The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty is joining forces with Refo500, a project that aims to bring international attention to the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Leading up to the anniversary in 2017 of Martin Luther’s posting of his Ninety-Five Theses, Refo500 is engaging with a variety of partner organizations to promote the importance of the Reformation period and its relevance for today’s world.
“Refo500 has the potential to help Acton bring its message about the relationship between faith and freedom to a broad and diverse audience around the globe,” said Dr. Stephen J. Grabill, director of programs at the Acton Institute. “The ecumenical vision of Refo500, which broadly encompasses the time period and is not merely a narrow confessional project, shows why the Reformation was so important in the shaping of the modern world.” He points to, for instance, the important contributions of the Roman Catholic School of Salamanca to the development of modern economic thought, as well as the legacies of the Protestant Reformers on doctrinal, political, and ethical matters.
The themes of the Refo500 project, which include “Money and Power,” “Art and Culture,” and “Freedom and Preaching,” resonate with the Acton Institute’s mission to promote a society characterized by freedom and virtue. The aims of Refo500 are also consistent with the institute’s work in creating The Birth of Freedom documentary and curriculum products for the importance of communicating the roots of freedom in Western civilization.
Lord Acton, the nineteenth-century British historian for whom the institute is named, was particularly clear about the significance of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for the development of limits on political power. “From that time it became possible to make politics a matter of principle and of conscience, so that men and nations differing in all other things could live in peace together, under the sanctions of a common law,” he wrote in his essay, “The History of Freedom in Christianity.”
“Refo500 is excited to welcome the Acton Institute into partnership,” said Refo500 project director Dr. Herman Selderhuis. “Acton’s significant achievements on a variety of levels, from academic publications, to popular writings, to film and social media, connect well with the comprehensive vision of the Refo500 project.”
Next year Refo500 will be involved in observing the 450th anniversary of the publication of the Heidelberg Catechism, including a conference held in the Johannes a Lasco Library Emden (Germany), March 3-5, 2011. The Acton Institute will also be publishing a translation of a section of Abraham Kuyper’s commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism in its Journal of Markets & Morality later in the anniversary year (2013). There are also plans for Acton Institute scholars to take an active role in participating in the Reformation Research Group (RefoRG), the academic section of Refo500. RefoRG will hold its first conference June 8-10, 2011, in Zurich and will be hosted by the Institut für Schweizerische Reformationsgeschichte on the theme, “The Myth of the Reformation.”
For more information visit: