This is Reformation Day. We Lutherans and the Calvinists are about the only ones who celebrate it any more. Other Protestants used to–and some still do–but a general sentiment has emerged that we shouldn’t celebrate the disunity of the church by commemorating the day when Luther posted his 95 Theses, the catalyst for the schism between Catholics and Protestants.
But that wasn’t what the Reformation was about. Luther, unlike later Protestants, did not want to start a new church. He saw that the one holy Christian and apostolic church needed reforming. It had drifted far from its original message–the Gospel of free forgiveness of sins through the cross of Jesus Christ–and from its original authority, the Word of God. The medieval church had become legalistic in its message and a human centered hierarchy preoccupied with wealth and political power.
The splitting of the church came not with the posting of Luther’s theses but with his excommunication, as the Pope rejected the call for reformation. Yet even medieval Catholics came to agree that the church needed reforms, as evidenced by the Counter-Reformation, which changed many of the corrupt practices–including the sale of indulgences–even as it doubled down on its still-problematic theology. What the Lutherans, now free from Rome, put together was a church of both Word and Sacrament, Law and Gospel, a model for reformation.
It occurred to me that the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, my own church home, had its own reformation. In writing about the SEMINEX walkout, whose 50th anniversary we observe this year, here and here, I realized that the LCMS itself had been drifting away from its former commitment to God’s Word. But it wasn’t the polemics, the infighting, or the church politics that brought reformation. The higher critics of the Bible and the liberal theologians were too entrenched. Rather, as Hillsdale historian Korey Maas observed,
“LCMS traditionalists did not in the final analysis maintain control of Concordia because they had the better arguments, because their messaging was more effective, or even because their politics were more Machiavellian. They “won” because their opponents simply walked away.”
The less-than-orthodox professors and seminarians staged a dramatic media-covered walkout from Concordia Seminary to start a “seminary in exile” (thus, SEMINEX) and then their own denomination, which withered on the vine. It was a miracle, really. The liberals just. . . left.
This is to say that God reformed His church, and not in the way that anyone expected. Yes, it was traumatic and tumultuous, and yes, it hurt. But the apparent catastrophe that befell the LCMS ended up reforming it.
Something similar happened with the Reformation of the 16th century. Lots of turmoil, polemics, and conflict. But Luther was not wrong when he said,
I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip [Melanchthon] and [Nicholas] Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.
from “The Second Sermon, March 10, 1522, Monday after Invocavit,” Luther’s Works: Sermons I, eds. J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald, and H. T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 51:III-78.)
According to Luther, God was doing the reforming. The very problems of the church at that time–the corruption, the Turkish invasion, the spiritual crises–were occasions for its reformation, but not according to human expectations. It was when Luther was condemned at Wurms and in hiding at Wartburg Castle for his life–evidently defeated–that in his boredom he took up his pen and translated the Bible. Whereupon the new technology of the printing press took over. “The Word did everything.”
Can anyone doubt that today’s universal church is in need of Reformation? The Gospel of Christ is being displaced by social gospels of both the left and now the right and what may even be worse among seemingly Bible-believing Protestants the prosperity gospel. Sexual immorality is not only rampant but accepted. Our churches have become worldly and superficial. And they are shrinking. In the face of growing secularism, many churches seeking survival have chosen to conform to secularist values. And yet, this is only causing them to shrink even more.
Might God be reforming the church, again, by means of what seem like catastrophes?
The growing ranks of Nones is mostly coming from nominal Christians leaving the church, once again, just walking away. But that means those who stay in the church against the cultural pressures are people who actually believe. That strengthens the church, even in what looks like its weakening.
We want the Nones back, of course, but perhaps that can happen once the church goes through its reformation. Who can blame anyone for leaving a church that no longer preaches the Gospel of Christ and thus has nothing to offer to sinners, other than telling them that they aren’t sinners at all? How does that help them? Reforming the church will likely reform away some of the factors that drove them away. But “reforming” is not the same as simply changing; rather, it always entails a return to its original form. That is, its essence, which is to be found in Christ, its Redeemer.
We should see the travails of contemporary Christianity as perhaps the beginnings of a new Reformation. And since God is doing it, we may find it easier than we think.
Illustration: Martin Luther statue, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis by Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
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