Reformation Sunday by Mike Poteet A Sunday to Celebrate? If your congregation is singing Martin Luther’s hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” in worship today, it isn’t alone. Many Protestant churches mark the last Sunday in October as Reformation Sunday. Tradition holds that on October 31, 1517, Luther nailed a copy of 95 Connecting theses (propositions for debate) challenging medieval church teaching Faith and Life and papal authority to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Although volume 20, number 26 this fiercely dramatic scene probably never took place, Luther’s docu- october 26, 2014 ment is real, and it really did help spark the Protestant Reformation. Many Americans today don’t know much about Luther. In 2010, Session at a Glance the Pew Research Center found less than half of respondents (46 per- cent) could identify him and his significance. More Jews (70 per- Today many Protestants celebrate cent), atheists and agnostics (68 percent), and Mormons (61 percent) Reformation Sunday. What was the knew about him than did Protestants (47 percent). Reformation? What can we learn from it? How can the Reformation’s legacy This lack of knowledge may stem partly from Protestants’ dimin- help us grow in our faith? ished place in American society. In 2012, also according to Pew Research, Protestants made up 48 percent of the US population, los- ing their majority status of more than two centuries. Although Con- FaithLink is available by subscription via e-mail ([email protected]) gress remains majority Protestant, it is “far less so today than . or by downloading it from the Web 50 years ago, when nearly three-quarters of the members belonged to (www.cokesbury.com/faithlink). Protestant denominations.” Print in either color or black and white. Given Protestantism’s diminished prominence and many Protes- tants’ unfamiliarity with their tradition, does celebrating Reformation Find us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. Sunday make sense? Copyright © 2014 by Cokesbury. By Grace Through Faith Permission given to copy this page for use in class. Luther would likely have had no use for Reformation Sunday as an end in itself. He never intended to break with the Roman Catholic Church. It was Western Europe’s only church in his day (Eastern and Western Christianity divided in 1054), and he served it as a monk, priest, and professor of theology. Indeed, his devout faith and reli- gious zeal were precisely what drove him to conclude, as historian and theologian Dr. Alister McGrath writes, that “the church . had misunderstood the gospel, the essence of Christianity.” From 1513–16, as Luther studied and lectured on the Psalms and the Book of Romans, he experienced great anxiety about his salva- tion. He later wrote: “I had certainly wanted to understand Paul [in Romans] . But what prevented me . was . that one phrase . ‘the righteousness of God is revealed in it’ ” (Romans 1:17). “For I hated that phrase . which I had been taught to understand as the righteousness by which God is righteous, and punishes unrighteous sinners. Although I lived Shutterstock.com a blameless life as a monk, I felt that I was a sinner . [and] could 1 volume 20, number 26 not believe that I had pleased [God] with my works. Far from loving that october 26, 2014 righteous God who punished sinners, I actually hated him. I was in desperation to know what Paul meant.” Core Bible Luther ultimately experienced a breakthrough. No longer did he Passages believe sinful human beings must perform works in order to earn God’s Sola gratia (grace alone) was a forgiveness. Instead, he became convinced, as McGrath explains, “that key belief held by Protestant reform- God provides everything necessary for justification,” including the gifts of repentance and faith, “so that all the sinner needs to do is receive it. God is ers. Ephesians 2:1-10 is one of many active, and humans are passive, in justification. God offers and gives; Scriptures proclaiming God’s amaz- men and women receive and rejoice.” Luther summarized this insight in ing grace. The writer––if not the apos- his teaching that sinners are justified, or saved, by grace through faith. tle Paul himself, then someone who shared his convictions––describes how The 95 Theses and Beyond dire our situation was: We were dead to God, trapped in sinful disobedience; Luther’s new understanding of Scripture’s teaching on salvation but God acted where we could not, fueled his criticism of Dominican preacher Johann Tetzel. Tetzel sold raising us to life with Christ. Salvation “indulgences” to raise funds for the restoration of St. Peter’s Basilica. He claimed to be selling relief from sufferings in purgatory not only for is God’s unmerited gift. We do good sinners still living but also for those who had died. A “jingle” attributed works in grateful response. to Tetzel claimed, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from In 2 Kings 22, we meet King purgatory springs.” Josiah, during whose reign the long- Many of Tetzel’s contemporaries criticized him for misrepresenting lost scroll of God’s Law (preserved for church doctrine, but Luther’s critique wielded the greatest influence. His us in Deuteronomy) was discovered 95 theses about indulgences stressed the supremacy of God’s grace over in the Jerusalem Temple. We also meet any credentials granted by the Pope: “Every true Christian, whether living one of Scripture’s few female prophets, or dead, has a share in all the benefits of Christ and the Church, for God Huldah, who authenticates the scroll has granted him these, even without letters of indulgence. We should and announces God will judge the admonish Christians to follow Christ, their Head, through punishment, people unless they again obey the Law. death, and hell . set[ting] their trust on entering heaven through many God empowered Huldah and Josiah to tribulations rather than some false security and peace.” be reformers in ancient Judah, bring- The nascent technology of the printing press helped Luther’s theses ing the community of God’s people find a wide audience. Luther followed the theses with sermons and other into closer conformity with God’s will pamphlets calling for reform. A papal envoy to Germany reported, “Noth- and Word. ing is sold here except the tracts of Luther.” While we give thanks for the faith- In 1521, Luther appeared before an official assembly (Diet) of the Holy ful reformers of the past, we must also Roman Empire in Worms, Germany. Faced with the threat of excommu- remember Jesus’ prayer that his fol- nication and given a final chance to recant his theses, Luther declared his lowers would be one, as he and the conscience captive to God’s Word. He is said to have proclaimed, “Here Father are one (John 17:21-22). As I stand; I can do no other. God help me.” much as we profess spiritual unity, our This moment, too, may not actually have been as dramatic as por- divisions still sometimes obscure our trayed in centuries of books, illustrations, movies––and Reformation Day witness that God sent Jesus into the sermons! Luther’s resolve did, however, unleash dramatic consequences world (17:23). Complete institutional for the church and society. “His iconoclasm, rebelliousness and demand unity of all Christians is unlikely, but for radical freedom,” writes religion scholar Karen Armstrong, “all dem- increased cooperation in worship and onstrate the pioneering ethos that would make the world anew.” mission is always possible. Reformation Ramifications One of the most obvious results of the Reformation was the emer- gence of many new Christian churches, each professing to preserve Copyright © 2014 by Cokesbury. Permission given to copy this page for use in class. the ancient, true faith. These churches asserted belief in one, holy, 2 volume 20, number 26 catholic (universal) church; however, they denied that this church was october 26, 2014 identical with the institutional Church of Rome. And after they broke with Protestant–Catholic Rome, Protestants continued breaking with one another. Luther’s translation of the Bible into German also proved momen- Relations tous. Firmly believing Scripture to be the only authoritative source of doc- In 1961, Protestant theologian trine and practice (a conviction frequently summarized in the slogan sola Robert McAfee Brown described a Scriptura), Luther also believed that individual, ordinary Christians were Catholic–Protestant “impasse”: “On entitled to read and wrestle with the biblical text for themselves, as he had almost every level of relationship there done. The fact that the Bible has now been translated into over 2,000 dif- is irritation and ill will, if not active dis- ferent languages is a direct result of the Reformation. like.” The next year, however, the Sec- As author Gordon Thomasson points out, however, “Vernacular trans- ond Vatican Council opened. Among lations . unintentionally opened the Bible to an unlimited range of pri- other matters, it encouraged Catholics vate interpretations.” The value Protestants placed on an individual’s right “for the first time . to foster friendly of conscience contributed to modern conceptions of individual rights and relations with Orthodox and Protes- freedoms, but also challenged long-held senses of communal identity. tant Christians,” writes John O’Malley, Luther’s doctrine of “the priesthood of all believers”––the teaching that all professor of theology at Georgetown baptized Christians are called by God to serve one another and the world University, “as well as Jews and Mus- as priests—has frequently been misinterpreted as divinely granted license lims, and even to pray with them.” to be “a church unto [one]self,” as Peter Leithart writes. “Renouncing Five decades later, Protestants and Rome’s one Pope, Protestantism has created thousands.” Catholics have made more progress.