Never Stop Reforming.
Hopefully, by now, you’ve heard the news: Tuesday, October 31, 2017 is the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.
It’s pretty momentous. 500 years ago, the Catholic church controlled all of Europe in terms of religion, and was very influential politically as well. Among their downfalls was selling indulgences — slips of paper that they sold that basically told the recipient that he/she would have a much better chance of going to heaven.
The Catholic church made bank, was able to finance beautiful churches like St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, and had Europe at its beck and call.
But yeah, they were really, really corrupt.
Enter Martin Luther, a Catholic monk in Wittenberg who was angry enough and crazy enough to do something about it. So angry, in fact, that he wrote a list of 95 things that he thought was wrong with the Catholic church and nailed it to the local church’s front door. While that sounds crazy nowadays, back then that was a pretty mainstream thing to do. The church (they were ALL Catholic at that point) was normally the center point to the town and was a pretty normal place for people to gather; the church’s door was a spot that everyone could see. In today’s terms, nailing something on the door of the church would be like writing an editorial in the newspaper or posting a video or letter across social media for everyone to see (pats self on back).
Luther’s 95 Theses spread pretty quickly. Long story short, many people were incredibly influenced by it, but the Catholics hated it and despised him for it. His life was threatened many times and he was challenged endlessly by people who didn’t want to deviate from the norm.
Despite the tumult he endured, Luther helped pave the way for the way people experience religion to change. No longer was the pope the sole source of authority — everyone was recommended to read the bible and create their own thoughts, opinions, and theologies. And with the help of the printing press and Luther’s translating the bible into the native language, people could actually do that.
500 years later, there are so many different branches of Christianity — and even more denominations within those different branches. Yet, even with all of these dense and beautiful theologies that have blossomed since Luther and the Protestant Reformation, Christianity and religion as a whole are under the biggest microscope of suspicion that it has been, possibly since Luther’s time.
A few possible reasons for that include: continued corruption (see: Catholic church and abuse), the rise of the religious right and its attack on LGBTQ+ rights and abortion/birth control (merging politics and religion and isolating thousands who believe differently, myself included), failure to meet the needs of the people around them, and a grandiose sense of hypocrisy from Christians who believe that they are supposed to be perfect and persecute and judge all those who don’t believe and act the same way they do.
In other words, maybe we haven’t learned all that much from the Reformation.
But maybe, there’s more to it than just the aforementioned answers.
As a seminary student, I’ve visited a decent amount of churches and countless church websites (SMH at the churches that don’t have one). While there are a fair amount of churches doing great things and making big differences in their communities, I’ve walked out of far too many services feeling bored and annoyed.
This is not the reaction that the Church (big C Church, as in — Christians everywhere, not just Lutherans like me) should want its congregants to feel — or even worse, visitors and guests. How can we expect to grow when this is what people are experiencing?
In the Lutheran church, I hear many members state that they are traditional. Or worse — that they are Lutheran, and therefore they are traditional.
If Luther and many of the other Protestant Reformers were still alive today, this would probably make them puke.
If Luther’s legacy tells us anything, it’s that the Church must always keep reforming, always keep innovating, and always keep developing new ways to worship God and serve God’s people.
“Traditional” should not be something we take pride in or something we strive for.
As we consider what this next 500 years will bring, let alone the next 50 or 5, may we consider the needs of the people outside of the church’s walls and may we contemplate that we are in need of continued reform.
While there is a lot to celebrate on this 500th anniversary, there is so much more work to be done.
Let’s keep reforming.
