In most years, only Lutherans — a mere four percent of the U.S. population and one percent of the world’s — pause on October’s last Sunday to remember “The Reformation.” They hear sermons about “the truth that makes you free,” sing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” and, if we can believe Garrison Keillor, retire to the fellowship hall for the sacrament of Jell-O and tuna-noodle hot dish.
This year, October 31 marks 500 years since Martin Luther, a 33-year-old priest and professor of theology, posted his now-famous 95 theses as a way of inviting debate about the church’s teachings and practices.
His words triggered debate, all right. They also got him excommunicated and nearly executed. Eventually they led to reforms and the end of certain abuses, but also to the splintering of western Christianity and a century of bloody warfare throughout Europe.
As the spate of anniversary-related books, films, and conferences makes clear, no one person, issue, or incident could have opened such a floodgate. Pressures and unrest had built for a long time, and Luther’s theses were merely a pacifist’s equivalent of the gunfire with which Gavrilo Princip started World War I.
And yet, something about the personal turmoil that drove young Luther to start a debate in 1517 holds up a revealing light to things all of us, whether Christian or not, must regularly examine and remember about ourselves and our institutions. The harder this earnest man tried to lead a moral life, the more complex and impossible it seemed. When he sought solace from the church, the institution whose sole, authorized mission is forgiving sinners, comforting the troubled, and healing the brokenhearted, he found his burdens only increased.
By all accounts, the medieval church had become corrupt. Seduced into politics, it tried to rule the world, or at least part of it. Since governments need revenue, the church taxed its subjects the only way it could, demanding payment for forgiveness and threatening hellfire for all who defaulted.
Much has changed in 500 years, but not human nature. First and foremost, we are survival machines. No matter how selfless our creeds and convictions, under threat, our own flesh and blood comes first, everyone else’s second or seventeenth. Exceptions stand out as miraculous, so we call them saints.
Institutions behave similarly. Given who organizes, staffs, and directs them, this doesn’t surprise us, and yet we feel betrayed when we detect not so subtle signs that our hospital, school, or social service agency cares less about us or our children than its own bottom line. At least the for-profits are upfront about that — except for those who advertise, “We care about you!” (Authentic care acts as its own billboard.)
Chapman University’s annual survey of Americans’ greatest fears reveals that again this year we most fear corrupt government officials, followed by the American Healthcare Act and pollution of oceans, lakes, rivers, and our drinking water. In large measure, the list’s first item accounts for the rest. We suspect that those we trust to watch out for everyone’s welfare care only about their own.
Perhaps the chaotic times in which we find ourselves today, fraught with so much corruption, mistrust, and accusation, indicate pressures building toward an imminent “reformation.” If so, we might wisely anticipate more upheaval in the near term, not less. Even more wisely, however, since none of us can change the culture overnight, we can at least examine our own actions closely and, as much as possible, tend carefully to the broken souls in our circles and treat our own customers and clients as though they were our own flesh and blood.
Fred Niedner is a senior research professor at Valparaiso University.
