Churches across the globe, Protestant but also Roman Catholic, will mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation later this month. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk and theology professor, nailed 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. The church door served as the community bulletin board and Luther’s Theses – or propositions- were in the form of an invitation to debate. There has always been some uncertainty about whether Luther actually nailed the document to the church door. What is not uncertain is the effect they had. The 95 Theses had to do with traditional church doctrine and practice that, in Luther’s mind, needed to be reexamined and reformed. The result was the Reformation, in Marilynne Robinson’s words, “a movement that touched or transformed thought and culture across the breadth of empire.” (The Givenness of Things, p.17). Before it was over…