How might United Methodists observe Reformation Sunday?

Key points:

• Methodism began in the 18^th century as a movement largely related to the Church of England two centuries after the Reformation movements.
• United Methodist congregations from the former Evangelical United Brethren Church heritage have a more direct claim on the heritage of 16^th- century continental Reformations (Lutheran, Calvinist and Anabaptist) than those from the former Methodist Church.
• Lutheranism and a rejected branch of Calvinism also influenced John Wesley.

Reformation Sunday appears on the United Methodist Program Calendar every year on the last Sunday of October. The day is an observance of the anniversary of Martin Luther’s (alleged) posting of 95 theses for debate on the door of the church at the university in Wittenberg, Germany, on Oct. 31, 1517. This event is widely held to mark the launch of the Protestant Reformation.

Consequently, Lutherans have generally observed Reformation Day (or Sunday) since the 16^th century. Several other Protestant churches, related to John Calvin’s subsequent reformation in Geneva, Switzerland, observe it as well.

Notably, however, most Anglicans do not. John and Charles Wesley were priests in the Church of England. And, unlike Luther and Calvin, the Wesleys were active in the 18^th century and were not seeking to break away from an existing church, but rather to reform their own protestantized Church of England from within.

If Anglicans do not observe Reformation Sunday, and the Wesleys were Anglican, and if the work of the Wesleys was so far removed in time and purpose from that of Luther, Calvin, and the Anabaptists, why would United Methodists observe Reformation Day at all?

It’s a question that goes to the core of United Methodist identity. The “United” in the denomination’s name refers to one of its predecessor denominations, the Evangelical United Brethren Church. When the Evangelical United Brethren Church united with the Methodist Church in 1968, the intent was for each of their traditions to complement and strengthen the other in the union, not for one to dominate the other as if it were a merger of unequals.

The same was true of the union of the United Brethren in Christ and The Evangelical Church (formerly known as the Evangelical Association) that created The Evangelical United Brethren Church in 1946.

The United Brethren in Christ had two principle founders, Martin Boehm and Phillip William Otterbein. Boehm was Mennonite, and Mennonites do not observe Reformation Sunday. Otterbein was Reformed, a Calvinism-related denomination that did.

And the founder of The Evangelical Church, Jakob Albrecht (Jacob Albright), was raised Lutheran with ties to the Moravians as well.

All three of these founders ultimately shaped the theology, polity and church life of the denominations they created primarily on those of the English-speaking Methodists in America. Still, as the denominations they founded continued to function within primarily German-American cultures, with some congregations retaining German-language worship well into the 20^th century, they continued to uphold some of their distinctly European heritage, both culturally and religiously.

It is also true that John Wesley owed much to Luther and to the rejected Reformed theologian Jacob Arminius. Luther’s emphasis on salvation by grace through faith deeply informed the theology of Wesley’s native Anglicanism. Arminius’s interpretation of Reformed theology, which was largely counter to that of mainstream Calvinists after the Synod of Dort (1618-1619), was critical to Wesley’s focus on sanctification.

Additionally, Moravians were part of two pivotal moments in John Wesley’s spiritual journey. The Moravians were Bohemian pietists influenced by the Lutheran pietism of Nicolaus von Zinzendorf, their German protector and later bishop. Wesley credits them with the beginning of his recovery from a disastrous missionary pastorate in Savannah, Georgia. He was at once convicted and inspired by the faith-filled response of the Moravians aboard his ship back to England as a dangerous storm arose. It was also at a Moravian meeting studying the preface of Luther’s commentary on Romans that John Wesley’s “heart-warming” experience took place. And it was from the Moravians that Wesley adapted the Love Feast for use by Methodists.

For United Methodists, then, it is neither the events of Luther’s Reformation, nor those of the movements related to John Calvin or the Anabaptists, but rather the influence of all three through our German-heritage siblings of the Evangelical United Brethren, as much or more than on Wesley himself, that are the most appropriate focus of our annual observances.

How then might you best approach Reformation Sunday in your own congregation? Consider identifying the primary heritage of your own congregation (Methodist or Evangelical United Brethren) and use Reformation Sunday to help enrich your congregation’s understanding of the other. If your heritage is from the Evangelical United Brethren, emphasize the influence of Luther and Arminius on John Wesley and the Methodist Church. If your heritage was from the Methodist Church, focus on the influence of the Lutheran, Reformed and Mennonite heritage of the Evangelical United Brethren. And if your church was formed as a merger of a Methodist Church and an Evangelical United Brethren Church as a result of the creation of The United Methodist Church, do some of both!

Reformation Sunday may not take United Methodist congregations back to 1517, or any of the events of the Reformation itself. But it should remind and help United Methodists of all heritages appreciate and reclaim the ongoing influences of the 16^th-century Reformation movements through the centuries that followed.

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Burton Edwards is director of Ask The UMC, the information service of United Methodist Communications.