Why I don't celebrate Hallowe'en or Reformation Day

Christians are funny people. Yesterday was Hallowe’en. Some, whether because it is truly important to them, because they want to show off their knowledge or because they can find an opportunity to share Christian doctrine, wished everyone yesterday, not “Happy Halloween,” but “Happy Reformation Day” in honor of the 493^rd anniversary of Martin Luther posting the 95 theses on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg.

I’m not so easily pleased. Remember, I’m the guy who, when everyone started emphasizing the “Christ” in “Christmas” made sure that I pronounced it with the long |i| sound. Then the next year, to be more clear, called it “Jesus-mas” (or “Isa-mas” and “Yeshua-mas” in order to include our Muslim and Jewish friends, respectively). Then the next year I wanted to make sure that there was no question about for whom we celebrated the holiday. I began to wish everyone a “Merry Jesus-Christ-who-alone-can-save-mankind-from-its-sin-by-His-blood-mas.”

So, it’s no surprise that I wasn’t happy with merely saying “Happy Reformation day.” Yesterday, I wished everyone a “Happy 2/3 Reformation Day. We’ll be celebrating the completion of it on January 21.” Martin Luther, in my opinion, did not finish the Reformation, although he did begin it formally (and as one recent speaker said, God used a Lutheran to start the Reformation because if He had used a Baptist, the Baptists would always be pointing it out). Here’s why I say, “2/3 Reformation,” rather than, “Beginning of the...,” or “1/2.”

Both Balthasar Hübmaier and Menno Simons had made the same complaint. Hübmaier said this:

“...people had learned no more than two points, without any amelioration of life. The one point, that they could say: ‘We believe. Faith saves us.’ Second: 'We can do nothing good of ourselves.’ Now both of these are true. But under the mantle of these half truths all kinds of iniquity, unfaithfulness, and injustice have completely taken over and fraternal love has become colder among many.”1

Menno Simons said this:

“God be praised, we caught on that all our works avail nothing, but that the blood and death of Christ alone must cancel and pay for our sins. They strike up a song, [Snapped is the cord, now we are free, praise the Lord] while beer and wine verily run from their drunken mouths and noses. Anyone who can but recite this on his thumb, no matter how carnally he lives, is a good evangelical man and a precious brother.”2

Both Hübmaier and Simons pointed out the reforms of Luther, Zwingli and the other magisterial reformers excelled on two doctrinal points. One is what we would today call “total depravity.” The other was the atoning work of Christ as Simons remarked and the sola fide that Hübmaier noted, keeping in mind that the atonement was the object of such faith. Both, however, noted that these doctrines did not result in the actualization of the new life to which Christ had called those who would follow Him. Both Hübmaier and Simons showed that Luther’s reforms only brought two significant points of reform to the people but not the third. It would be the Anabaptists who would greatly emphasize the necessity of regeneration and the disposition of the new life to follow Christ (nachfolge christi).

The Reformation that Luther began that day, October 31, 1517 only got things started. There are those of us who look toward the Anabaptists as having fully brought the Reformation to that toward which it was headed look to January 21, 1525, when the first baptisms to come out of the Reformation took place in Zürich. We will be celebrating Radical Reformation Day.

So, this is why I say, “Happy 2/3 Reformation Day.” It’s great if you know that you cannot save yourself because of your depravity. It’s great if you know that it is Christ who saves. Great though that knowledge may be, it is of no value to your soul if you do not follow Christ in the new life to which he has called you–a new life made possible because of the Cross. You may know Christian doctrine. You may even believe it to be true, but mere intellectual assent will avail you nothing except that you consider your old life as dead and take up the life of allowing Christ to work Himself in you.

1Balthasar Hübmaier, On Fraternal Admonition, in Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism, H. Wayne Pipkin and John Howard Yoder eds., Classics of the Radical Reformation, no. 5 (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1989), 375.

2Menno Simons, True Christian Faith, in The Complete Writings of Menno Simons, Leonard C. Verduin transl. and John Christian Wenger ed. (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1956), 334.