About “The Freedom of a Christian”
What is this initiative?
This is an initiative of Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton inviting the people of the ELCA to study and reflect on Martin Luther’s “The Freedom of a Christian” in 2020, its 500th anniversary year. It is an invitation to hear, share, and experience the Lutheran witness of the Christian faith as it relates to God’s narrative of freedom in Christ. This initiative extends our engagement in the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and builds upon the Presiding Bishop’s 2016-2017 initiative inviting the people of the ELCA to engage with Luther’s Small Catechism.
When are the people of the ELCA invited to do this?
Participation is invited throughout the remainder of the year and beyond.
How do we participate?
Participation is invited in ways that are most promising for your community of faith and most fitting for the relationships your community has in all of life — not only in church, but also in families and among friends, with co-workers and neighbors. In particular, ELCA congregations and members are invited to consider opportunities for engagement with the “The Freedom of a Christian,” including preaching and learning experiences for all ages.
What resources are available?
- Get it now “The Freedom of a Christian” or visit 1517 Media.
- Freedom of a Christian STUDY GUIDE.
- Case Studies
- Your insights and experiences are also important contributions. You or your group are invited to share your reflections – such as original poetry, essays, reflections, and art. The website will offer detailed information about how to submit your contributions, and grant permission to post publicly. (All submissions will need to be in digital format.)
Why are we doing this?
The ELCA is on a path of serving with renewed imagination, creativity and passion God’s liberation of the world in Jesus Christ. That liberation in Christ includes God’s bringing an end to all those powers that oppose God—sin, death, the power of evil—and to the human regimes through which those powers still try to hold humankind captive, including the racism and sexism that continue in our society today. In his treatise, “The Freedom of a Christian,” Luther told how God liberates us in Christ to live generously and courageously in service of our neighbor’s liberation, confident that God’s mercy will free us all. This message remains timely today when public discourse is dominated by voices that demand that certain people be put and kept in a marginalized place, or that preach a message of division, contempt, hatred, and violence. It is timely, on the occasion of its 500th anniversary, for the people of the ELCA to give renewed attention to this message of liberation – how we hear and trust this word from God and how we serve its life-giving work. We are freed in Christ to serve our neighbors’ liberation.
About the Reformation
What happened in the Reformation?
Martin Luther posted his “Ninety-Five Theses” in Wittenberg on Oct. 31, 1517, and the resulting debate about Christian teaching and practice led to changes that have shaped the course of Western Christianity for almost 500 years. At the heart of these wide-reaching changes was a deep conviction that God’s mercy or grace in Jesus is given freely to all. When Luther and others learned to trust God’s mercy with “a living, daring confidence,” they discovered in that faith the freedom to give themselves generously, lovingly in all of life’s undertakings with everyone they met.
The changes began with a critical look at confession and forgiveness, preaching and the sacraments — what Luther called the “means of grace.” The sale of indulgences, the practice of penance, the content of preaching, the administration of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper — all the restrictions that impeded the message of God’s mercy from being heard and received fully by all came under close scrutiny. Repeatedly, Luther made changes and took initiatives to give full and free expression to the gospel, the message of God’s liberating mercy in Jesus Christ. He translated the Scriptures into German so that ordinary believers could hear the Word of God in their everyday language. He composed many hymns including “A Mighty Fortress” (based on Psalm 46) that put the Word of God to music, the language of the heart. He preached for the people in Wittenberg in simple, everyday terms, and he used those sermons as the basis for teaching resources that parents and local pastors could use — his Small and Large Catechisms.
Why is the Reformation still relevant?
The Lutheran Reformation offers to Christian communities everywhere a liberating way of listening to and speaking the Scriptures. The Reformation teaching that Christ’s life flows through faith into a life of service to the neighbor is especially liberating in our culture today.
The evangelical Lutheran Reformation offers the promise of God’s love that makes possible a life of “living, daring confidence in God’s grace.”
The Reformation teaching that faith is the work of God’s Holy Spirit is especially liberating in a culture that assumes a faith relationship with God is an act of human “free will.”
Many, both within Christian communities and beyond, are held captive by ideologies that limit the full scope of God’s mercy in Christ to demographic groups defined sociologically by certain beliefs, behaviors or experiences. The Reformation teaching that Christ’s life flows through faith into a life of service to the neighbor is especially liberating in a culture that makes religious life into a demonstration of one’s own worthiness and privilege to the disadvantage of others.
How did the ELCA observe the 500th anniversary of the Reformation?
Engagement during the anniversary year encompassed a breadth of activity, largely public witness events intended to give a confident and joyful witness of the life and freedom in Jesus Christ that is for all.
Throughout the ELCA’s church body organized in three expressions – congregations, synods and the churchwide organization — programs and activities were tailored to individual contexts. Many events acknowledged what Martin Luther did to spark the Reformation, revisited the roots of our Lutheran beliefs and what those roots mean for us today and engagement with others.
Although the 2017 anniversary commemoration concluded, the resources continue to inform and inspire many of all ages.