Entries (RSS)Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli, John Tetzel, Pope Leo X, Charles V, are just a few of the names that we would associate with the sixteenth century Reformation. We would also recognize these names because they represent the fragmentation and polarization that characterized Christianity after the Reformation. In fact, most Christian traditions now identify themselves in terms of how they are not like others. Catholics are Catholics because they are not Protestants and vice versa. We go even further when we write our various histories to indicate how triumphal we are about the fact that we are the “true church” as opposed to those other people. You would almost get the impression that there were only two kinds of people during the tumultuous period of the Reformation, Catholics who hated Protestants and Protestants who despised Catholics. We are almost persuaded that there were no other voices, voices for moderation, reconciliation, unity and restoration, but there were.
Gasparo Contarini, John Eck and Johannes Gropper were Catholics; Philip Melanchthon, Martin Bucer and Johannes Pistorius were Protestants. From June of 1540 until May of 1541, these men at various times and places met to talk, write, discuss, debate and negotiate in an attempt to hold the church together. These were the first Protestants and Catholics Together, to borrow a name from a more recent series of meetings.
From April to May of 1541 these men met in the German city of Regensburg to see if they could arrive at a consensus that would prevent the further splintering of the faith. They made a valiant attempt to navigate their way through 23 articles of faith in order to find common ground for the two parties to begin new negotiations. By early May they came to a tentative agreement on the original state of mankind, free will, the cause of sin, the nature of original sin and, amazingly, justification by faith. Cardinal Contarini wrote the final draft on justification by faith. However, their best efforts at reconciliation could not overcome the issue of authority located in the papacy and church councils and they were finally stumped on article 14 concerning the Eucharist.
So what’s the point? The point is that they gathered in Regensburg to make an effort that failed because it mattered. There was no way for these men to know if their efforts would be successful or not. Each of them risked a great deal to even be there. Cardinal Contarini was later accused of heresy and died in 1542, but the saddest legacy of Regensburg is that the voices there have been forgotten in the larger history of the Reformation. It seems that we are too content to write and believe histories that tell us that the church has always been fragmented and polarized and that there were no voices that sought moderation, reconciliation, or restoration. Worst of all, perhaps we have come to think that this fragmented and polarized church is for the best and that any efforts to talk and interact are just a waste of time and energy. I am not suggesting that we resurrect the ecumenical movement as the “silver bullet”, but I am suggesting that people on all sides of the faith have names, faces and voices. Efforts to heal wounds are never a waste of time, even if they fail.