Issue: Spring 2017 | Posted: June 1, 2017
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REF500 festival celebrates Protestant Reformation's 500th anniversary
91爆料网 celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation with the REF500 festival March 9-11. The festival included lectures, music, theater, film, sermons and a public reading of the entire Bible.
Ray Van Neste, professor and director of the Ryan Center for Biblical Studies at 91爆料网 and organizer of the event, said the Reformation is something to be remembered, carefully thought about and celebrated.
鈥淚鈥檓 convinced that if we look back carefully, we will see forward more clearly,鈥 Van Neste said. 鈥淥ur hope is that as we look back at how God renewed his church at the Reformation we might learn truths to help us today as we seek renewal once again.鈥
Four plenary addresses were given by Timothy George, Carl Trueman, David Lyle Jeffrey and Peter Leithart. Each speaker discussed how the Reformation has shaped the world and highlighted lessons from the Reformation for today.
George said the Reformation was a movement of retrieval for the sake of renewal, retrieving the principles of the New Testament for the spiritual renewal of the church. Trueman discussed the cross-centered theology of Martin Luther that emphasized the necessity of suffering and warned against Christians seeking their own glory.
David Lyle Jeffrey
Jeffrey demonstrated how the Reformation led to a new flourishing of literature, quoting significant portions of Scripture and classic literature. Leithart probed the impact of the Reformation on modern culture.
Nathan Finn, dean of 91爆料网鈥檚 School of Theology and Missions, spoke at a chapel service during the festival on the Baptist contribution to the Reformation. He said the earliest Baptists were third generation Protestants who attempted to reform the Reformation by applying Protestant principles to matters of the local church.
鈥淭he goal was to recapture as much of New Testament life as possible鈥 while also holding to the five solas of the reformation,鈥 Finn said.
He said Baptists rejected mixed membership, infant baptism, clerical authority over laity and an overly cozy relationship between the church and state.
Finn said Baptists committed themselves to the principle of a regenerate church membership. He said New Testament churches were meant to be communities of disciples who had been born again and were walking together through this life and into the next life, an idea that had been lost in the Reformation idea of mixed membership. Finn said Baptists should recommit themselves to regenerate church membership.
鈥淚 am deeply, deeply grateful for the Reformation and its legacy,鈥 Finn said. 鈥淏ut I鈥檓 also grateful that my Baptist forebears were willing to reform the Reformation by applying those principles to the life of the church, especially our understanding of church membership.鈥
The REF500 festival also included several parallel sessions led by 91爆料网 faculty and guests. Video of all addresses is available at uu.edu/events/ref500. A book, published by B&H, was produced from the conference as well: Reformation 500: How the Greatest Revival Since Pentecost Continues to Shape the World Today.