Unity through Repentance: The Journey to Wittenberg 2017

By Thomas Cogdell and Amy Cogdell

Can a 500-Year-Old Conflict Be Healed?   

 

Most Christians will agree that God has a desire to reconcile all peoples to himself—but few are willing to explore God’s fierce resolve to reconcile us to each other. In fact, we often find ourselves affirming deeply rooted hostility in the body of Christ. The legendary image of Martin Luther defiantly nailing his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg church door in 1517 exemplifies our urge to celebrate the split between Protestants and Catholics. But even this conflict can be transformed and healed by the power of God and the partnership of friends. 

 

Unity through Repentance is the story of God interrupting the lives and plans of an ordinary couple to invite them into the adventure of a lifetime—gathering all the major streams of Jesus-followers in Wittenberg on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. God gave the vision; tested and confirmed the calling; formed an international leadership team; and inspired a series of gatherings dedicated to joining with Jesus through repentance, forgiveness, and praying John 17.

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Carey Publishing
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781645083139

Thomas Cogdell

Thomas and Amy Cogdell live in central Texas. They have five children and five grandchildren (so far). Amy is Catholic, and Thomas is Protestant. Together, they founded Christ the Reconciler, a community of Jesus-followers striving to live out John 17. Thomas also co-founded Day & Night Waters, a social venture/public benefit company that serves as the economic engine of Christ the Reconciler. He also works in the private sector and serves on the boards of Christ the Reconciler, Day & Night Waters, Antioch Network, and Help for All Nations. 

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Unity through Repentance: The Journey to Wittenberg 2017

© 2022 by Thomas Cogdell. All rights reserved.

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Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."

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Published by William Carey Publishing

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William Carey Publishing is a ministry of Frontier Ventures

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Cover and Interior Designer: Mike Riester

Front cover door image: Jason Peters, Pearpod Design

Photography / Artwork: Thomas Cogdell, Andrew Zimmerman, Christina Cogdell, Dan and Joann Davis, David and Kathi Peters, Franz Rathmair, Jo Hoffman, Julia Stone, Noah Cogdell, Ryan and Noleen Thurman, Verena Lang, James B. Janknegt, Rebekah/Sarah Brydon

ISBNs: 978-1-64508-311-5 (paperback), 978-1-64508-313-9 (epub)

Digital Ebook Release 2022

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022937742

Dedicated to

George and Hanna Miley

and

Hans-Peter and Verena Lang

Contents

Cast of Characters

Foreword by Father Peter Hocken

Preface

Part I: Background and Vision, 1980s–2000

Chapter 1 Hope Chapel

Chapter 2 Born Again, Again

Chapter 3 Power Plant of Prayer

Chapter 4 God’s Landmine by Amy Cogdell

Chapter 5 Switzerland

Chapter 6 The Guts to Go Through with It

Part II: Testing, 2001–2010

Chapter 7 Waiting

Chapter 8 Compulsions

Chapter 9 Let Me Do It

Chapter 10 Herrnhut

Chapter 11 God Does It

Chapter 12 Seven Years from Today Midword by John Dawson

Part III: A Journey into Repentance, 2010–2015

Chapter 13 Where Are the Jews?

Chapter 14 Antakya and Berlin

Chapter 15 Ottmaring, 2012

Chapter 16 Volkenroda, 2013

Chapter 17 Trento, 2014

Chapter 18 Rome, 2015

Part IV: The 500th Anniversary, 2016–2017

Chapter 19 500 Days Before, 2016

Chapter 20 Death of a Father

Chapter 21 Death of a Mother

Chapter 22 Searching for Anabaptists

Chapter 23 A Prayer Meeting Occasionally Interrupted by Teachings

Chapter 24 The Joy of Repentance

Part V: Sabbath and New Life

Chapter 25 The Beauty of Completability

Chapter 26 Unless a Seed Falls into the Ground

Afterword by Hanna Zack Miley

Appendices

Appendix 1: The Wittenberg 2017 Principles

Appendix 2: Historical Conclusions about the Reformation

Appendix 3: Biographical Sketches by Amy Cogdell

Appendix 4: Wittenberg 2017 as One Pattern for Leadership of a Reconciliation Initiative

Appendix 5: Identificational Repentance 190

Appendix 6: A Lutheran Pastor Reflects on Rome by Hans Scholz

Appendix 7: Judensau Lament by Richard Harvey

Acknowledgments

Cast of Characters

Many folks contributed in a significant way to Wittenberg 2017! To make it easier for you to keep track of them, I created this list of every person who appears in multiple chapters of the book, with their place of residence. ¹

1 Of course, there are many others who appear in only one chapter, and so many more who regrettably couldn’t be included by name in this book because of the need to keep it reasonably short. But don’t be disappointed if you don’t find your name here—you are not forgotten!

Foreword

By Father Peter Hocken † 2017

Father Peter Hocken was an English Catholic priest who was at home equally in Mass at the Vatican, a wild Pentecostal service in a warehouse in Los Angeles, or a Messianic Jewish synagogue in Jerusalem. His sharp memory and deep scholarship have contributed immensely to the cause of reconciliation and unity in the body of Christ. He died on June 10, 2017, before the final gathering of Wittenberg 2017 and of course before I began work on this book. Although my desire to have him write the foreword was an impossibility, Father Peter did speak about Wittenberg 2017 in our gathering in 2016. So I took the liberty of asking Mysterium Christi, the Austrian ministry to whom he left stewardship of his legacy, if I could adopt his words into a foreword for this book. They graciously gave me permission to do so, for which I am grateful.

—THOMAS COGDELL

Wittenberg 2017, as an initiative of the Holy Spirit, will be distinguished from all the other events taking place in Wittenberg next year. I think we need to make sure that this initiative is moving forward in the Holy Spirit, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and by the leading of the Holy Spirit.

This is what is special about Wittenberg 2017. I think this puts a particular responsibility on us.

See, I think the whole charismatic movement and Holy Spirit renewal has been hugely important in God’s purposes. We often draw back from making big claims. On the one hand, that’s good, because big claims can just come out of arrogance—thinking how important we are. On the other hand, when we look at what’s happened in the world of Christianity in the last one hundred years, we have to see that there is a huge importance in the whole Pentecostal and charismatic movements. And we mustn’t sell God short just because of criticism from other people who don’t like it.

I think what has happened through this Pentecostal and charismatic working of the Spirit is that we are enabled to recognize fellow believers as equally gifted—people from all kinds of other churches and confessions and streams. It enables us to worship together, to hear the Lord together, to respond to the Lord together, to serve together in a way that was not possible before.

See, as a charismatic initiative, we can follow God’s order—the order of the Holy Spirit.

See, as a charismatic initiative, we can follow God’s order—the order of the Holy Spirit. I think God’s order normally starts with the charismatic, the creative work of the Spirit. Everything has to start with the creative work of the Spirit. It says in Genesis 1:1–2,

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

It’s like there’s an initial chaos and the Spirit hovers over this. This hovering image can be likened to a bird, like a mother with her chicks. I think that this comes first.

And then order begins to form, and things come into harmony, and an element of structure is created.

And so the creative act—and I link this to the charismatic—comes first. And the ordering comes second, and structure.

For example, in the Catholic Church … often the impression is given that the structure comes first and then you find a place for the charismatic. Father Raniero Cantalamessa was the first person I heard say that the charismatic comes first and then the Spirit does the ordering afterward.² He made the point that the charismatic comes first, the Spirit comes first, the creator Spirit, and then the ordering and structuring is also work of the Spirit.

This helps us not to be drawn into the mistake of opposing structure and spirit.

If you look in the history of Israel, you see this—the call of Abraham, and then reflection and understanding develops later.

You see it very clearly in the New Testament. First the event—the event of the incarnation, the event of Jesus calling the twelve, the event of his death, the event of his resurrection, the event of Pentecost. The events come. Then you get the formulation of a message or an understanding of the event— like in 1 Corinthians 15 at the beginning, or in Romans 4:25. So I think theology, the formulation of doctrine, comes later. There’s a process here.

First, the work of the Spirit enables us to know our unity, and then we have to start to think through what this means in terms of our received teachings.

I am really displeased with people who have no time for the ecumenical movement of the twentieth century. This has been really key, even though it suffers from a number of faults. For example, the Gemeinsame Erklärung, or Joint Declaration on Justification by Faith, was the fruit of years of work within the Faith and Order part of the ecumenical movement. This aspect of the ecumenical movement seems to have begun with theologians going back and studying what happened—looking at the development of Lutheran teaching and Catholic teaching (often in response to each other), looking for convergence or clarity and so on. But this is starting at the other end from how things began. First, the work of the Spirit enables us to know our unity, and then we have to start to think through what this means in terms of our received teachings.

This is why this initiative for next year is so important—because it’s beginning in God’s order: the event comes first, which is outpouring of the Spirit.

But this then has to lead to reflection and teaching.

It doesn’t mean there’s no theological work [for us] to do—that would be naive. But it does show the unique opportunity this kind of initiative has to achieve—before next year, and afterward as well.

You see, any Christian activity without the Holy Spirit—or trying to be faithful Christians without understanding the role of the Spirit, the creative role of the Spirit—leads to a church focused on the past: Maintaining our tradition, maintaining the purity of our teaching, and so on. It has little vision. Now it is true that God tells the Israelites to remember everything.

We have to remember the events, the founding events. We also have to remember the promises, which lead us into God’s future. Holy Spirit renewal will always produce all of these elements:

No leaving behind of the past,

no disrespect for the past,

but oriented toward future and fulfillment.

This is what the encounter with Israel helps to correct for us, because we have been accustomed to the Jews as a people to whom the promises were given (as Paul says in Romans 9). So that when we meet Messianic Jews, they bring right up the promises given to Israel, and the fulfillment of these promises becomes central. Whereas for a lot of Christians, the promises are more like an appendix on the end, that you occasionally look at. This is just inadequate.

So through the Holy Spirit’s work in us, especially for repentance, we can celebrate the 500th anniversary in unity. I think this is maybe where the breakthrough is located, that we will be able to celebrate it in real unity of spirit in the bond of peace—thanking the Lord in unity, grieving before the Lord in unity, with a shared vision and a common hope. It doesn’t mean that differences between Catholics and Lutherans don’t mean anything anymore. There is unfinished business, but the Holy Spirit enables us to be one in these things so that we can worship together, proclaim together, and serve together. I think what the Holy Spirit does … the Holy Spirit doesn’t really remove our identities or our confessional identity—it purifies them and it uplifts the basic identity being Christian. Then our confessional church identities are rightly situated within the deepest identity of being Christian and—related to being Christian—being a human being.

So through the Holy Spirit’s work in us, especially for repentance, we can celebrate the 500th anniversary in unity.

We all recognize we need more healing in these identities. But you know, when we gather together here next year in this initiative, we will not be thinking something like Oh, we’re a Catholic delegation taking part in this Lutheran celebration—not that we’re condemning the others who are coming together in this way. And we won’t be thinking, I’m a Catholic and I’m different from them, but we’re still able to pray together or anything like that. We will be united as Christians and as believers in Yeshua. We will be united in these things. That means we will not be above all conscious of the things that have divided, or of our confessional identity—though we’re not denying these, and we’re not saying they don’t matter anymore, because there are further riches the Lord wants to bring together. It’s the Holy Spirit that has been poured out in this movement that makes this possible, and we need to fully enter into that and realize what an amazing thing this is.

So as I was led during these days more and more to the role of the Holy Spirit, I think this is where it ends up:

This initiative has to be totally prepared in the Holy Spirit.

And this must be without any boasting, without us making any claims at all or thinking we’re especially important. There has to be a radical humility in this—because the movements of the Spirit, well … we have a lot of our own scandals. So it has to be very humble.

But I think we have to take hold of what the Holy Spirit is making possible, through this outpouring in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Thank you very much.

2 Father Peter notes that he heard this from Cantalamessa in 1991, at a conference of charismatic Christians in Brighton, England (Father Peter’s hometown).

Preface

Wittenberg 2017 is a story of a person. A simple parable may help explain this.

Imagine a father with a child—a daughter. He is the rare combination of wealthy and good-hearted. The girl is four or five years old, which is old enough to know what she wants. What she wants is a Playmobil dollhouse for her birthday. Daddy, I want a Playmobil dollhouse for my birthday. Please …?

What is the response of the father?

Next imagine them some years later. The daughter approaches her father with a more sophisticated request. Dad, I’ve been noticing a boy in my class at school, who seems lonely. Nobody talks to him. I found out his birthday is just a few days from mine. Can we have a joint birthday party, so that he will have lots of friends and presents? Please …?

What is the response of the father?

Once again, let your imagination leap forward a few years. The girl has become a young woman, and her father is beginning to gray. She approaches him with a new request. Father, I’ve been reading back through your old journals—sorry about that, but you do just leave them laying around. I read where you wrote, that you had always dreamed of visiting the Grand Canyon, but never found the time to go. And, well, my 18th birthday is coming up, and you had asked me what special party I might want, and, well, I wondered, could you and I maybe go to the Grand Canyon together? Please …?

What is the response of the father?

We must use our imagination one last time, though the scene is more difficult. The daughter, a mature woman now, has contracted a fatal illness, and only has a few months to live. She comes to her father, who is consumed by the cruel prospect of burying his own child. I have only one request left, she says: ________________________________? Please …?

Does it matter what she asks for? Whatever it is, you know the father’s response. That man will move heaven and earth to grant his beloved child’s final request.

The New Testament reveals to us that God, the singular Creator of the universe, is somehow also three distinct Persons. God is the Father; God is Jesus, the Father’s only begotten Son; God is the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father at the Son’s request. God has always had relationship within himself, unity within the Trinity.

We also learn from these writings that our earthly relationships at their best provide a faint and blurry picture of the glory of the relationships within the Trinity. Jesus teaches us, So then if earthly fathers—who have evil in their hearts—give good gifts to their children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11:13)

And we learn in the Gospel of John that Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, actually made a last request of his Father in heaven!

On the night that he faced arrest and imminent crucifixion, Jesus prayed for his disciples. I pray for them. (John 17:9) They didn’t know that they needed prayer. Jesus knew that they needed prayer.

And then Jesus turns his attention to us. I pray not for my disciples alone. I pray also for whoever will believe in me through their message … (John 17:20). Do we know that we need prayer? Perhaps not … but Jesus knew. He still knows, and he always lives to intercede … (Heb 7:25).

What did Jesus pray for us?

He could have prayed for anything.

He could have prayed for his followers through the ages to be strong in faith … or to diligently obey his commandments … or to always serve the poor … or to maintain