Column Draft for Reformation sunday

Reformation Sunday approaches this Sunday, the 25th. It recalls the time when Luther allegedly posted 95 points for debate on a door in Wittenberg, Germany. I rarely look forward to it.

Protestants (meaning confessing, witnessing, affirming the faith in Latin, not a protest group) sometimes merely celebrate the courage and intellect of Luther. Sometimes we indulge in dualistic fantasy about the nature of the Catholic Church in comparison to the advances of the Protestant movement. At other times, we exhibit flat out religious prejudice against this venerable Western church. We continue to throw around terrible stereotypes about the Roman church then and to a lesser extent, even at present. We do not note that some of the core issues no longer exist with regard to the church. In two years we will mark the 500th anniversary of Luther’s movement, and I hope and pray we will act with some measure of historical clarity.

We can view the Reformation as the wave of modern life. Around Luther’s moves,
Copernicus was working up a heliocentric model of the solar system. the invention of the printing press about a half century prior to it was fundamental toward its rapid pulses. It was a part of a social earthquake that  moved us from the Middle Ages into the sometimes harsh light of the Enlightenment and the new era we often call modern.

Paul Tillich, the eminent 20th Century theologian saw the Reformation as a signal event toward presumed, unchecked authority. for him the “Protestant Principle” is willing to question received notions, so it tries to keep itself safe from replacing God with creations of our own choosing.  “From the Christian point of view, one would say that the Church with all its doctrines and institutions and authorities stands under the prophetic judgment and not above it. Criticism and doubt show that the community of faith stands “under the Cross,” if the Cross is understood as the divine judgment over man’s religious life, and even over Christianity, though it has accepted the sign of the Cross.” (Dynamics of Faith,p. 33)

Clearly the Reformation brought the individual to the fore. Luther insisted on an unmediated reading of Scripture as the foundation for his program. At a hearing, he famously proclaimed “here I stand, I can do no other.” Luther did not realize that the bible on which he stood would become a substitute for papal authority, as its own, often unread, symbol that moved from God’s instrument to God’s goal.

That very individualized response helped usher in our own fissiparous version of religion in this country. We  moved toward  easy fracture of church bonds. We excommunicate ourselves. Exit may well seem to be the preferred option among those who shift if every tiny detail of their preference in matters of faith and practice are not met.
We treat different churches as items in a buffet line, to be sampled and move on. Now we are moving into a do it yourself spiritual quest (notice the word religion is not even used, except as an epithet).

I do prize the Reformation slogan,  “the church reformed always being reformed.” It realizes that the church. as any human endeavor, is limited. At its best, the church points toward God’s future, but cannot be conflated into it. -That impulse can help the church not become a synonym for being rigid or static, but having the flexibility to see itself clearly and to change when needed. Reformation is not revolution, where we may tear down without having a plan to rebuild. At its best, the church holds on to its vital center and its living traditions, looks to present felt needs, and walks to the far horizon of the future.