The Meaning of the Reformation for the Contemporary Crisis

All aspects of community life fall within its vision

Is Reformation Protestantism really relevant to the social crisis of contemporary America? One writer suggests that by 1900 “Protestantism … had ceased to protest.” Similarly, historian Henry Steele Commager, writing in The American Mind, reports that the typical twentieth-century Protestant “inherited his religion as he did his politics, though rather more casually, and was quite unable to explain the differences between denominations. He found himself a church member by accident and persisted in his affiliation by habit.…” Commager believes that for many Protestants the Church has become something to be “supported,” like an aged relative whose claim is vague but inescapable.

Is Protestantism impotent? Or does it have a meaningful word for our times? We can find the answer to these questions by looking back at the leaders of the Reformation and considering the consequences of their doctrine, to see whether their achievements are applicable to the social problems of our day.

A Social Theology

One important outcome of the Reformation was the appearance of a biblical social theology. John Calvin laid a basis for Protestant social teaching in his affirmation of the absolute sovereignty of God over all aspects of life. According to H. Richard Niebuhr, the concept of the “Kingdom of God” is the central theme in American Protestantism. It is fitting, therefore, for Protestants in the United States to reconsider Calvin’s insight that society is to be theonomous, not autonomous, and is to be ordered in accordance with the will of God.

Closely related to this thought was the doctrine of Luther and Melanchthon that God established five “natural orders” in creation—the state, the home, the Church, work, and culture. In their genesis, these institutions are not achievements of man but gifts of God and agencies of his Spirit. This is evident from the Scriptures in five ways:

1. The “natural orders” were inaugurated by divine initiative because the Creator realized that “it is not good that the man should be alone.” Man was made to live in communities of meaning. He was to talk with God in worship. By having dominion over the earth he was to find self-expression in work. Placed in a garden, the symbol of civilization, man was called to develop a culture. Endowed with speech, he was enabled to share thoughts and sentiments with others and thus to develop language, literature, and the liberal arts. The provision of a sabbath, a day of rest, sanctified man’s leisure and gave opportunity for renewal through recreation. But preeminently through the home the Lord laid the basis for social life, for the family became the first church, state, school, and place of labor and relaxation. Society, therefore, is as much a work of God as the physical world.

2. The intention of the “natural orders” through the ages has been to prevent chaos and to further the perpetuation and perfection of human life.

3. The justification of the “orders” resides in the very needs of man as created by God. For a healthy and full life, man requires work, worship, play, and love.

4. The institutions of life found a sanctification in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. After creation, God had seen “everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” The fall of man into sin corrupted both individual character and the corporate life. Consequent abuse and misuse of the “natural orders” caused some to consider them evil. The assumption of manhood by the Master and his full participation in the “orders of society” demonstrated that they were salvable. By his birth in the home of Joseph and Mary, Jesus sanctified the family. Through his work in the carpenter’s shop, he revealed the sacred aspect of labor. Obedient to both state and synagogue, the Saviour prepared the way for their transformation.

5. By his death and resurrection, Christ made possible the regeneration of men, and through them the reformation of society. As the inscription on the cross was in Latin, Hebrew, and Greek, so the Son of God was rejected by the highest state of his time (Rome), the revealed church of his dispensation (Judaism), and the purest culture of antiquity (Greece). But, by his victory over sin and death, Christ liberated men from futility and fear for a new and vital fellowship with God. In his resurrection and ascension he demonstrated the sovereignty of God over the world. Because of the salvation Christ offers men, “the creation,” as St. Paul reported, “waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” The “natural orders” will participate in the benefits of Christ’s triumph.

The Christian, filled with the empowering pardon of Christ, becomes a “new creation” and is called and commissioned at baptism to be a minister of Jesus Christ within the institutions of society. Freed from the way of works, the believer has as his motivation for social action a sense of thankfulness to Christ for his salvation, a fuller understanding of what it means to be obedient to God’s commands, and a sensitive appreciation of the needs of his neighbor. This attitude expresses itself in the Christian’s daily life. Dr. Matthias Loy, a nineteenth-century Lutheran theologian, wrote, “Every Christian is to look upon the labor of his earthly vocation … as a service that he renders in gratitude to his Redeemer.”

A Peaceful Revolution

The Reformation social ethic, incorporating the concepts of the sovereignty of God, the “natural orders,” and the “royal priesthood of the faithful,” had a revolutionary effect on sixteenth-century society.

One intriguing example was the impact of Protestantism upon the towns. In the one hundred years after 1500 there was an urban explosion in Germany, accompanied by an increase of nearly 8,000,000 inhabitants in the Holy Roman Empire at large. Primitive Protestantism, like apostolic Christianity, found not a perplexity but a ripe opportunity in urban areas. As the ancient Church spread rapidly in the metropolises of the Roman Empire—Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, and Rome—so the Protestant Reformation flourished in the towns of early modern Europe—Zürich, Basel, Berne, Geneva, Strasbourg, Wittenberg, Leipzig, Prague, Nürnberg, Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, and a host of others.

Harold J. Grimm, the Reformation historian, observes, “There is little doubt that the Christian ethics fostered by Luther, Melanchthon, and their colleagues had a profound effect on the development of German townsmen.” The career of Savonarola in Florence and of Calvin in Geneva show the significant effect of Protestant preaching upon the cities. A study of the Reformation and its vital role in the towns could very well suggest insights and provide inspiration for twentieth-century Protestants in their struggle to penetrate the American megalopolis with the Gospel.

Another sign of the social significance of the Reformation was its ability to bridge the “generation gap” and give the Christian message a vivid appeal to young people. Apostolic Christianity had been a young man’s movement. Jesus was only thirty-three when his earthly ministry ended. Paul was still in his thirties when he was converted on the Damascus road. The youth of the earliest disciples is indicated by one of Paul’s observations in the First Corinthian letter: he notes that of the five hundred to whom the risen Christ appeared, “the greater part remain unto this present.” Similarly, Protestantism attracted the young. Luther was but thirty-three when he posted the Ninety-Five Theses, and Zwingli was in his middle thirties when he began the reform of Zürich. John Calvin was twenty-six when the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion was published. The Reformation had a message that challenged a young generation. A recovery of that spirit could reinvigorate contemporary Protestantism.

The Reformation also had a great influence on culture. The involvement of the Reformers in education, for example, can stimulate us in our efforts to preserve and perpetuate the faith in a mass society.

Chief among the German Reformers in his grasp of the close connection between church and school was Philip Melanchthon, the “Teacher of Germany.” He was convinced that Protestantism would fail unless it educated both the clergy and laity in biblical Christianity and the literary arts, and he purified, enhanced, and extended education on all levels in his country, from the elementary school to the university. So thorough was Melanchthon in his promulgation of Christian education that, according to J. W. Richard, “when he died in 1560 there was scarcely a city in Germany that did not have a teacher or pastor who had not been a pupil of Melanchthon.” At the same time similar projects were promoted by Johannes Sturm in Strasbourg and Theodore Beza in Geneva. And it was through the Reformation emphasis on Christian higher education that the United States obtained its first university. The Puritan fathers, imbued with the Reformers’ zeal for learning, established Harvard College in 1636, after having been on this continent only six years.

Early Protestants were aware that the Reformation was born in the university, that it was raised by professors who professed the evangelical faith, that it was explained by doctors who knew biblical doctrine, and that education and zeal must go together in creating a Christian social order. In our time of crisis in Christian education (from the Sunday school to the seminary) we can find an example and encouragement in the Reformation emphasis on uniting faith and learning.

The Reformers believed that the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost in the gift of tongues had sanctified the vernacular languages, and they labored to translate the Scriptures into the speech of the people. In this process they made another contribution to culture. Although their primary intention was to promote the Gospel through vernacular Bible reading and preaching, they helped lay the foundations of the languages of contemporary Europe. Luther created modern German, Calvin modern French; and the British divines gave shape to our mother tongue.

The Reformation also had a profound influence on the family. By abolishing monasticism and the celibacy of the clergy, the Reformers took a giant step toward restoring the high status of marriage found in the Scriptures. Marriage ceased to be inferior to asceticism and was re-established as a divinely ordained basic unit of society. The example of the marriage of Luther and the other Reformers, the creation of the Protestant parsonage, and the insistence on marriage as the “school for character” did much to articulate a theology of the home that has endured into the twentieth century. Concern for the family as the initial congregation of believers is seen in such things as Luther’s preparation of The Small Catechism for the use of fathers in their house devotions. The Reformers strove to establish the spiritual and social significance of the family and to bolster its dignity and durability.

Politically, the Reformers took action that was to be vitally important. The state was given a “declaration of independence” from ecclesiastical domination. Luther commented on this development one day at table with his friends when he said, “The world is a vast and magnificent game of cards, made up of emperors, kings, and princes, and so forth. The pope for many centuries beat the emperors, kings, and princes. They yielded and fell before him. Then came our Lord God. He dealt the cards: he took the lowest [Luther] for himself, and with it he beat the pope, that vanquisher of the kings of the earth.… This is the face of God.”

Although the state was freed to be itself, statesmen were considered accountable to God for their service as the Lord’s instruments on earth to preserve justice. As the Church was entrusted with the proclamation of the Gospel, so the state had been charged with the establishment of law. The state was to maintain justice, not simply by police power, but also by provision of necessary services. Melanchthon wrote, “It is a mistake to suppose that the state is maintained by arms only, and by power. Of greater value to this end are the arts of peace, justice, moderation, constancy, care of the public safety, diligence in proclaiming the law and in settling the disputes of citizens, patience in bearing the faults of the people, vigor in punishing transgressors, kindness in sparing those who can be reclaimed.”

Finally, the Church was purged to make its principles and practices meaningful within the social order. This was done in two ways. First, the Church was recalled to its primary task—preaching the Word and administering the sacraments. Second, participation of the people in the worship, witness, work, and welfare of the Church was earnestly sought through such reforms as the vernacular translations of the Scriptures, the introduction of hymn-singing and responsive liturgies, and, in certain places and among certain varieties of Protestantism, popular self-government through congregational polity. The Church was not to be an institution, nor was it a hierarchy. It was to be a “beloved community” of believers.

The social significance of the Reformation can be seen, as Harold Grimm suggests in an essay in Luther and Melanchthon (edited by V. Vajta, Muhlenberg, 1961), in the letters between Luther and Melanchthon with the leading citizens and councils of German towns and cities. In these letters, the opinions of the Reformers were “sought on such questions as the disposition of church property and incomes from religious endowments, the establishment of common chests, provision for income for clergy and teachers and aid for the poor, regulation of morals, observance of laws on the taking of interest, correction of abuses involved in the publication of Luther’s books, treatment of left-wing evangelicals and Jews, clarification of doctrines, provision of evangelical clergymen and teachers, setting up of liturgies, and church discipline, and reform of old and establishment of new schools.” In short, there was no aspect of community life to which the Protestant faith was not relevant.

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

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