What is the Reformation? Can the Reformation be regarded merely as an event of the past? Does the Reformation in some way continue? As history unfolded, these questions were formulated and explored by each successive generation.
The study of the Reformation, as researchers hold, began in 1545 with Martin Luther’s autobiographical introduction to his collected writings. Throughout history, both the gains of the Reformation and the errors of the Reformation have been analysed. M. Flacius, although he criticized M. Luther’s errors, regarded Luther as the most authentic interpreter of the Christian faith since the beginning of Christianity. Over time, the Reformation grew from ordinary stories, which at first interested mainly the reformers themselves, into a serious object of research. Historical researchers began to speak of a Reformation era, which according to some began a full hundred years before the historic event of 31 October 1517 and continued even afterwards, and which encompassed the broadest spheres of life. And precisely for that reason a theological approach alone was not enough for the study of this event, or rather of this Enlightenment movement. Over time the Reformation was studied from the political, the socio-economic, the national and the confessional aspects.
It is worth recalling the address of the eminent Reformation researcher, the Protestant theologian and church historian Bernd Moeller, in 1965 at the University of Göttingen with the lecture “Problems of Reformation Historiography”, in which he points to a crisis in Reformation research. Although the Reformation had been studied throughout history from various aspects, in the 1960s the understanding of the Reformation was so theologized that it ended up isolated from historical development. It was understood one-sidedly, solely as a theological phenomenon, with the consequence of vanishing as a historical phenomenon. Moeller called for changing the direction of Reformation research by opening up its historical dimension anew. Already with the collection of essays “Imperial Cities and the Reformation”, published in 1962, Moeller himself initiated this new approach to research.
After Moeller’s address in 1965, the direction of Reformation research began to change and flourish. Historians and theologians were strikingly eager to study the events of the Reformation in a new interpretation. To discern how the Reformation in its own way continues in the events of their own time as well, to look into the discoveries of science and to use them in their research works.
This turning point in the understanding of the Reformation is associated with the diminishing of neo-orthodox theological influence, which held that there is a deep contrast between science and theology.
Alongside this, new topical socio-political questions appeared, which were connected with the so-called Third World countries and created the effect of a bomb explosion in public opinion and in theology too. These countries announced themselves with serious social problems. Such as, for example, the problem of the enslavement of black people and women, the problem of poverty, and so on. The question of social injustice, and, in opposition to it, the question of how to be freed from it, increasingly came to the fore. Liberation movements formed, which over time incorporated an ever broader understanding of injustice. Many theologians, who until then had been oriented towards theoretical academic studies, henceforth took an interest in the processes of society, with the aim of influencing them. As a result of all this, a new branch of theology arose – Liberation theology. It is directed towards the oppressed and the poor. Liberation theology, which can in its own way be regarded as a new expression of the Reformation, takes an unprecedented turn in theological studies. For example, in liberation theology salvation is linked with liberation not only from sin individually, but also with liberation from the injustice imposed by some class, racial group or gender, which in that way oppresses and enslaves others. The new theological approach also addresses, across a broad spectrum, questions of the discrimination of women. Although liberation theology has had its radical manifestations over the course of history, classically within its framework the social contradictions are explained theologically and the solution to problems is sought in the Christian faith.
The discussion of social injustice entered the academic environment. Practical theology developed, and to this day the theological treatment of social questions is an object of theological research.
The Reformation, ever since Luther, has been understood in various ways and explained in various ways. To the reformers themselves, it was like the final truth; in contrast, for the Roman Catholic Church it was for a long time not binding, for understandable reasons. Even today, theologians and social historians still cannot find unified answers as to what the Reformation is and whether it really was a rupture in the course of history and whether it has a continuation.
But the Reformation undeniably happened, just as there was Luther with his 95 theses and the other events of that time, which we today call the events of the Reformation.
But perhaps the Reformation should first of all be regarded as a God-inspired event, as God’s intervention in the social sphere, which can also be spoken of metaphorically and which one may try to compare to an explosion of divine light, which in a spiritual sense was so brilliant that this ray of light, which comes from the epicentre of the Reformation, still illuminates society in its search for truth, so that we may see the injustice which those to whom it is entrusted are otherwise unable to discern. And there will always be someone, or some people, who will walk along this ray of light and serve the Reformation, serve the renewal of faith.
Perhaps an even greater distance of time is needed so that the Reformation researchers, dazzled by the light, can evaluate it objectively and without quarrels.
Mag. Theol. Rudīte Losāne
Literature used in the article:
Hans J. Hillerbrand Was There a Reformation in the Sixteenth Century?(articles)
Journal: Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture.September, 2003.