Reformation Math

This Reformation Day, I’m thinking about reformation as a form of deconstruction. “Always reforming” can too easily feel like it’s about re-shaping something, renovating it, giving it a make-over. It sounds too clean, maybe even bureaucratic — like a policy change.

But “deconstruction” suggests that reformation first requires some division and a little subtraction. It suggests removing what isn’t working, what is failing, what has turned to rot. That’s a little more messy and disruptive. Think of the corruption in the Catholic church in the 16^th century. Indulgences are the common example, but other sins included bishops’ absenteeism from their diocese, the selling of church positions (simony) and nepotism. The Church was wealthy, disorganized, and sexual immorality was common (and thus hypocrisy, too).

You don’t just reform nepotism and other forms of corruption. Reformation wasn’t a synonym for progress. We didn’t need more or better nepotism. You cut it out.

Now you don’t divide and subtract to zero when we talk church. Reformation is not a revolution that celebrates “burning it all down.” Deconstruction is not destruction. If we hold that the Holy Spirit never abandons the Church, then there is always something to salvage, something to build on. The Reformers built on a recovered reverence for Scripture. After you subtract the things whose days are numbered, you can try some fresh addition.

Always reforming

On that note, some are quick to cite the phrase “always reforming” when they anticipate some change in worship, ethics or polity. The full phrase, however, is ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei – “the church reformed, must always be reformed according to the Word of God”(according to M. D. Bush). We are thus never done re-forming into the shape which God’s Word calls us.

Note that the verb is passive: we are “being reformed” suggesting an agent is active that is not us. The Reformers knew well that Word and Spirit cannot be separated and so it must be the Spirit that is re-forming us into the shape of God’s Word, which is Scripture, God’s rules for life, and ultimately and most perfectly Christ himself. This is God’s math and church is the school where we are baptised into it.

What is the Spirit calling us to re-form today? Something smells bad these days, but we don’t seem to agree what is causing the stench. What to subtract and add?

Make way for the new

Deconstruction assumes reconstruction. Renovations are the more exciting process. But first we have to do the difficult, messy work of dismantling. Deconstruction is about loss. It can be awkward, if not humiliating. It means admitting some things have failed and no longer serve us. Maybe one example in the Christian Reformed Church is the giant denomination building in Grand Rapids that is being sold off this fall. It is time to say good-bye to this structure whose time had come and passed.

What a symbol of deconstruction! How difficult it must have been for some to let go of that building! I’m sure the halls are haunted with 65 years of memories, good and bad. But now it’s time to do some math. Subtract the old building, then add something new— “a smaller, more decentralized and flexible ministry structure” they say.

Always reforming. We didn’t think reforming meant subtracting, shrinking, dying. But if we think of deconstructing as a church rummage sale, maybe then it’s just getting rid of old stuff we didn’t need anymore. Then we can drop some unnecessary baggage and travel light in the Spirit, with an open heart for what might happen next. Let’s make God’s good math our Reformation Day prayer.