Did the Reformation End in 1999?
COMMENTARY: The ‘Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification,’ signed by the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation, was joined by 2017 by the World Methodist Council, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the World Communion of Reformed Churches.

Oct. 31 is All Hallows Eve in the Catholic Church. It is also Reformation Day for Protestants. On that day in 1517, according to tradition, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. The Reformation followed, and a great rupture ripped apart Western Christianity.
So did the Reformation end 25 years ago?
Though the splintering of Western Christian continues, many (usually Catholic) ecumenical commentators argue that the Reformation did end, in a sense, when the main theological reason was resolved Oct. 31, 1999 — the day the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation signed the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.” By 2017, the document had been joined by the World Methodist Council, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the World Communion of Reformed Churches.
Peter Wolfgang recently summarized the Reformation-is-over argument. As he points out, the estimable Peter Kreeft lent his scholarly credibility to this position in his book for the 500th anniversary of Luther’s theses in 2017.
The joint declaration is “the greatest ecumenical achievement in the five hundred years since the Reformation,” wrote Kreeft in Catholics and Protestants: What Can We Learn From Each Other? “The most important religious difference between Protestants and Catholics has essentially been overcome.”
That difference was the teaching on “justification.”
How do sinners become “justified” or “righteous” before God?
As the dispute came down through the ages, it was usually styled that Protestants believed that sinners are saved by the grace of Christ Jesus “alone” (sola gratia), and sinners need to profess faith in that saving work (sola fide).
Catholics, on the other hand, were said to believe that sinners are saved by grace and their good works, perhaps even in reverse order. This was often characterized as Catholics holding that sinners had to “earn” their salvation rather than receive it as God’s gratuitous gift.
Both views — “by faith” and “by works” — enjoy biblical warrant.
“Opposing interpretations and applications of the biblical message of justification were in the sixteenth century a principal cause of the division of the Western church and led as well to doctrinal condemnations,” says the joint declaration. “A common understanding of justification is therefore fundamental and indispensable to overcoming that division.”
That was achieved by the document, according to its signatories. They observed “a notable convergence concerning justification, with the result that this Joint Declaration is able to formulate a consensus on basic truths concerning the doctrine of justification.”
“In light of this consensus, the corresponding doctrinal condemnations of the sixteenth century do not apply,” states the declaration. That sounds like the Reformation is over — more or less.
At the heart of the document is this agreement:
“In faith we together hold the conviction that justification is the work of the triune God. The Father sent his Son into the world to save sinners. The foundation and presupposition of justification is the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ. Justification thus means that Christ himself is our righteousness, in which we share through the Holy Spirit in accord with the will of the Father. Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.”
That was a monumental agreement. Kreeft exulted that “Goliath is slain.”
We are not saved by our own works, as was mistakenly believed by many Protestants to be the Catholic position. Justification by faith does change the heart, enabling the converted sinner to do meritorious works in union with Christ, whose grace is active in him.
The great ecumenical achievement of the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” was not without difficulties. After many years of patient theological dialogue, the Lutheran World Federation and the relevant Holy See officials announced in June 1998 that the breakthrough had been achieved.
But soon after, a clarifying statement by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, raised questions that seemed to torpedo the enterprise. The Lutheran response was fierce.
“In the immediate aftermath of the statement by CDF and CCU, the mood among dialogue participants was bitter and despondent,” wrote Father Richard John Neuhaus, a former Lutheran who had converted to become a Catholic priest. He had personally devoted decades to ecumenical dialogue.
“One Lutheran pioneer of the dialogue declared that the theologians, both Lutheran and Catholic, had been ‘betrayed’ by Rome,” Neuhaus wrote. “For decades to come, he predicted, it would be impossible to reestablish confidence in any theological dialogue with the Catholic Church.”
Father Neuhaus had himself launched the ecumenical project “Evangelicals and Catholic Together” in 1994 with Charles Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship and a major American evangelical leader. In January 1998, just six months before the initial agreement between the Lutherans and the Vatican, Evangelicals and Catholics Together published a major statement on justification, “The Gift of Salvation.”
The fears that a Roman “betrayal” would scupper the entire project happily proved not to be case. Efforts were redoubled for the rest of 1998 and into 1999. Cardinal Ratzinger’s biographer, Peter Seewald, recounts how the prefect himself personally traveled to a German hotel in September 1999 to work out the final details with his Lutheran counterparts. The joint declaration, after further clarifications and the addition of an “annex,” was saved, leading to its official signing on Reformation Day 1999.
The lesson of the document, which has not been matched by other ecumenical projects since, was threefold.
First, genuine theological dialogue, rooted in the sacred Scriptures, is essential, and cannot be replaced by good will, no matter how abundant.
Second, the priority of truth cannot be sacrificed for the sake of agreement. The setback in the summer of 1998 was overcome, but only by a joint commitment to further deliberation on the relevant truths.
Third, concrete ecumenical progress can be truly achieved only by those who are most committed to their own creeds and confessions, not those who treat them lightly. The enormous achievement of Reformation Day 1999 was preceded by the same Cardinal Ratzinger’s work on the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) and followed by the declaration on the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as savior, Dominus Iesus (2000).
Protestants sometimes wish each other blessings for Reformation Day. Twenty-five years ago, those blessings were shared by Catholics, too.