Could the result of today’s sharp divisions in human society in the ‘free world’ lead to an historic reformation matching the one beginning in 1517?

The last day of October is Reformation Day in some protestant circles. It’s obscured in our misguided culture by the more modern celebration of ‘Halloween.’ But election day in America is just around the corner, a few days later on the first Tuesday of November.

The 31st of October each year began to be celebrated as Reformation Day in the late 17th century, a hundred years after a turning point event. It all began when a passionate 34-year-old Catholic priest nailed his 95 critiques of Catholic controversial practices onto the church door in a town called Wittenberg Germany in the Holy Roman Empire. His name was Martin Luther.

Ten years earlier, Luther was ordained in 1507, and earned a doctorate in theology from the University of Wittenberg in 1512. Then he became a professor of biblical studies. But it was his own personal theological crisis regarding salvation that led him to his discovery of the Bible concept of justification by faith alone. That culminated in his 1517 publication of the Ninety-five Theses which challenged the sale of indulgences by Catholic promoters of the renovation of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. And that sparked the revolution that became the Protestant Reformation. It changed the world and culminated in generations of wars and the redirection of the history of Western nations.