500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation commemorated in academic conference on “Religious Freedom Across the Centuries”

On November 1^st, Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs held a one day conference commemorating the 500^th anniversary of the onset of the Protestant Reformation, titled“Here I Stand: Conscience, Reformation, and Religious Freedom Across the Centuries.”

On October 31, 1517 before All Saints Day, Martin Luther is believed to have first published his famous Ninety-Five Theses, urging sweeping religious reforms and catalyzing the Protestant Reformation.

Among the most important turning points in the history of the Christian Church, the Reformation unleashed and intensified focus upon freedom of conscience, with dramatic social and political consequences. This symposium explored these dynamics, but also examined according to its description how: “Christianity has unleashed distinctive and powerful principles of conscience and freedom across its 2,000-year history, even in the face of what Pope Francis has called the ‘ecumenism of blood’: the severe religious persecution affecting numerous Christian and non-Christian communities around the world.”

The Institute of Religion and Democracy’s (IRD) Board Member Thomas Farr who also serves as president of the Religious Freedom Institute and professor at Georgetown University addressed the conference with welcoming remarks and moderated the keynote conversation on “Catholic and Protestant Contributions to Freedom.” This panel like all the others included a variety of views articulated by academic personalities from religiously conservative, liberal as well as secular philosophical perspectives.

Throughout the panel, the academics discussed the notion that the Reformation was rooted in Biblical traditions that had been overtime dismissed for political purposes by the Catholic Church but later revised and expanded upon due to the onset of Protestantism. Also advanced is the idea that the Reformation despite having caused a series of religious wars between Catholics and Protestants in Europe, in fact did more to influence the Era of Enlightenment and served as a foundation upon which secular thinkers built on.

The keynote speaker, Professor of Christian History at the University of Virginia, Robert Louis Wilken delivered a speech entitled: “Here I Stand and Will Not Yield” in reference to Martin Luther’s famous statement in response to demands by the Catholic Church that he retract his beliefs, during his public trail. The professor referenced ironically that this conference on the impact of Protestantism was being purposefully held at a Roman Catholic university on All Saints Day. Reflecting on Christendom in Europe, Robert Wilken comprehensively traced the deep rooted historic origins of the Reformation and its long lasting contributions to the development of the modern Western world. Wilken argued that although the revolutionary reform movement in the Christian church had both positive and negative implications, as he believes that “freedom of conscience was not the creation of the Reformation, it was embedded in the Christian mind long before that” implying that it was in fact the reason for why Martin Luther was able to act as he did. However, he believes that what the Reformation did do was “give life to the medieval teaching that the world was governed by two powers, one spiritual and the other temporal albeit in a radically new form and it brought into being a new form of Christian life, the church as a voluntary association…the distinction between the civil and religious realm and conscience as a form of knowledge that carries an obligation to God.”

Other parts of the conference included a discussion on “Christianity’s Historical Contributions to Freedom” and “Christianity’s Contemporary Contributions to Freedom.” Both of these discussions included academics from even broader backgrounds, including experts on relations between Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics and Protestants as well as from diverse perspectives on the growth of Christianity throughout the world with speakers specifically from the Middle East and East Asia. The contemporary worldwide persecution of Christians as well as violations of religious freedom in domestic affairs within the United States were also issues discussed throughout the conference.

On conclusion, the celebration and commemoration of this symbolic on-start of the Protestant Reformation 500 years later is also a significant event as this is this first centennial year commemoration during which Catholics and Protestants all over the world were able to mark the occasion together after being reconciled on theological issues that divided the core of Christianity. The Reformation ultimately however brought about an ongoing revolution in the evangelical movement over the past half of millennium, which contributed greatly to the making of the modern Western world.