Should we commemorate the European Reformation?

 In 2017 the Jubilee Centre in Cambridge commissioned some sculptures to mark the five hundredth anniversary of the display of Luther’s ninety five Theses. They also invited individuals to compose theses that were germane to the times in which we live and chose ninety five of these for publication. The Romanian sculptor Liviu Mocan created the sculptures on five themes:

The Book that reads you (inspired by sola scriptura), The Lamb of God (sola gratia), The Anchor cast up to heaven (sola fide), The Ladder of the World (solus Christus) and The Trumpet of the Universe (soli Deo gloria). These are based on the convictions that helped to define and shape the European Reformation.

Having displayed these sculptures in Cambridge for a lengthy time period the Jubilee Centre began to seek places that would be interested in taking one (or more ) of the sculptures for their own use.

An Evangelical Church in Cambridge, Christ Church is going to install The Anchor cast up to heaven in the hope that it will stimulate conversations about whom we rely on in times of crisis whilst St Botolph’s is aiming to procure The Lamb of God as a focus for reflection and prayer. An American Christian University, Wheaton College has bought The Trumpet in the Universe to place in the foyer of their centre for music and the arts. Two sculptures have yet to find a permanent location: The Book that reads you and The Ladder of the World.

In recent times following the “Black lives matter” campaign and the removal of a statue of Edward Coulson from a site in Bristol, (because of his perceived involvement in the slave trade), the use of statues and sculptures to commemorate people or events has attracted controversy. During the European Reformation, some of the protestant reformers were critical of installations of this kind. John Calvin wrote about the “papists” saying “The pictures or statues that they dedicate to the saints- what are they but examples of the most depraved lust and obscenity?” (Institutes I, 11,7). The European Reformation caused much bloodshed and there were both Protestant Martyrs (such as Latimer and Ridley) and Roman Catholic Martyrs (such as Thomas More) as examples from the English Reformation only. Given this bloodshed, the question of whether it is appropriate to commemorate people or events or the principles that led to the loss of human life and devaluation of human dignity has become pertinent to our time.

Would you be willing to buy or display one of the two remaining LiviuMocan sculptures from the Jubilee Centre?