What Remains of the Quincentennial?

Since the worship service on October 31, 2017, officially concluding the celebration of the quincentenary of the Protestant Reformation, more than eighteen months have passed. That is not a very long time. It seems to me, however, that the speeches delivered since the beginning of the “Luther Decade” in 2008 and the many other activities that were organized in memory of Martin Luther have rapidly faded from public attention and drifted into the past. The numerous new publications on Luther and the Reformation have disappeared from the “new” shelves of bookstores, and have made room for books on the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War (400 years ago) as well as the end of the First World War (100 years ago). The at-times highly impressive exhibitions on the Reformation have been dismantled and the artifacts returned to the storerooms of the museums or the places where they are usually displayed. By now, on the express train from Berlin to Leipzig only a few people step off in Wittenberg, wanting to see Luther’s turf. Most of all, life in the German Protestant churches has returned to normal. In the synods, discussions revolve around people leaving the churches, the difficulty of filling vacant posts, mergers of congregations, and worries about money. In short, the same topics are discussed as before the beginning of the Luther Decade, but now, if I am not mistaken, with greater urgency than before 2008.

So, what remains? What can we point to as the lasting meaning and success of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation—that is, as the central impressive outcome worthy of being remembered and retold well beyond the anniversary year?

Before I attempt some answers to these questions, I must point out the limits of what I will pursue. Even though I was “on the road” a great deal in 2017, I can only bear witness to a portion of what was organized in that year. Furthermore, as an historian I must emphasize that the relevant documents of the EKD (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, the union of Protestant Churches in Germany), and thus the archival records dealing with the plans, the activities, and the evaluation of the various efforts concerning remembrance from 2008 to 2017, are not available for research as of yet. Therefore, what I am able to present is provisional, but, I hope, a contribution to the discussion about the meaning and the impact of the great Reformation anniversary in 2017, especially in Germany. According to the expressed intentions of those responsible, the quincentenary of the Reformation was celebrated as a great Luther festival in the tradition of Luther celebrations that began in 1617.

Everyone who has dealt with the Luther festivals of past centuries knows that their meaning and lasting impact lay in the fact that Luther’s legacy was understood as being part of contemporary political events and, in each case, interpreted in light of recent political and ecclesial-political experiences. Those who celebrated Luther in 1617 were effective as instigators in the conflict with the papists. Open fighting began a year later, in 1618. A few years after the victory over Napoleon in 1817, Luther, in the eyes of his devotees, changed into the great liberator from foreign domination, and 1883 into the founding father of the Protestant German Empire, which was established in 1871. Filled with angst that the war could be lost, in 1917 Luther’s true followers called upon him as a type of saint, who, near to God, could still secure victory. In 1933, the year of Luther’s 450th birthday, the so-called “German Christians” (Deutsche Christen) praised Luther as a like-minded forerunner of Hitler, who would now fulfill the reformer’s work. Time and again, and always in a thoroughly paradoxical and sometimes grotesque manner, Luther commemorations served to justify political as well as ecclesial and cultural-political aims. Luther’s historical significance was believed to be indisputable, because, people believed, contemporary events of paramount importance were directly influenced by him.

Therefore to answer the wider question we must ask: since the beginning of the Luther...