12.06.2017
500 Years of the Reformation, Ecumenical Bible Week Panellists Agree Reforming Spirit Continues
Is the Reformation over? was the question up for discussion at Thinking Allowed which took place on Friday evening as part of Ecumenical Bible Week 2017. Panellists Dean William Morton (Church of Ireland, Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral), Pastor Nick Park (Evangelical Alliance and Solid Rock Church), Dr Geraldine Smyth (Dominican Order and Irish School of Ecumenics) and the Revd Vanessa Wyse Jackson (Methodist Minister in Rathgar) delivered their take on the topic in a discussion chaired by the Revd Ken Rue.
Dean Morton Noted that it would be exactly 500 years on October 31 2017 since a simple act by a Monk named Martin Luther triggered convulsions that changed the shape of Europe and lit the fuse of the Reformation. He said that the results of this act were still being played out today and it was only last year that Pope Francis and Bishop Munib Yunan, president of the Lutheran World Federation, signed the Joint Declaration at the Lutheran Cathedral of Lund, Sweden, consolidating moves towards greater cooperation after centuries of division. Luther never intended to spark a revolution but was seeking to reform.
Today, the Dean suggested, churches were moving to a stage which could be described as the religious equivalent of multiculturalism. While they would not merge, each would come to see the value in difference and there would be sympathetic tolerance of each others values. “There is a definite sense in which the Reformation is ongoing. People are grappling with the subject and see it with new life and understanding,” he said.
Nick Park asked if the Reformation ever truly began in Ireland. He pointed out that on mainland Europe the rise of the printing press enabled people to spread the word and in England there was the Whitehorse Pub where people discussed issues surrounding the Reformation but this was not the case in Ireland. Here, England told Ireland that they were reformed, he stated. He said that in Ireland being Catholic or Protestant was a case of identity. There was no Reformation as a theological doctrinal movement but it was part of the politics of these islands, he said.
“There is still reformation taking place. There are still prophetic people. We still need to take heed of the prophets who ask why things are the way they are,” the Pastor said. “Hopefully the Reformation is over in the sense that we can discuss the message of Christ in a courteous manner. But it is not over because all human organisations are in need of reformation. We still need people who will challenge complacency and corruption and bring the church back to what Christ intended it to be.”
Dr Geraldine Smyth asked if we need another Reformation. She said there were golden opportunities in this the fifth century of the Reformation. The Reformation represented a ground shaking event which changed the life of the church and she suggested more time needed to be spent in playing out the gains and losses. She said that the church could not but be open to reform and renewal.
The 16th century Reformation brought many gifts by introducing a new way of being church, putting Bibles into the hands of people and changing church law, she said but the memory of the hurt needed to be purified. “It is the reforming spirit of the Reformation rather than the events and divisiveness that we need to enter into. It is a radical belief in Christ that we need to be involved in,” she stated. She said churches needed to acknowledge the other churches’ gifts and insights as well as their own and reconcile with them “against the grain of our own tradition”.
The Revd Vanessa Wyse Jackson said that the Methodist church came about by accident and was never intended to be a separate denomination. It was to be a revivalist branch of the Anglican church which in 18th century England had become lax and lazy. The aim of Methodism and the Wesley brothers was to bring people back to an active faith which they channelled through social action and their hymns which were to enable people learn the Gospel. “It was all go,” she said. Methodism only became a denomination after John Wesley’s death and before that it was a niggling branch of Anglicanism, she explained, a reformation within a reformation.
“The Methodist faith is an organic, evolving process flowing from renewal and reformation expressed outwardly in social action. So the question ‘Is the Reformation over?’ is a puzzle as the church has always been reforming and the future of the church is more of the same – an ongoing process of growth, discovery and understanding. I hope the Christian traditions will come to see each other as different facets of the same diamond,” she said.