Das Reformationsjubilaum 2017: Umstrittenes Erinnern

When the Evangelical Church in Germany proclaimed a Luther Decade in 2008 in preparation for the great Reformation anniversary in 2017, Hartmut Lehmann had been dealing with the Luther anniversaries of the past centuries for many years. So it was obvious that he should also observe the activities undertaken by the EKD with regard to 2017 and comment on them at various points. In addition, between 2008 and 2017 he was repeatedly asked to give lectures about the upcoming anniversary. This resulted in a series of critical comments on the 2017 Reformation Festival, a selection of which is available here. Hartmut Lehmann’s assessment is critical. On the one hand, it honors the restoration work on the original Luther memorials, the major national exhibitions that were shown in 2017, and some more recent academic work on Luther and the Reformation. On the other hand, however, he noticed that the EKD did not adequately involve the non-German Protestant churches in the preparations - this is why Refo500 was created in the Netherlands