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Historical Scholarship and Ecumenical Dialogue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2017

Carter Lindberg
Carter Lindberg*
Affiliation:
Professor Emeritus, Boston University
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Extract

I am honored to participate in this theological roundtable on the five-hundredth anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. I do so as a lay Lutheran church historian. In spite of the editors’ “prompts,” the topic reminds me of that apocryphal final exam question: “Give a history of the universe with a couple of examples.” “What do we think are the possibilities for individual and ecclesial ecumenism between Protestants and Catholics? What are the possibilities for common prayer, shared worship, preaching the gospel, church union, and dialogue with those who are religiously unaffiliated? Why should we commemorate or celebrate this anniversary?” Each “prompt” warrants a few bookshelves of response. The “Protestant Reformation” itself is multivalent. The term “Protestant” derives from the 1529 Diet of Speyer where the evangelical estates responded to the imperial mandate to enforce the Edict of Worms outlawing them. Their response, Protestatio, “testified” or “witnessed to” (pro testari) the evangelical estates’ commitment to the gospel in the face of political coercion (see Acts 5:29). It was not a protest against the Roman Catholic Church and its doctrine. Unfortunately, “Protestant” quickly became a pejorative name and then facilitated an elastic “enemies list.” “Reformation,” traditionally associated with Luther's “Ninety-Five Theses” (1517, hence the five-hundredth anniversary), also encompasses many historical and theological interpretations. Perhaps the Roundtable title reflects the effort in From Conflict to Communion: Lutheran-Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017 (2013) to distinguish Luther's reformational concern from the long historical Reformation (Protestantism), so that this anniversary may be both “celebrated” and self-critically “commemorated.”

Type
Theological Roundtable
Information
Horizons , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , December 2017 , pp. 420 - 424
Copyright
Copyright © College Theology Society 2017 

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References

43 Bornkamm, Heinrich, “Die Geburtsstunde des Protestantismus: Die Protestation von Speyer (1529),” in Bornkamm, Das Jahrhundert der Reformation (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961), 112–25Google Scholar.

44 See my The European Reformations, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), xii–xiii, 1–22 Google Scholar.

45 On this “double-edged way” of “joyous celebration” and “self-critical commemoration,” see Sattler, Dorothea and Leppin, Volker, eds., Reformation 1517–2017: Ökumenische Perspektiven (Freiburg i.B.: Herder/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 111–13Google Scholar.

46 See Hamm, Berndt, “Martin Luther's Revolutionary Theology of Pure Gift without Reciprocation,” Lutheran Quarterly 29, no. 2 (2015): 125–61Google Scholar.

47 Luther, Lectures on Galatians, 1535, Chapters 1–4, in Luther's Works, vol. 26, ed. Pelikan, Jaroslav (St. Louis: Concordia, 1963), 387Google Scholar.

48 Luther, Word and Sacrament 1, in Luther's Works, vol. 35, ed. Bachmann, E. Theodore (St. Louis: Concordia, 1960), 88Google Scholar.

49 See Manns, Peter et al. , Luther's Ecumenical Significance (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984)Google Scholar; and Pesch, Otto Hermann, “‘Ketzerfurst’ und ‘Vater im Glauben’: Die seltsamen Wege katholischer ‘Lutherrezeptiom,’” in Geisser, Hans F. et al. , Weder Ketzer noch Heiliger: Luthers Bedeutung für den ökumenischen Dialog (Regensburg: Pustet, 1982), 123–74Google Scholar; Hilberath, Bernd, “Martin Luther—Ein katholischer Theologe ohne päpstliche Lehrerlaubnis?,” Luther: Zeitschrift der Luther-Gesellschaft 2 (2009): 99–117 Google Scholar, at 117.

50 See, for example, Forde, Gerhard, “The Critical Response of German Theological Professors to the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification ,” Dialog 38, no. 1 (1999): 71–72 Google Scholar. A calmer position was advanced by the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany, available in an English translation: “Ecumenism according to the Evangelical-Lutheran Understanding,” Lutheran Quarterly 19, no. 2 (2005): 185–98Google Scholar.

51 Quoted in Lindberg, Carter, The European Reformations (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 73Google Scholar.

52 Quoted in Lindberg, The European Reformations, 146.

53 For example, Olson, Oliver K., Reclaiming the Lutheran Liturgical Heritage (Minneapolis: Bronze Bow, 2007)Google Scholar; and Wendebourg, Dorothea, “‘Den falschen Weg Roms zu Ende Gegangen?’ Auseinandersetzung mit Meiner Kritikern,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 99, no. 4 (2002): 400–440 Google Scholar; Wendebourg, Essen zum Gedächtnis: Der Gedächtnisbefehl in den Abendmahlstheologien der Reformation (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009)Google Scholar.

54 Mary Rezac, “Sale of Saint Relics on eBay Sparks Catholic Outcry,” Catholic News Agency, August 12, 2016, http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/sale-of-saint-relics-on-ebay-sparks-catholic-outcry-38519/. I'd like to thank the editors for locating this source.

55 Lisa Wangsness, “Hundreds Flock to Lowell Church to Venerate Heart of a Saint,” Boston Globe, September 21, 2016.

56 Pesch, Otto Hermann, What Big Ears You Have! The Theologians’ Red Riding Hood (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), 56Google Scholar.