Reformation Rumblings

Not long ago, I heard Felicity Dale, co-author of “The Rabbit and the Elephant,” make this comment: “During the Reformation God put the Bible into the hands of ordinary people. Today, God is putting the church into the hands of ordinary people.”

The content of the comment struck me as thought provoking. But the fact that she brought up the Reformation also struck me as very interesting. I’m hearing a lot of talk about the Reformation these days.

As a Lutheran, I observe that we tend to claim the Reformation as “our thing.” Martin Luther, “A Mighty Fortress,” “Here I stand, I can do no other,”--we celebrate, remember, and treasure the Reformation.

More and more, however, I am hearing Reformation talk from broader Christian circles. They’re making it more “their thing” too.

Why? What’s happening?

Let’s answer the question by looking at five key phenomena happening then and now:

1. Technological Innovation: 75 years after the invention of the printing press, the dissemination of information was at a new level. Today, immediate digital communication is in the palm of people’s hands. Something new is happening and the church is wondering how this might impact the mission of God.

2. Institutional Fatigue: As the Roman Catholic Church battled corruption and financial desperation for in-house projects, today’s mainline denominations continue to hurt financially and disintegrate theologically. The church is wondering what this might mean for a post-denominational and post-congregational mindset.

3. Personal Conviction: Luther was gripped by the Gospel. The message of salvation by grace through faith drove him to be a voice for God’s true Word. Today, many are being gripped by mission, the sentness of God’s people into a lost world. New voices are being raised to advocate outreach action and sentness versus inreach complacency and isolation.

4. A New Location: Rome was the epicenter of the church during the pre-Reformation era. Germany was on the fringe of where “it was happening.” But change happened from outside the institutional safe-zone. Today, Asia, Africa, and South America are demonstrating rapid movements of Kingdom expansion while the church in the west is, at best, trying to figure out the key to church multiplication and, at worst, distracted by its own inward thinking.

5. Transitional Times: The Reformation was a messy time of new communication modes, new ways of life, new thoughts, and re-developing theology. We live in a similar time--in-between conventional and new methods of communication, in-between the old analog and new digital, in-between store and online shopping, in-between church the way it was and church reinvented. It’s a messy time of transition, and we don’t know how it will end up.

The times are very similar to Reformation times. Do we realize it? Are we engaging in asking questions, lifting up our prayers to the Head of the Church, and listening for His guidance? Are we willing to be courageous as the ways of man are cast aside and the ways of God break through into our lives?

During these Reformation days, are we willing to be a part of it or will we resist it to preserve our comfort levels and control?