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REFORMATION SUNDAY
By Chuck Collins
www.virtueonline.org
October 31, 2024
If your bishop wrote to remind you that this coming Sunday (November 3) is Reformation Sunday, you are blessed with a diocesan who believes in our history and in the theological distinctives of Anglicanism.
He knows that just over 500 years ago on October 31, 1517 Martin Luther posted the "95 Theses" on the chapel door in Wittenberg Germany. Some say that this marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation that, as we all know, changed the landscape of Christianity and the world forever. This 16th century biblical revival brought the church back to its catholic and apostolic grounding where the church today locates its identity. It would make the Church of England into a church that is thoroughly biblical, theologically Reformed and confessional, pastorally generous, and liturgically beautiful.
Perhaps your bishop reminded you that the Church of England, along with the Continental Reformation, was and is a church whose primary authority is Holy Scripture, that values as a first priority the central doctrine of the Bible “justification by grace through faith alone," and the universal priesthood of all believers.
Hopefully he encouraged you to tell your people how these essentials are at the very heart of our sacramental theology and Prayer Book worship. I hope that he mentioned to you in his admonition to commemorate the Reformation this Sunday that the reformers were willing to live and die for the evangelical essentials of Holy Scripture as stated in the historic Anglican formularies: the two books of Homilies, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
I hope he reminded you how these are stated plainly in the ACNA Constitution and Canons and in the Jerusalem Declaration. Reformation bishop Edwin Sandys said, “I think it my duty to exhort you…defend the faith of Christ even until blood and unto death.” Our church fathers and mothers surrendered to death and martyrdom for the matters we remember on October 31 (November 3). How very blessed you are to have a bishop who encourages the remembrance of our history in this Sunday’s prayers, in the sermon, and in the ongoing discussion of Reformation Anglicanism in your congregation.
A church that forgets its history is doomed to fail. A church that sees itself as a smorgasbord of historical and theological ideas to pick and choose from, without reference to Holy Scripture and the historic formularies, has no future. Our Anglican heritage is rich and important: “ancient paths,” “the rock from which we were hewn,” “the height from which we have fallen.”
The Apostle John enjoins us to “Remember what you received and heard” and “Remember therefore from where you have fallen” (Rev 3:3; 2:5). Thank your bishop for being the defender of the faith he was consecrated to be for the sake of the faith of our church.
Dean Chuck Collins is a Reformed theologian and blogger
