This year marks the 500th anniversary of Luther’s 95
Theses. In Wittenberg, Germany, there is a National Special Exhibit on “Luther!
95 People—95 Treasures” from May to November 2017. Organized by the Luther
Heritage Sites Foundation of Saxony-Anhalt, the exhibit seeks to follow “the young
Luther on his path to the Reformation and highlights the significance of his
impact on people from the 16th century to the present day.”
Among the 95 people are Johann Sabastian Bach and
Martin Luther King, Jr. The national exhibit received 4 million euros in
funding from local and state sources.
How did I end up in this exhibit as I am not
Lutheran and have never published anything on Luther or the 95 theses?
Thus, I was surprised when I received an email in
April 2016 from Dr. Benjamin Hasselhorn, curator of the national exhibit,
saying that he wanted to include me in the exhibit. He was interested in my
work on the Occupy Movement, a movement which he regarded as “bringing
together. . .the central tenets of Christian belief and the call for a more
equitable and humane society.”
“What is the relationship between the Occupy Movement
and Luther?” one may ask. Hasselhorn explained, the Occupy Movement was “the
embodiment and representation of an idea that was similarly of great importance
to Luther: that charity and love should stand firmly at the core of religion as
opposed to an institution or the protection thereof.”
I still had doubts, for the Occupy Movement was a
leaderless movement and no one single individual could represent the grassroots
effort. Time magazine named “the protester” as Person of the Year in 2011,
instead of choosing a particular individual.
I suggested to Dr. Hasselhorn the idea of having “the
Occupiers” as one group of people to be included. I even thought of inviting
friends who have participated in the Occupy Movement to send me pictures so
that a slide show can be shown at the exhibit.
But Dr. Hasselhorn explained that the exhibit wants
to explore Luther’s legacy in a personal approach and it would be difficult to
include the Occupy Movement as a whole as people participated in it had
different orientations and faith traditions. He was interested in my approach
to the Occupy Movement from a theological perspective.
With Joerg Rieger, I have written Occupy Religion: A Theology of the Multitude—the
first theological reflection on the movement. I also provided comments and
feedback for the editors of Theological Reflections on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, a continuation of the
Occupy Central Movement 佔領中環in
the fall of 2014. I am a pioneer of postcolonial theology and my theological
reflection on the Occupy Movement is part of my overall work.
Dr. Hasselhorn asked me for an artefact to represent
the Occupy Movement. I thought of a yellow umbrella that a friend from Hong Kong
gave me as a gift. Protestors used umbrellas to protect themselves against the
police’s use of teargas and pepper spray. When I sent Dr. Hasselhorn pictures
of the umbrella, he said it would be perfect for the exhibit. It has the words:
“A dreamer, but I’m not the only one” on it!
Since I was included in the exhibit, I began to
think more about the legacy of Luther and Reformation. So when the editor of
the Ecumenical Review invited me to
contribute an essay to a special issue that marks the 500th anniversary, I said
yes. My essay “Reformation Unfinished: Economy, Inclusivity, and Authority”
appeared in Ecumenical Review 69.2 (July 2017).
Martin Luther lived during the emergence of early
capitalism in Europe. Max Weber has written about the relationship between
Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism. During the peasants’ revolt,
Luther did not support the protesters and called upon the German nobility to
suppress them. In our time, Luther possibly would not stay in the Occupy
campsites and I don’t know if he would support the Occupiers. But he did
support charity and provision for the poor. This is what the Lutherans call
faith begetting charity.
Luther’s idea of priesthood of all believers was
really radical in his time. He argued that the clergy and laity did not belong
to two different estates. He surmised that there is really no difference
between laymen and priests, princes and bishops, except that of office and
work. He wrote, “We are all
priests, as many of us as are Christians.”
But full inclusivity in
the church still has a long road to go. Some denominations still do not allow the
ordination of women and GLBTQ persons. The feminist movement has challenged the
church to accept full equality and ministry of women. The full acceptance of GLBTQ
persons has been a painful and tortuous journey, leading to separation and
division in some denominations. As the mainline churches experience decline in
membership, the emergent church movement has called for greater participation
and leadership of lay people.
Luther emphasized the authority of the Bible over
against the authority of the pope and the traditions. While the Bible has been
used to support liberation movements, it has also been misused as a symbol of
cultural superiority. A literal and fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible
has reinforced conservative attitudes toward women and GLBTQ people.
Christian communities have to live out the vision of priesthood
of all believers and develop models of interpreting scriptures and authority in
participatory ways. The church needs to find new ways of being church. Do we
need a new reformation?