For example, the Bible includes as elements of worship: reading scripture, preaching, singing, and praying. This principle is held by many Reformed Baptists today. Many very conservative Calvinists and Anabaptists hold to a belief called the “regulative principle of worship.” This principle states that God commands us to include certain specific elements in our public worship as found in scripture and that, conversely, we are prohibited from including anything in worship that isn’t found in scripture. Is the purpose of scripture to give us an exhaustive list of everything we ought to be doing in worship? Some Christians think so. Is Luther’s reason for rejecting the practice of imposing ashes a good reason? It depends on what you think the purpose of scripture is. This is also one of the reasons that Lutherans (and Presbyterians, for that matter) have only two Sacraments, instead of seven. He looked to scripture as his guide and, as a result, rejected many of the contemporary beliefs and traditions of his day. Luther was pushing back against certain beliefs, traditions, and rituals of the medieval Catholic Church that he believed were ridiculous, harmful, and distracted from the message of the Gospel. In other words, because Jesus didn’t say, “Put ashes on your foreheads on Ash Wednesday,” Martin Luther didn’t want to encourage people to do it. His reason? Because the practice isn’t found in the New Testament. In the sixteenth century AD, Martin Luther did away with the long-observed practice of imposing ashes.
In fact, this aversion goes all the way back to the time of the Protestant Reformation. I embrace the traditional observance of Ash Wednesday but understand the aversion by some Protestants. There are probably a variety of other reasons, too, people don’t like to receive ashes and be reminded of mortality. Others participate but add glitter to the ashes. Some would rather not participate in the imposition of ashes at all. Ash Wednesday makes some Protestants uncomfortable.
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