No. 241, October 2017 (3) stmarks.edu.au

ST MARK’SREVIEWA JOURNAL OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT & OPINION

Luther and the Reformation at 500Australian perspectives

St Mark’s ReviewNo. 241, October 2017 (3)

Luther and the Reformation at 500: Australian perspectives

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I. THE REFORMATION AT 500: AUSTRALIAN LUTHERAN AND ANGLICAN PERSPECTIVES

From conflict to communion 1John Henderson

Planting the Re-formation 3Stephen Pietsch

The Anglican debt to Luther: a personal episcopal perspective 5Stuart Robinson

The Reformation at 500: tragedy, necessity, and hope 8Michael Gladwin

Luther, prophet for modern Australians 11Andrew Cameron

II. REMEMBERING THE REFORMATION AT 500

Ecumenism starts at the “point of pain”: Luther and the victims of the Reformation 15

Thorwald Lorenzen

Remembering 1517 within the Church of England 35Marcus K. Harmes

Martin Luther and the Pentecostal Spirit 47Paul S. Baker

III. ECCLESIOLOGY, PRACTICAL THEOLOGY, AND THE ACADEMIC VOCATION

Christians and the academic task 60G. R. McLean

Catholic Anglicanism for Evangelicals 82Scott Cowdell

A postfoundationalist approach to Scripture for practical theology? 90Brian Macallan

Book reviews 102

Seeking the Presence of God 102

Mediating perspectives on Paul 105

Flowers are not only red and green: re-discovering Romans 109

Praying dangerously 112

EditorialThis issue of St Mark’s Review marks the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the European Reformations on 31 October 1517, the day when Martin Luther went public with his criticisms of the Catholic Church of his day. Much ink has already been spilt both in commemorating that moment and in comprehending its long-term legacies. The articles offered in this issue of St Mark’s Review are valuable, however, in contributing a range of Australian perspectives. There are a number of different denominational perspectives here: Anglican, Lutheran, Baptist, and Pentecostal.

The first five articles were presented originally at a very special occasion on 18 September 2017 at St Mark’s National Theological Centre, Canberra. The occasion was a joint Lutheran–Anglican tree-planting ceremony on the grounds of St Mark’s National Theological Centre, conducted by bishops from the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) and Anglican Church of Australia. The LCA had been considering ways to mark the 500th anniver-sary of the Reformation, and one of those was the planting of a tree in the national capital. This was a reciprocal tree to the one that the LCA planted in the Luthergarten in Wittenberg in 2012. That garden is a project of the German Committee of the Lutheran World Federation, and supported by the Wittenberg City Council. This Canberra tree is now recorded as part of that project (http://www.luthergarten.de/baumpaten-weltweit-englisch.html). The well-attended ceremony was a moving and symbolically important one for both the Lutheran and Anglican Churches in Australia. It sounded various notes: of both joy and grief over the mixed 500-year legacy of the Reformation, but also of thanksgiving in the light of growing ecumenical unity between Lutherans, Anglicans, and Catholics alike. Short presenta-tions, on which the subsequent five short articles are based, were offered by the Right Revd John Henderson, the first Lutheran bishop in Australia; the Right Revd Stuart Robinson, Anglican bishop of the Canberra and Goulburn Diocese; the Revd Dr Stephen Pietsch, Lecturer in Pastoral Theology at the Australian Lutheran College in Adelaide; the Revd Professor Andrew Cameron, Director of St Mark’s National Theological Centre, Canberra; and Dr Michael Gladwin, Lecturer in History at St Mark’s National Theological Centre. Susanne Körber, Cultural Attaché of the German Embassy in Australia, also offered an illuminating presentation on Luther’s cultural and literary legacies (although it is not published here).

Bishop Henderson’s article notes how Luther launched his quest to reform the medieval Catholic Church in a world that—not unlike ours—was

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undergoing a ‘tsunami’ of social, political, technological, cultural, and religious change. Henderson writes of the “mixed” joy and grief of the Reformation: joy over Luther’s recovery of the “clarion call of the gospel, the free forgiveness of sins, and justification by faith”, but grief over “the schism of the church, the fear and even hatred that developed between Christians, and the ensuing violence that caused thousands of deaths.” And yet, he concludes, “whether we celebrate or commemorate this Reformation anniversary, the core message of justification by faith continues to be our strength and inspiration.”

The theme of mingled joy and grief is echoed in my own reflections on the history and historiography of the Reformation. I take my cue from the eminent Lutheran church historian, Jaroslav Pelikan, who in 1959 framed the Reformation in terms of a “tragic necessity.” In more recent decades we can add hope to tragedy and necessity, especially as historians and church leaders have increasingly moved beyond traditionally partisan accounts of the Reformation to a historical memory that is now marked more by con-ciliation and ecumenical rapprochement.

Bishop Stuart Robinson offers a personal reflection on the Anglican debt to Luther: for the way in which the core doctrine of justification by faith alone has profoundly shaped and defined the doctrines, liturgy, and practice of the Anglican Church; but also for Robinson’s own personal experience, which resembled Luther’s famous “Tower Experience” of “new birth and the opening of Heaven’s gates” upon comprehending that message of justification by faith alone.

Stephen Pietsch reflects on how the symbolism of the thriving tree is a “powerful picture of how God’s word is first planted, then grows, and then finally bears fruit.” It was also, he points out, one of Luther’s favourite ways of describing how the Gospel works and grows: “in the church, in the world, and in the human heart.” Luther takes the idea, of course, from Jesus, but it continues to be a rich metaphor for a new season of growth in ecumenical understanding and for the Gospel’s expansion and growth globally since Luther’s time. Yet the tree is also a reminder that all this was made possible by another tree “another tree: planted long, long ago in the earth, the tree of pain on which Jesus Christ was crucified, a tree of glory, the wisdom of our miracle-making God who still today creates from nothing and brings life out of death.”

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Andrew Cameron picks up the theme of Luther’s existential and personal impact, seeing Luther as one the church’s great prophets. While Luther taught us to try to be clear and to try to be scriptural, he also taught us how easy it is to “overestimate our powers of clarity.” For Cameron, Luther’s “prophetic clarity speaks loudly to modern Australia,” in times where “moral courage has become hard to find; where authentic connection to the needs of the present moment is drowned by processes that have become meaningless and that arise from fear; and where belonging to my tribe is paramount.” The Reformation, adds Cameron, “bears witness that it has ever been thus, and Luther continues to hold out the promise that an authentic connection through Christ with the God who made us all begins authentic connections with each another and with the earth.”

A second set of longer articles offer further reflections on the Reformation from Baptist, Anglican, and Pentecostal perspectives. Baptist theologian Thorwald Lorenzen reminds us that in commemorating the Reformation we should not forget the “left wing of the Reformation,” the so-called “radical Reformers” or Anabaptists. If commemoration or celebration of the Reformation is to be truly ecumenical, argues Lorenzen, it begins “at the point of pain.” Our commemoration of Luther and the Reformation, he elaborates, should be “trammelled by the awareness that there were also victims of the Reformation—many of whom should be named Christian martyrs rather than Christian heretics. What Luther claimed for himself—a conscience bound to the Word and with it the right to protest against pope and emperor, against the established church and state—he was not willing to grant to others. Consequently, his church became a persecuting church.” By engaging in truth-telling about the past and, like Luther, “interrupting agendas”, Lorenzen urges an ecumenism in our day that can move beyond mere declarations of sorrow to “concrete deeds”—like accepting each other’s baptism and ordination, taking seriously the priesthood of all believers, as well as inviting each other to the “Lord’s Table.”

Early modern historian Marcus Harmes observes differences between Anglican and German Lutheran commemoration of the beginning of the Reformation in 1517. Harmes notes that for Anglicans the absence of clear date like 31 October 1517 has meant that accounts of the Reformation in England have lacked the coherence and clarity of German Lutheran accounts. “In England,” adds Harmes, “there was, and has been, no equivalent ‘1517 moment’ to tidily mark when the Reformation started.” When it had started?

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And when had it stopped? These are the questions that have plagued “church-men, politicians, monarchs, and ordinary churchgoers,” both then and now.

Theologian Paul Baker concludes this issue’s focus on Luther and the Reformation with an article that considers, from a self-consciously Pentecostal perspective, Luther’s relatively neglected theology of the Holy Spirit. Although traditionally Pentecostals have been aligned with believers whom Luther opposed (those of the radical Reformation, the Schwärmer), Baker argues that retrieval and reassessment of Luther’s theology of the Spirit suggests a position much closer to that held by modern-day Pentecostals, which in turn has significant implications for Pentecostal identity and self-understanding, as well as for our understanding of Luther’s theology and its relevance today.

The final three articles range across topical issues in relation to scholarly vocation, ecclesiology, and practical theology. Philosopher Graeme McLean considers the perennial question of the role of Christians in the academic world. Drawing on his own experience and reflection as a professional phi-losopher and a Christian, in conversation with thinkers such as C. S. Lewis and Thomas Nagel, McLean affirms the inherent value and importance of academic and scholarly vocations for Christians today.

Scott Cowdell articulates a winsome vision of “Catholic Anglicanism”, which, he argues, shares the zeal of Evangelicalism but is differently expressed. Aspects of this “Catholic imagination” have much to offer our church life today, not least in “emphasising the importance of regular traditional worship, of disciplined daily spiritual habits, of the Church in mediating God’s grace, of parish fellowship as a corrective to lonely individualism, and even of a little incarnate mystery in the liturgy as a corrective to today’s widespread discarnate rationalism.”

In the final article in this issue Brian Macallan considers the growing and important discipline of practical theology. He notes that although a strength of the discipline has been its attention to the contexts in which theology has been expressed, this has at times resulted in insufficient engagement with Scripture. By drawing on the “postfoundationalist” and “critical realist” approaches of Stanley Grenz and Jacobus van Huyssten, Macallan charts a way forward for the discipline of practical theology that resists the “naïve realist” understandings of some conservative theology, while at the same time maintaining dialogue with non-theological traditions and giving the Bible a “decisive and critical role in any theological discourse.”

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To return to the metaphor of tree planting with which this editorial began, I am confident that as the Western church pauses on 31 October 2017 to consider the legacies of the Reformation after 500 years, the Australian reflections offered here will assist that reflection and commemoration to be life-giving and fruitful.

Michael Gladwin