Ecclesia Semper Reformanda : Reformation in the Twenty-First Century?

Abstract

Review Article Ecclesia Semper Reformanda: Reformation in the Twenty-First Century? P Fintan Lyons OSB, Martin Luther: His Challenge Then and Now (Dublin: Columba Press, 2017), 258 pages. Gesa E Thiessen (ed.), Called To Freedom: Reformation 1517–2017 in an Irish Context (Dublin: Wordwell, in association with the Lutheran Church in Ireland, 2019), 190 pages. Johnston McMaster, Challenging Times: A Journey in Faith (Derry/ Londonderry: The Junction, 2019), 377 pages. Marking the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017 has prompted significant and valuable reflections on what was involved in the sixteenth century Reformation. Inevitably, such reflections lead on to considerations of the state of the Churches in the present century which has been characterised as ‘post-Christendom’. What kind of ‘reformation’ is necessary in the radically changed circumstances in which the various expressions of Christianity now find themselves? Each of the three books under review makes a valuable contribution to this key question and they provide pointers to the kind of responses by the Churches which might be appropriate in furthering the Gospel. The great challenge is to address theologically what is perceived by many as a global and multi-dimensional crisis at least on a par with, or even more deadly than, that which provoked the Reformation and Counter- Reformation in the sixteenth century. P Fintan Lyons OSB is a monk of Glenstal Abbey, with expertise in Reformed Theology and Reformation History. He provides a clear account of Luther’s life and of the issues at stake in the Reformation. In assessing Luther’s challenge to the Church of his day, Lyons’s purpose is ‘to show his relevance to the efforts of the Catholic Church to continue the path of renewal undertaken at the Second Vatican Council’; he seeks to show how Luther’s theology ‘can today address a secular world which has Studies • volume 109 • number 436 458 Christian, including Reformation roots’ (p.10). Called To Freedom brings together the lectures or addresses given by seventeen speakers at the symposium in Trinity College, Dublin, to mark the quincentenary of the Reformation, organised by the Lutheran Church in Ireland and staff of Trinity, in February 2017. The book ‘hopes to be a contribution to the on-going quest of the ecclesia semper reformanda’ (vii). The papers published here address issues in the historiography of Luther’s contribution to the Reformation; those by European scholars make recent German and European scholarship accessible for Irish readers. Professor John McCafferty, from University College, Dublin, contributes a poignant essay on the effect of the Reformation in sixteenth and seventeenth Ireland: religious change ‘became braided up with warfare, destruction and the trauma of military campaigns’(p.127). Protestantism became tightly woven into plantation, using the English language when most of the population spoke Irish; the executions of Catholic bishops and others as martyrs led to the scaffold becoming a place to display opposition to the government’s religious policies and to create scenes of Catholic solidarity’ (pp.136–137).1 Rev. Dr Johnston McMaster, a Methodist minister and a leader in education for reconciliation in Ireland, has written a profound theological autobiography, reflecting on almost five decades of ministry in an Ireland that has experienced seismic change including the death of Christendom, the developing secular society, the destructive culture of violence and the challenges of building peace and reconciliation: Challenging Times indeed, to make his reflective journey in the Christian faith. The death of Christendom A key point that emerges from reading these books is that Luther and his contemporariessharedthemajorworldviewwhichwenowcall‘Christendom’. This had emerged when Christians ceased to be a minority movement within the Roman Empire and became the established religion under Constantine and Theodosius in the fourth century. The merging of imperialism and Christianity was a profound paradigm shift, allying Christian leadership with the political and military power of governments. Lyons points out that a medieval maxim held that sacerdotium, imperium and studium came together ‘as the three mysterious powers or virtues by whose harmonious co-operation the life and health of Christendom are sustained’ (p.41). Luther sought the ‘well-being of Christendom’ in his reform proposals. Review Article Studies • volume 109 • number 436 459 For many reasons, Christendom...