Is the Reformation over? Yes and no.
Until Christians can all share the Lord’s Supper, the rift continues. But there is no denying how massively the ground has shifted.
Most towns in the former East Germany have gotten a face-lift in recent years, but none so diligently and lovingly as Lutherstadt Wittenberg. The would-be pilgrimage site was cut off from most of its constituency for 40 years, and when the Berlin Wall came down and the iron curtain was drawn aside, it was hardly ready to receive the flood of eager pilgrims.
A quarter century later, grimness has mostly given way to gaiety. Hungry visitors now can choose from stands dispensing döner kebabs, kitschy coffee-and-cake shops, and a Slow Food–approved inn. Luther and Melanchthon each get their own Haus-cum-museum, and the two famous churches—the Castle Church, where Luther, according to tradition, posted his 95 Theses, and the City Church, Luther’s preaching station—are polished to a high gloss.
Such is ground zero for the evangelical movement that would come to be called, against its founder’s express wishes, Lutheranism. In the intervening 500 years, even while the medieval foundations have stayed put in a city that was and remains the definition of Podunk, Lutheran ideas, piety, music, and practice have traveled around the globe and back again.
