Most of the fourteen essays in this collection were presentations from a 2013 conference at Gordon College. All are interesting pieces focused on the question of how the Protestant Reformation should be commemorated 500 years later, in 2017. The sixteenth-century Reformation was a watershed event, altering the course of Western history. It has ongoing, significant effects in many areas. It has “been credited with restoring essential Christian truth” but also “blamed for disastrous church divisions” (1). These essays by top scholars, explore the Reformation and its legacy in a variety of areas in three parts: “Looking Back,” “The Present,” and “Theological Considerations.” An afterword concludes the book.
The editors provide an excellent, substantial introduction to the book. They quote contributor Philip Jenkins who earlier had written that the Reformation “touched everything. It altered not just the practice of religion but also the nature of society, economics, politics, education, and law” (2). Today estimates are that there are 500 million Protestants in the world and the number is growing, with 73 percent of Protestants living outside Europe and North America. This dramatically contrasts with the estimate 11 percent in 1910. Acknowledging the significant contributions of Protestants throughout the various arenas, the editors also focus on “Protestantism's darker sides,” including extremist polemics against “Papists” and fellow Protestants as well as cooperation with Nazi and communist totalitarianism (5).
All the essays contribute in important ways to the purpose of the book. Part one, “Looking Back,” includes Howard's piece on how the Reformation was remembered in other landmark years: 1617, 1817, and 1883. It is striking how remembrances in each of these years reflect the historical contexts of the times, such as in 1883 when Luther “comes across less as a restorer of religious truth than as the hero of the German nation” (42). It is interesting to reflect on how 2017 will be viewed a hundred years hence!
John Witte Jr.’s, “The Lutheran Reformation and Its Impact on Legal Culture” is a thorough look at how Luther's “Two-Kingdom Theory” got expressed through social, political, and legal reforms. Today, “much of our modern Western law and politics still bears the unmistakable marks of the Lutheran Reformation” (68). Other essays are especially illuminating: Carlos Eire, “Redefining the Sacred and the Supernatural: How the Protestant Reformation Really Did Disenchant the World;” Karin Maag, “The Reformation and Higher Education;” and Brad S. Gregory, “The Reformation and Modernity: Explaining the Causal Nexus.”
In part two, “The Present,” Herman J. Selderhuis's, “Commemorating the Reformation in ‘Post-Christian’ Europe?” is stimulating. Selderhuis explores contemporary “post-Christian” Europe, suggesting the relation of the sixteenth century and today is of “complicated relevance.” There are parallels between sixteenth- and twenty-first-century Europe, including the loss or absence of orientation, questions of religious tolerance, a media revolution, economic concerns, church-state relations, and sin and guilt (203–204). For Selderhuis, “a proper commemoration requires reflection on the meaning of justification by faith” (205). This he maintains “may be quite salutary for Europe.” The observance “may show Europe aspects of where it came from—and where it might want to go.” This should focus on the Reformation's “theological existential core—human beings’ proper relation to God” (205).
Significant too in this section are the pieces by Philip Jenkins, “What Hath Wittenberg to Do with Lagos? Sixteenth-Century Protestantism and Global South Christianity,” and Sung-Deuk Oak's, “Protestantism Comes East: The Case of Korea.” These open issues from two different contexts that raise provocative questions for the whole of Protestantism.
The essays in part three, “Theological Considerations,” include Sarah Hinlicky Wilson's “Martin Luther at 500 and the State of Global Lutheranism.” Wilson's section on “Division, Correction, and Commemoration” points out that 2017 will be “the first commemoration since Lutherans and Catholics—the seminal actors in the radical transformation of the Western church that started in 1517—have started talking to each other again” and pointedly says, “Christian divisions are the testing ground for the genuineness of the Spirit's fruit among us” (292). This theological conviction should lead to repentance and requests for forgiveness among churches. Luther's emphasis on the presence of Christ should become real. Wilson's closing words give much to ponder: “What lies before us is simply the task of clinging to the really present Christ in faith and turning to our neighbors, near and far, in love” (295). She concludes: “The best anniversary that I can imagine for the Reformation at five hundred is a prodigal distribution of Christ to the hungry, as well as to those who have not yet realized that they are starving. In such a celebration, I expect Luther will be only one—a conspicuous one, no doubt—but only one of the many saints of the church present at the table” (295).
In the introduction, the editors suggest the characterization of the Protestant Reformation by the late Jaroslav Pelikan is an appropriate description and place to start. The Reformation was “a tragic necessity” (17). While ecumenical goals are “often difficult and elusive, the foundational Christian necessity to pursue truth and serve as peacemakers remains inviolate.” In his afterword, Ronald K. Rittgers suggests we do not know what would have happened had evangelical-style reforms prior to Luther and other Reformers run their course. So Rittgers disagrees with saying the Reformation was a “necessity.” This also, he maintains, may “too easily excuse Protestants from facing the darker side of their origins and the missteps of their history” (337). Perhaps it would be better, Rittgers maintains “to speak of the Reformation as tragic but salutary, or as simultaneously tragic and salutary (simul tragicus et salutaris), for it was certainly both” (337). He sees as a larger goal of 2017 to look forward to 2054 and the millennial anniversary of “the tragic, unnecessary schism between Catholics and the Orthodox” (338).
This is an excellent and stimulating book that helpfully orients us toward 2017. It provides important reflections that open windows, enabling us to view the past, assess the present, and contemplate the future.
