Most of the articles in this several years-long series have been reasonably sequential, and they have dealt almost exclusively with the history of the Christian Church. We started with the so-called “undivided” Church, worked through the Ecumenical Councils, noting the departure of the Nestorians and the Monophysites in the East, in the first 500 years or so, then the Great Schism between East and West in 1054. Eventually, we took a look at the Reformation in Europe, which split the western Church in the 1500s, and then came to the Americas with the first colonists in the 1600s, and worked our way up to the first Great Awakening, in the 1740s. Almost always, we have tried to keep moving forward. That’s not going to be true, this time.
This time, the subject is a modern celebration of one of those key junctures in Church History, but it’s far less “history” itself than encouragement to get involved in a current event. That event is Reformation Sunday, 2017.
The overwhelming set of changes in worship, church organization and governance and human social organization that we call “the Reformation” started on the 31st of October, in the year 1517, in Wittenberg, Germany. Now, a little math and recourse to a calendar will demonstrate that the 500th anniversary of that event is just about to occur. It will occur, God willing, shortly after you read this. If you’re a clergyman, the purpose of this column is to encourage you to insert something about the event in your sermon on the 29th. If you’re a layperson, it’s to encourage you to ask your pastor to do so. Or, to visit a Church where it is to be done, on October the 29th, or attend a special service on the 31st, if you can find a Church that’s having one.
Lutherans celebrate Reformation Sunday every year, and many Presbyterian and Reformed Churches do, too. All of us probably should. But, the 500th! It’s been half a Millennium since Martin Luther started all this by nailing a list of questions to the Church door at his University in Germany. As a direct result, almost all of us, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Congregationalists, Huguenots, Schwenkfelders, Amish, Mennonites, Quakers, Pentecostals, Jesus People, Mormons, and yes, even Roman Catholics believe what we believe and worship the way we worship as a result of the Centuries of change and upheaval that followed Luther’s list of questions. The Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, the Council of Trent: everything changed because one Catholic German monk college professor posted a list of questions. We need to celebrate that!
If you’d like to be a part of the half-millennium event but aren’t part of a church that intends to celebrate it, ask your pastor or call the writer at 270.354.9132. We’ll get you hooked up with somebody who is going to do something.