Hi, everyone!
As many of you may be aware, today is not only Halloween, but also the 500th anniversary of Reformation Day. This marks the day that Martin Luther posted his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg (in what is now Germany) thereby setting off the Protestant Reformation. This was never a day I celebrated, but as a Protestant, I understood the significance of Luther’s actions and saw them—and the Reformation more broadly—to be largely positive events. After all, in addition to speaking against the undeniable corruption in the Church at the time, Luther’s writings spell out the foundations of some of the main tenets of Protestant belief. Moreover, some of the changes which Luther and other reformers proposed (such as the ability for people to both read the Bible and attend services in their own languages) have now been adopted by Roman Catholics.
It is only in getting to know my fiancé, Mike, this last year that I began to understand more deeply the other side of this monumental shift in Christian history. Mike, who is Catholic, has helped me see that for many Catholics, the Reformation was less about purifying church practice and returning to scriptural essentials than it was about the fracturing of the Church. And this is especially tragic because, as most Christians believe, the Church acts as the body of Jesus in the world. So the divisions between Catholics and Protestants and the subsequent divisions between the hundreds of Protestant denominations represent more than a difference of opinion about doctrine. They also represent the fragmentation, division, and separation of Jesus’ very presence. It is no wonder that many Catholics pray regularly for the reunification of the Church. (For the record, many Protestants do too.)
In talking about our different Christian backgrounds, Mike and I realized that we have rather different pictures of Luther and the Reformation. I tend to see Luther as a hero of the faith, someone who followed God’s call to purify religious experience and return to the essentials of Christian teaching. I see him as a prophetic force for good who began his own alternative sect of Christianity only after his calls for reform were rejected by those in power. Mike, on the other hand, sees Luther as a well-meaning priest who, in a much needed attempt to re-focus the Church on God's mercy and love, ended up creating a new understanding of salvation that seemed to be incompatible with the teachings of the Church. I certainly acknowledge that Luther’s theology has some questionable aspects, and Mike certainly acknowledges that Catholicism eventually adopted some of the changes Luther and others called for. On the whole, though, we saw the Protestant Reformation from different perspectives based on the stories we’d each grown up hearing.
We like to think and talk about religion, and we spend a good deal of time discussing and debating various aspects of our faith. We’ve had many conversations about all of the typical points of disagreement: transubstantiation (does the bread and the wine at Communion become the actual body of Christ?); the apostolic succession vs. the priesthood of all believers (who gets to be a priest?); salvation by works and faith or by faith alone (do we in any way earn our salvation?); and many more. Not surprisingly, we haven’t been able to resolve in one year what Christians haven’t resolved in 500.
As I have thought more carefully about a Catholic understanding of the Reformation this year, I have been challenged to think more carefully about the word reform. I have always understood the “reform” in “Reformation” to be about making positive changes to bring us closer to the Church’s intended purpose. But now, when I think of the sadness with which Catholics speak of the splintering of the Church, I can’t help but consider that reform might also remind Christians of our need to re-form ourselves into one body. There is no doubt that Christianity is divided, maybe as divided as it has ever been. And I believe that this is not only a cause of great sorrow to God, but also an explicit contradiction of our call in 1 Corinthians 12:12 to be “one body” having “many parts.”
So how should we balance reform and re-form? How do we live in unity but not uniformity?
These questions are not just for Christians. In the last year, in addition to the joy of meeting Mike, I have also experienced the despair of seeing my country sink further into its political divisions than it has in my lifetime, perhaps ever. In the last year, a president was elected precisely because he boasted of borders and fanned the flames of fracture. In the last year, people in the U.S. and around the world have been forced to ask whether they truly want to be unified with the other side, with an abstract other, a them. Increasingly, it seems, the answer is no.
Though this is not one of the reasons Mike and I are getting married, one benefit of living alongside someone with whom I disagree is that I get regular practice at balancing reform-ation and re-form-ation. Choosing to live your life with someone forces you to un-them-ify your perspective. It forces you to acknowledge that the opposing view is held by a human—a human whom you love and who loves you—not merely a faceless name on the Internet. It forces you to return to basics while also hashing out specifics.
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to share a number of lessons I’ve learned about living with and loving someone with whom I don’t always agree. I don’t claim to have any answers whatsoever, but my hope is that sharing these thoughts might prompt some more for all of us as we face one of the biggest challenges of our times.
For now, I’ll just say this: happy and sad Reformation Day. May both the happiness and sadness of this day drive us to keep reform-ing our beliefs and re-form-ing ourselves.
Sarah/Mouse
