Protestant Oktoberfest 

Germany has a major celebration every October — but this year is special.  500 years ago, on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the doors of Wittenberg Church.  This symbolically launched what later historians would dub the Protestant Reformation.

As a lover of religious history — and appreciator of the LDS Church’s indebtedness to many things Protestant — I hereby proclaim October to be Protestant Reformation month at By Common Consent.  I hope you will enjoy and contribute to our celebration of Protestant hymns, quotes, churches, leaders, theologies, and other snippets of history.  I pray that through this celebration, we can all rediscover a love of scripture and delight in faith.

To start, let us peek back on 1539 — the year that a modified version of William Tyndale’s English Bible was first authorized and officially distributed throughout English churches.

“Item, that ye shall provide on this side the Feast of next coming, one book of the whole Bible in the largest volume in English, and the same set up in some convenient place within the said church that ye have cure of, whereas your parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same and read it.”  — Vicar instructions to English clergy, c. 1538.

The result was tremendous.  As one early historian described:  “[W]ith what greediness God’s word was read, and what resort to places where the reading of it was.  Everything that could bought the book and busily read it; or got others to read it to them, if they could not themselves; and divers among the elderly learned to read on purpose.  And even little boys flocked among the rest to hear portions of the Holy Scriptures read.”

The clergy had to chain the Bible to pulpits in the vestibule to prevent theft.  By April 1539, popular demand for the Word of God in their own tongue infected crowds — who eagerly gathered to read aloud from the new parish Bibles, including in the middle of Sunday worship.  The enthusiasm was such that the King of England had to issue a proclamation forbidding the popular reading of the Bible during services.

For the hymn of the day, let’s listen to this gorgeous rendition of the 8th-century Irish Hymn, Be Thou My Vision, which I like to imagine 16th-century parishioners would have been singing in gratitude as they first heard the Bible in their own tongue:

English translation (and Mormon Tabernacle Choir rendition):

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.