The Church Reformed and Always Being Reformed...

Mention the date, October 31^st and most people start thinking about carving pumpkins, doling out candy from a big bowl and maybe, dressing up in a costume for Halloween. Not too many people associate the date with All Saints Day—the remembrance not of the dead but of the resurrected. Few are left who know, let alone remember, how tickets to heaven (“indulgences” as they were called then), were passed out to the people—for a price—just like Halloween candy. You probably won’t see any kids dressed up like a rotund, Augustinian monk with a hammer in their hands either.

And yet nearly 500 years ago, a simple but passionate Augustinian monk nailed a list of 95 things he wanted to talk about and started a conversation that wound up changing the course of world history. Through Martin Luther’s talking points,  the Holy Spirit kick-started a dialogue that would continue through countless others. Philipp Melanchthon.  John Calvin. John Knox. Thomas Cramner. Menno Simmons. 

It was a conversation that didn’t just reform the Church--it reshaped the world. Education. Science. Politics. Everything changed. Nothing would ever be the same again. At its heart though, the dialogue that began at the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany emerged from the timeless question of what it means to be the Body of Christ—what it means to be the Church.

It is a conversation that hasn’t finished yet. In fact if you study the course of the history of the Church, you can’t help but notice that every five hundred years, the Church goes through a major cycle of change and upheaval—if you will, reformation. Hence the famous catch phrase of the Great Reformation: “The church reformed and always being reformed.”

Reverend Mark Dyer, an Anglican bishop once humorously referred to this trend as being like a giant rummage sale! Phyllis Tickle’s recent book (which we highly recommend), The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why, in referencing Dyer’s comments, writes of the pattern this way:

“...about every five hundred years the empowered structures of institutionalized Christianity, whatever they may be at that time, become an intolerable carapace that must be shattered in order that renewal and new growth may occur.”

In our own day and age, we are walking through yet another period of change and reform. The look, the feel, the practice and yes, in some quarters, the theology of what it means to be the Body of Christ is changing. The decline of the mainline church. The rise of the emerging church. The return of the house church. The blend of the ancient-future church. The call to a new monasticism. If you read the headlines this past week, the Catholic Church is welcoming home disaffected Episcopalians and Anglicans!! Whether we like it or not, the Church is changing and sometimes it does indeed feel like a huge rummage sale!

But being reformed is part and parcel of what it means to be followers of Jesus. Let us not forget that we are pilgrims both in terms of our identity and our destination in Christ. The Great Reformation didn’t begin with the proposals of Martin Luther, it began with the revelation of the Gospel. Together we are not just journeying towards being with God, we are also gradually being shaped into the person of Jesus. As the Scriptures remind us, Christ in us, the hope of glory!