance its various projects, which included the building of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

In truth, the church’s spin hasn’t changed much. Protestant propaganda is that the Reformation set people free from the crass legalism of the Catholic church. “We are saved by grace and not by works of the laws” is the classic formulation of this new/old gospel. But, of course, it wasn’t that simple.

For Luther, especially, salvation was something still dispensed by the church. The gospel was the church’s “true treasure”, so one had to be part of the church to receive this gift. So just show up and you’ve got it? Not quite. You have to be baptized, receive communion, and live a moral life.

Oh, and one more thing: you have to have faith. The full Protestant gospel formula is actually “we are saved by grace through faith.” And those two words have tied Protestant (and other) church leaders and theologians in knots ever since. What is “saving” faith? Basically, there have been two interpretations. One essentially equates faith with belief, an intellectual assent or conviction, which often meant having the right “beliefs”, as determined by church authorities. The other view saw faith as an experience, as a spiritual or interior “knowing”, not of doctrines but of a saving relationship with God.

In the first case, the question is: How do you know what the right beliefs are? The church will tell you. How does the church know? God revealed them in the Bible and to the early church leaders. But there are lots of churches and they don’t agree which beliefs are right. How do you know? We’ve got them right. Just trust us.

In the second instance, the question is: How do you know if your faith is real? Again, the church is the decider but not so clearly. Genuine faith wil “bear fruit” in tangible ways. You will “want” to go to church, read your Bible, do works of charity, etc. But again, whether those fruits were real or enough was open for debate. Here too churches differed in their understanding. More troublesome were the doubts in people’s minds: Do I really believe? What about my doubts? My sins? How do I know for sure that I am saved?

The history of Protestantism is essentially the story of the endless debates about these never resolved questions, and the repeated denominational divisions over them. In the meantime, Catholicism cleaned up the worst of its organizational abuses, and got involved in these debates to a degree, but essentially rested on its ancient history and tradition.

The church where I worshiped last Sunday observed Reformation Sunday, as Lutheran churches typically still do. The usual hymns and readings associated with the day were used to stir Lutheran blood, and even the Nicene Creed was dragged out (not typical for this congregation) in all its incomprehensible babble.

In her sermon, the preacher focused on a recent translation change whereby faith in Jesus Christ is now rendered the faith of Jesus Christ. It’s happened in a few places in Paul’s letters but in this case, it was Romans 3:22, “the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for all who believe.” The Greek can be translated either way, but this version takes the emphasis off our having faith in Jesus and replaces it with Jesus’ faithful service.

The preacher (and presumably the sermon helps she was using) seemed to think this was a big deal. In the case of this passage, however, (or Romans generally) it doesn’t really help in understanding the theological word salad Paul has produced here. And there are other places where the meaning obviously is faith in Christ or God.

“Faith” is used in lots of different ways in the Pauline epistles. And it’s used differently again in the gospels—and not at all in John! Today it’s popular to say the faith should be rendered or understood as “trust,” which may be helpful. But that’s obviously not how it is always meant in the New Testament, nor in the teachings of the Reformation.

Yet none of this gets at the church’s core problem today, which is the meaninglessness of salvation itself. People just don’t care. They aren’t joining the synoptic gospels’ “rich young ruler” in asking, “What must I do to be saved?” Progressive preachers think its wonderful to declare that “salvation is a free gift!” But like a free subscription offer, most people are saying, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Free, discounted, or full price, salvation is a nonstarter for more and more people.

In short, the church needs to get out of the salvation business. Salvation was finished as soon as heaven and hell lost any tangible meaning. But even apart from that, biblical scholars and theologians have been saying for centuries that salvation is not the only lens through which to interpret the Bible, or the most important. Individual salvation gets almost no mention in the Old Testament. Nor is it obviously Jesus’ central concern in the gospels. The church’s salvation obsession is mostly based on its reading of Paul, and even that interpretation is now recognized as simplistic.

What “business” should the church be in? For an answer, the church needs to eat some humble pie and turn to another tradition, from about the time of the prophets but several thousand miles apart: Buddhism. For the first of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths is the concern of all people: the reality of suffering. More fully: What is suffering? Why do we suffer? Can we keep from suffering? If so, how?

I agree with those who say, especially from a Western perspective, that Buddhism is more philosophy than religion, though that isn’t quite right. In any case, many modern Christians have found Buddhism to be a very compatible spiritual partner and ally. And that for the simple reason that suffering is a major theme of both testaments of the Bible, as well.

In the Old Testament, this is especially true of the wisdom books and the prophets. In the New Testament, it is a theme of Paul (believe it or not) but it especially jumps out in Jesus’ endless concern for people’s ailments and disabilities. Jesus heals everyone who seeks it, often adding enigmatically that it was “your faith” that healed them.

But perhaps it is in John where the alleviating of suffering is most clearly Jesus’ mission. Here Jesus repeatedly offers “eternal life” as the answer to the human predicament, not as something experienced someday in a great beyond but here and now. He promises peace to his troubled disciples, and in John 16 says,

“I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation [suffering]; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

For the Bible, and especially for the centuries-long Christian mystical tradition, the end of suffering is not a promise in the by-and-by, not a theological doctrine to be believed, nor a social or political project. Rather, it is an experience of awakening and rebirth, the discovery of our true nature, and being set free from the endless turmoil of our egoic obsessions.

If we want to still use the word, “salvation” then is not from sin, the devil, or the wrath of God. Rather, the gospel is the we are “saved” by being set free from the delusions and suffering of our false self. We awaken to our oneness with God, to as Jesus says the kingdom of God within us, to our essential nature as Spirit.

In other words, Christianity has the seeds for its own rebirth. But as Jesus says in John, it has to let the old plants die for the new seeds to fall to the ground and sprout anew. Luther said he had to take a stand to reform the church. Today, it’s past time for him to take a seat.

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