The Briefing: Don’t make the Reformation history

While the Reformation involved political movements, nationalism and even warfare, it was at heart a spiritual and theological reform of people and churches. The gospel had become lost over the centuries of European history. Corrupted by power, the church no longer preached Christ with clarity. The Reformers returned to preaching five great themes: Scripture alone; faith alone; grace alone; Christ alone; and glory to God alone. The emphasis on “alone” was the removal of the many church traditions that had come to obscure the gospel. It becomes even more important therefore, that we who are the heirs of the Reformation remind ourselves of that great period in history when God so moved amongst his people.

As with other great moments of history, the Reformation was a time of struggle, suffering and conflict. Things happened and words were spoken which we wish never had happened nor were said; things which embarrass our modern Christian sensitivities. Unfortunately the reformation happened in a time of communal, if not national, conformity. It was one of the struggles of the Reformation to establish the freedom of the Christian’s conscience. However, the conflicts of opinions and theology got entangled in national interests—nowhere more so than England—leading to wars and bloodshed. In the centuries that have followed the tribalism and sectarianism even became detached from the great beliefs that lay at the heart of the Reformation. People took sides because of their family tradition with little understanding of what the Reformation stood for, or against. This has been a sad feature of Australian history. Yet, we will not resolve the differences by ignorance of our background.

The Reformation did more than reform the abuses of organized religion. It was a recovery of the gospel that transformed the very nature of the church. Thus it became the foundation for our Protestant pattern of church life. We cannot truly understand ourselves without a proper grasp of the events of the Reformation. Through the work of Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin and many more, the great doctrines of salvation were once more hammered out and explained to the people. Their hymns and prayers, books and translations taught their own and subsequent generations the great doctrines of God’s grace in saving us through the death and resurrection of His Son, and of the Spirit’s work in regenerating us to repent and put our faith solely in him. It was a gospel understanding that freed us from priestcraft and religiosity, from false doctrine and authoritarianism. During the 16th century a new flowering of Christian understanding, scholarship, evangelism and conversion reformed the church. Keep reading