Tuesday, August 12, 2025

It is the 12th of August 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

I had to give my email to the man at the bookshop for the rewards program, and upon saying “danv@1517.org," he said, “Cool, like the Reformation.”? And I said “give this young scholar a raise”… 1517 marks the anniversary of one of the major events in the early Reformation- the production and distribution of the 95 theses which may or may not have been nailed to a door (btw, the argument about whether they were actually nailed might be my least favorite thing to argue about!).  

But 1517 was not initially heralded as the anniversary of anniversaries- according to Thomas Albert Howard in his book Remembering the Reformation, “The vast majority of commemorations prior to 1617 either focused on the birth, baptism, or death of Luther or a date marking a territory’s embrace of Protestantism.”

It was in 1617 that 1517 became the year established as “the” commemoration year for the Reformation- it was the first “Reformation Jubilee” but, like the Reformation itself, it was beset with dueling interpretations across Europe.

It was first in the spring of 1617 in Wittenberg that a few of the local professors suggested a day to remember the events of 100 years earlier. This was then taken up by the Elector of the Palatinate, Frederick V, who declared the celebration to be a “Reformation Jubilee”- obviously playing on the Jewish tradition that had been incorporated into the Catholic Church in 1300.

Freddy V’s declaration of a “Reformation Jubilee” so upset the Catholic Church that Pope Paul V, attempting to circumvent those celebrations, declared an emergency Jubilee year for 1617. And so we have two dueling jubilees- but wait, there’s more!  

Fred V- Frederick, later king of Bohemia was attempting to unify disparate Reformation traditions- which made sense- the 30 Years War was looming and a united Catholic front could squash a divided Protestant church. He held lead the Protestant Union which was made up of various Lutheran and Calvinist bodies.

This severely upset some Lutherans, who developed a dislike of Calvinists almost as strong as they had an antipathy towards Catholics. Howard points out that a common catch phrase amongst these folks was “God’s Word and Luther’s Teachings are poison to Papists and Calvinists alike”.

Faculty at the University of Wittenberg wrote to the elector of Saxony, Georg I, and asked him to declare a third-Lutheran-only Jubilee, which he was happy to proclaim. And thus it was on this, the 12th of August in 1617, that Georg issued his “Order and Instruction” calling for the first centennial “evangelisches Jubel-fest”- or “evangelical Jubilee” [you might remember on a recent show that “the evangelicals” was one of the earliest self-chosen names of the Lutherans].

It would be held from October 31st to November 2nd- and the corresponding Sunday if those dates did not fall on a Sunday.

So, how did these “dueling Jubilees” work out? The Catholic jubilee- an “emergency” Jubilee did last through the year of 1617 and then went back to their normally planned jubilees (which went from 100 years apart to 50 to 25). The “pan-Protestant” Jubilee fizzled out in part because many Calvinists thought the whole thing smacked of something close to idolatry. Others decided to keep memorials based around local anniversaries, for example, in Zurich, where the Reformation was celebrated on January 1st in honor of Zwingli’s first sermon given on that date. Other Lutherans had already had commemorations- either the 25th of June for the presentation of the Augsburg Confession or the 18th of February, the day Luther died in 1546.

1717 would see the bicentennial with similar divisions across Protestant lines- it remained largely “a Lutheran thing”- it would be 1817 after the defeat of Napoleon and the Enlightenment that brought a larger pan-European and pan-Protestant celebration on the 31st of October, similar to those we see today. We remember the origins of 1517 as the year denoting the Reformation with Elector Georg’s proclamation on this, the 12th of August in 1617.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and still in Hebrews 11 with some praise for the faithfulness of the patriarchs.

17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.

21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.

22 By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 12th of August 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man singing “Gottes Wort und Luthers Lehr wird vergehen nimmermehr”. He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man whose favorite Jubilee is easy- the orphan who shoots fire out of her hands and joined the X-Men… I’m Dan van Voorhis. 

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.