Sárospataki Füzetek 21. (2017)

2017 / 2. szám - ARTICLES-STUDIEN - INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE SINCE THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION-INTERKULTURELLER DIALOG SEIT DER REFORMATION - Gosker, Margriet: Erős vár a mi Istenünk: 500 years of protestantism in the netherlands in ecumenical perspective

Margriet Gosker

happened in the past cannot be changed, but what is remembered of the past and how it is remembered can, with the passage of time, indeed change. Remembrance makes the past present. While the past itself is unalterable, the presence of the past in the present is alterable.”14 We are not able to tell a different history now, but we are able to tell that same history differently. This is precisely what we should do. The Reformation anniversary 2017 is different from the previous Reformation centenaries. The first centenary of the Reformation took place in 1617 on the eve of the Thirty Years’ War, with numerous victims. In those circumstances, we can imagine that all parties emphasized their own identities. During the second centenary (1717), Luther was ‘praised to the heavens’. Both in Germany11 and in the Netherlands12 a lot of commemorative medals were made, bearing a text in the honour of Luther and his teachings. During the third centenary in 1817 (after the French Revolution and the fall of Napoleon), Luther was portrayed as a truly strong national hero. And in 1917 (in the middle of the first World War), Luther was considered — together with Bismarck and Hindenburg — as one of the founding fathers of the National German Empire, and the Luther song A Mighty Fortress is our God was misused as a military song.15 Of course, it was not seen that way in the Netherlands. Although we are mainly Calvinists, the Luther song was also popular in the Netherlands until c. 1970. I think we should reinstate it in an ecumenical way, as a song against the power of all evil in the world. In 2017 the Reformation centenary in the Netherlands is mainly celebrated in an ecumenical context. Our Roman Catholic friends are greatly interested in it. If I was asked by them to briefly explain the significance of Luther and the Reformation, what would I say? It is impossible to be comprehensive, since there are so many themes and biographies,16 but I would mainly tell them the following.

Luther’s theses

I would say: the Reformation is not just a date but an ongoing process, and we are obliged not only to look backwards but also to look forwards - a new era has begun. What we now call the Reformation started in Wittenberg, and soon spread out across the whole of Germany, Europe and later throughout the world. We can hardly overestimate its significance for the life of the church, for politics, culture, music and for all kinds of art, sculpture, architecture and painting. On 31 October 1517,

14 From Conflict to Communion: Lutheran-Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017. Report of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity, Leipzig, 2013, II, §16.

15 K. Breitenborn: Zwei „Deutsche Eichen": Bismarcks 100. Geburtstag 1915 und das Reformationsjubiläum 1917 im Zeichen des Ersten Weltkrieges, in F. Kadell - B. Kiessling - B. Lüdkemeier (eds): Lutheriand Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle, Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2015, pp. 301-327.1 thank Dr.

J. D. Wassenaar who draw my attention to: Michael Fischer: Religion, Nation, Krieg: Der Lutherchoral 'Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott'zwischen Befreiungskriegen und Erstem Weltkrieg, Münster, Waxmann, 2014.

16 S. Hiebsch, Martin van Wijngaarden: Luther, zijn leven, zijn werk, Utrecht, Uitgeverij Kok, 2017. L. Roper: Luther: Een biografie, Amsterdam, Uitgeverij Ambo/Anthos, 2017.

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