REFORMATION 500 50 Reformation quotes


As we kick off the year of the Reformation’s 500th anniversary, Living Lutheran begins a series in which we’ll highlight 500 items about the Reformation and its spirit and impact. Over the course of the next 10 issues, we’ll explore 500 unique aspects of the Reformation, beginning this month with 50 wide-ranging quotes.


This list is not meant as an all-encompassing compendium of everything essential to the Reformation and its theology, but rather as a glimpse of the variety of ways the movement that Martin Luther sparked in 1517 would influence the history of the world.


1


“In short, I will preach it, teach it, write it, but I will


constrain no one by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion. Take myself as an example. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philipp and Amsdorf, the Word … did everything.” —Martin Luther (1483-1546)


2


“One man, Martin Luther, took a stand that literally


shredded the fabric of Europe. It changed theology, it changed politics, it changed society and it changed political boundaries. It gave us a revolution in education, in literacy. There are many, many manifestations of the Reformation.” — Tom Rassieur, curator, “Martin Luther: Art and the Reformation”


30 JANUARY 2017 3


“[Luther’s] Reformation neither transformed the


church, nor was crushed by it. Instead, a de facto partition took shape. One by one, a series of German and Scandinavian cities and territories abolished the Catholic Mass, repudiated the church’s hierarchy, and required preachers to proclaim Luther’s doctrines. A new form of Christianity was starting to come into being. … Like all great revolutions, it had created a new world.” —Alec Ryrie, author, Protestants


4


“The Reformation is a much broader event than that


singular day. To be sure, the Reformation began on that day. The Reformation, however, spanned two centuries and encompassed a cast of characters from a variety of nations. Luther may very well be at the center of the Reformation, but he does not stand alone.” — Stephen J. Nichols, author, The Reformation


5


“The Protestant Reformation had a lot to do with the


printing press, where Martin Luther’s theses were reproduced about 250,000 times, and so you had widespread dissemination of ideas that hadn’t circulated in the mainstream before.” — Nate Silver, author and statistician


6


“The recently published Atlas of World Christianity


enumerates about 500,000,000 adherents to churches and denominations that trace their descent directly or indirectly from 16th-century Protestant beginnings and several hundred millions more in ‘independent’ churches with Protestant origins or strongly Protestant characteristics.” —Mark Noll, professor


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