Reformation 2017: Relevant or Redundant? – Iver Martin

Here is the latest in our series of articles on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, and why it is still relevant today. Iver Martin, Principal of Edinburgh Theological Seminary, writes on how the sixteenth-century Reformation transformed not just worship but society, politics and government too – and why we still need this to happen today.

Anyone who imagines that the Reformation was “simply” a religious event, confined to the church in one particular century, is woefully mistaken. When Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on 31 October 1517, the consequences of this simple act were profound. Reformation ideas would eventually reshape European thought and play a central part in creating our world as it is today.

The Reformation was firstly a revolution against tyranny. Over the centuries, the Roman Catholic Church had become frighteningly powerful. Its leaders had assumed an authority which went way beyond anything envisaged by the Bible. The Church had become the thought police, telling you what to believe and how to live by slavish obedience to its laws and unquestioning submission to its teaching. Any divergence from the Church’s teaching was heresy, which brought both temporal and eternal punishment. The Inquisition and the threat of damnation were powerful incentives to stifle enquiry. Oppression fostered ignorance and superstition while scientific advancement was discouraged. The tyranny of the Church fed on the ignorance of the people. The Medieval Church took full advantage of its authority by extorting money from the unsuspecting masses who lived in fear and darkness.

The Reformation encouraged people to think. Martin Luther uncovered the deep-seated corruption within the Church and brought to Europe a new-found sense of freedom. People asked questions without fear and had liberty to read the Bible without being restricted to the interpretation imposed by the Church’s hierarchy. The printing press and new translations of the Bible into the spoken languages of Europe made the Word of God more accessible than ever. People could read it in their own language, understand and explore its truth for themselves, and above all discover that salvation was God’s free gift, given uniquely through faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross.

The Reformation transformed society. Its impact has been immense and widespread. Sixteenth century Scotland, far away from Wittenberg, was lawless and dangerous, a place where nobles warred, corruption was rife, the poor were neglected and morality was uncontrollable, not least in the Church. But when the Reformation reached Scotland, there was a remarkable transformation in Scottish society: honesty, discipline, morality and security all improved. Schools were created to educate not just the privileged few but everyone.

The Reformation transformed politics and government. In Scotland, after Knox died, men like Andrew Melville, George Buchanan and Samuel Rutherford insisted that the Reformation had a strong bearing on civic authority and even the question over who had the right of rule over a country. For them, power, which ultimately belonged to God, lay in the hands of the people; and that authority was effected through the king who was accountable to them. This same principle became the basis of modern political structures including the US Declaration of Independence. The Reformation promoted freedom with power being exercised by the democratic will of the people.

The US Declaration of Independence, 1776

The Reformation has reached the ends of the earth. Eventually there was a greater awareness within the protestant Church of the need to evangelise, particularly in countries that had never been touched by the gospel. By the turn of the eighteenth century, 150 years after the Reformation started, hundreds of missionaries were being sent to unreached cultures, carrying with them not only the message of the gospel but the medicine and education that was to have a profound impact on their way of life.

Five hundred years on, the principles rediscovered at the Reformation are as alive and relevant as ever. In a world largely influenced by secular forces yet where ignorance abounds, a new Reformation is just what our modern culture needs. The thought police in the twenty-first century is not the church but “progressive” elites who have demanded that their belief system be accepted in universities, schools and the media, so that it becomes the accepted “religion”. Any attempt to question it in favour of the teachings of the Bible is condemned as hate speech because people are offended at the suggestion of sin and a just God. Today’s world desperately needs a revolution which will bring the same liberty to rationally engage in the issues which won’t go away from thinking minds. Reformation begins with an insistence upon the liberty to ask questions in the quest for truth.

The protestant Church today needs to rediscover its precious legacy. With firm conviction that the Bible is the inerrant word of God and the only rule for faith and life, the Church must not reduce the rich teaching of the Bible to soundbites in order to accommodate itself to attention deficiency. Rather, reformation preaching must be rich, comprehensive, learned, passionate and thorough. The Church needs to be convicted that the gospel which was rediscovered by Luther is the only message that will transform hearts today.

A Roman Catholic Mass

A reformed Church also holds to the importance of reverent and uncluttered worship. At the time of the Reformation there was a clean-out of everything (vestments, images, altars, incense etc) that wasn’t sanctioned in the Bible. Protestant worship, compared to Roman Catholic, was much simpler and centred on the Bible. Today’s clutter in worship is what we create for our own entertainment rather than the adoration of the living God. The excitement in reformed worship is the awesome awareness that “God is in this place”. 

Lastly, a reformed Church is a missional church that longs to see people transformed by the gospel. But to do that requires clarity as to what the gospel is as well as a prayerful and discerning strategy to reach people where they are. If the Reformation, in its rediscovery of the gospel, was the solution to the darkness of the sixteenth century how much more does today’s world need a voice that will clearly, passionately and skillfully declare the simple truth that salvation and forgiveness is found in Christ alone.

Iver Martin (Principal, Edinburgh Theological Seminary)