Happy Reformation Day!

One of the reasons I wanted to be in India now was to see how the Lutheran churches here would celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

Birmitrapur, Orissa celebration

Karimati, Orissa celebration: a dance performance

I have attended 5 different celebrations: 3 in the neighboring state of Orissa, one in a nearby village, and now finally the big three day long festival in Ranchi, the headquarters of the denomination.

Ranchi celebration

As I write this, at 10:00pm, the music and dancing is still going. The street is decorated with bright lights. Alex and Idan's house is across the street from the celebration, and their whole house is shaking from the noise. Guess I won't be going to bed anytime soon!

The street at 6am this morning

I enjoyed the program in Ranchi the most because I didn't have to sit on the stage; I could sit in the audience and come and go as I liked. 5 German guests from the Gossner Mission Society (which sent the first missionaries to the region in 1850) sat on the stage instead.

Ranchi celebration

The programs have consisted of worship, long speeches, and lots of dance and musical performances. The highlight of the program in Ranchi, for me, was the open discussion about reforming the church. Small groups discussed reform under four headings: spiritual and theological, administrative and economic, social development, and socio-cultural.

Small group discussion about church reforms

After all the discussion, the group wrote a declaration that was read at the program today. It would be amazing if they would actually implement some of the reforms discussed!

Banaburu village celebration

I have also been busy lately writing short articles for and editing a short book about Luther that the church published for the occasion. Let's just say... there's a lot less Catholic bashing and plagiarism as a result of all my work.

Book published by the church

They listed me as an editor, which I didn't expect them to do! That makes me especially uncomfortable since they didn't accept my editorial suggestions about some of the plagiarism. One church leader simply copied and pasted the descriptions of all 55 volumes of the American edition of Luther's Works from the publisher's website and refused to acknowledge that it was not his own writing. (Note: this is not just a "cultural difference," as the expectations regarding citations were made very explicit during the book planning meetings.)

One of my articles in the book

The church has adopted the Lutheran World Federation's theme for their celebrations: "Liberated By God's Grace." As a result, there has been a strong emphasis on grace, which is a nice change from most of the preaching I hear here.

Wearing the special Reformation sari

Just for fun, here's a recording of people singing "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" in Hindi: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

I hope you all have a wonderful Reformation Day. 500 years! Semper reformanda!