Remembering the Reformation: Commemorate? Celebrate? Repent? is a collection of essays written on the eve of the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation. The authors—Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox—address the challenging question “In a divided church, how do we remember the Reformation?” Their purpose is not simply to revisit historical details. Rather, they seek to remember the Reformation in a way that heals: a way that involves repentance as well as an “exchange of gifts” (92).

This no easy task, as both Catholics and Protestants (and to a lesser extent Orthodox) have been formed by either celebrating the Reformation or reacting against it. Editor Michael Root recounts, for example, how the Evangelical Church in Germany described October 2017 as a “Reformation Jubilee.” At the time, Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, responded by doubting if Catholics could participate in a “jubilee.” While some polemics have given way to a “differentiated consensus,” Root argues that how to tell the larger narrative of the last seven to eight hundred years (i.e., as one of freedom of conscience or growth of individualism) remains contested. Thus the volume's subtitle: do we commemorate, celebrate, or repent?

The authors address this question by seeking to remember the Reformation(s) in a way that is at once truthful and inviting. Bishop Morerod, for example, acknowledges that “at the time of the Reformation, some reform of the church was undoubtedly necessary …” (49). The church as semper purificanda will “always imply a return to evangelical simplicity” (49), one admired, not only by so many Protestants, but today by Pope Francis as well. Yet, Morerod argues, such simplicity cannot ignore that some philosophical assumptions are always at work. A less than adequate philosophy led Luther, especially given his late medieval theological education, toward a tendency to contrast human and divine action in a way that easily undermined the church as constitutive of covenant relationship. Morerod explores how a non-contrastive way of speaking of human and divine action might yet contribute to the church's unity. In a similar kind of expansive mood, Wilson considers how the whole church—as one body through time and space—might commemorate and celebrate Luther as a saint even as it repents and remembers that we are “beggars all.” FitzGerald, for his part, engages early Orthodox responses to Luther as possible ways to enrich theological speech, particularly with regard to a theological anthropology.

Remembering and speaking, the authors make clear, are not only about describing the past. One remembers the past faithfully only in light of a promised future. Stanley Hauerwas argues that Christian speech will be different “after Christendom” when Christians remember that “nonviolence is a grammar of truthful speech” (34). Engaging both Aquinas and Barth, Hauerwas shows how truthful speech requires not violence but the language of prayer. Remembering/speaking are thus liturgical practices that train Christians to speak truthfully even “in a world that thinks what we say is unintelligible” (34). In a final chapter, Root, following a discussion of Kuhn's paradigms, reminds readers that problems can seem intractable within certain conceptual frameworks. Yet ongoing discernment—“normal ecumenism” (one might say the ongoing daily effort toward unity)—can open up heretofore unseen possibilities. And for this we wait in hope.

Remembering the Reformation is a lively and thought-provoking ecumenical encounter with authors seeking to remember well, in light of our call to unity. Due to the brevity of the volume, readers would need to consult the authors’ other works (often cited in the footnotes) for a more developed analysis. Since most of the essays were originally delivered as conference papers, the chapters lack any connections beyond that of addressing the broader question. Even so, I would recommend this volume for those who wish to study, imagine, and commemorate the Reformation in a way that moves beyond the usual lines of division.