By Philip Mathew

Chennai: A national consultation on “Reformation spirituality” has said that it must help in identifying with people who are marginalized, socially excluded and denied of justice.

The November 23-24 consultation was organized by Vichara, a think tank, to re-understand and re-articulate reformation spirituality in the present context, and for “collective deliberations and reflections with the objective of the contextual re-realization.”

The consultation called for “immersing in the struggles of the people,” and thus “soiling the hands” to seek a new spirituality of reformation in the Church and society.

Martin Luther, a German Catholic monk nailed his 95 theses on the main door of Wittenburg Church on October 31, 1517. This act is commemorated as the official beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

According to Dr H S Watson, who teaches at the Karnataka Theological College in Mangalore, historically, reformation day has been commemorated since 1567.

In 1717, the official date of the celebration became October 31 in Germany and later in other parts of the world.

“The celebration of 500 years of the Reformation is an opportunity to rededicate and recommit our faith journey towards transforming our church and society,” said Dr Watson.

Dr Watson told some 60 theologians, thinkers, activists and church leaders who attended the consultation that the celebration of reformations should become a call to “allow God to work in and through us,” and added that “It is the commitment to reject, oppose and defeat authoritarian and bad practices “in the Church.

“The spirit of reformation is to seek true inner peace and deep spirituality as against commercial spirituality, to seek the real truth and to stand firm for truth,” Watson noted.

He felt that reformation is the need of the hour where “gospel values have been compromised and contaminated by power, authority and wealth.”

Dr Mammen Varkey, director of the Vichara, and a lay theologian explained spirituality as “the state of his/her being defined in terms of his/her understanding of the faith in the Ultimate God and its actualization in one’s life. As a Christian for me, my understanding of God is decisively determined by the revelations of God shared by Jesus Christ through his words and life.”

He said that the Reformation Spirituality embraces the whole of creation and such spirituality calls us to refuse to bow before money and market, and reminds us to rediscover and re-embrace the spirituality of the Cross and not a spirituality of power, wealth, and success and so on.

Dr Daniel Premkumar, a pastor of the Church of South India and an activist from Andhra Pradesh in a presentation expressed the view that reforms can take place if the pastors and bishops “share uncompromising commitment to justice and truth.”

Dr David Rajendran, principal of the Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary in Madurai, in a presentation on “Faith and reform” said that some of the encyclicals of Pope Francis on refugees, trafficking, ecological crisis and capitalism are bold and reformative. He felt that the Catholics and the Protestants and others should learn from each other and strive towards broader solidarity with other faiths and work for a new humanity based on sharing and accounting of resources of life and sustenance.

Dr Aruna Gnanadasan, activist and a former official of the World Council of Churches in her remarks noted that a spirituality of resistance must be developed to become a hallmark of the Church.

She felt that reformation must be an ongoing and constant process taking place in the Church.